Boards of Canada, the long-revered and eclectic duo known for pioneering their cryptic, resampling of nostalgic sounds, return after 13 years of silence. A long-awaited release met with intense anticipation from die-hard fans waiting in lines at listening parties in New York, Barcelona, along with heated discussions across reddit obsessives and BoC online forums. The two brothers have always worked through motifs of high-tech cultism and dark reinterpretations of the projected future, cleverly filtered through nostalgic, retrospective sounds, earning my respect and fandom.
My first engagement came through “Beware the Friendly Stranger,” off what is arguably one of the most indisputably greatest albums in their discography, Geogaddi. At six or seven years old, my softly pliant, impressionable mind made its first contact with the rusty lullaby that looped with dread and surreal humor. Of the many different projects and eras by the Scottish duo, even as far back as their own in-house label and art-film aura, Music70, there was always mystique, mystery, a sense of being away in a lonely place, somewhere beyond. But let’s not waste any more time reminiscing.
Introit/Prophecy At 1420 MHz, lead single of Inferno
Today, the focus is their latest release, Inferno—preceded by a slightly overcommitted, hex-coded marketing campaign of limited distributed VHS tapes containing teletext hidden messages and Russian shortwave recordings, which culminated in the singles “Tape 05,” followed by “Introit” and “Prophecy At 1420 MHz.” The campaign worked its fans into a frantic state of anticipation, while also overexposing the mystery. By the time the album arrived, it felt closer to a simulation of everything Boards of Canada, a considerably more performed lens.
A part of the appeal of listening to BoC is the psychedelic and unsettling atmosphere their tonal message weathers, the eerie cryptic messaging, numerologies, but at what point does its exacting specificity become too obvious, overperformed occultism, and disingenuous in gesture. Inferno has all the large themes they have become known for, but it resembles what a superfan would imagine Boards of Canada to sound like if they were trying to describe the band from memory with their occultist associations.
Instead of saying something new, parts of the album move back into soft-pan trip-hop and, at moments, easy-listening territory, a slightly grander but ultimately prescribed atmosphere. Some tracks land as more self-conscious or too on-the-nose. “Hydrogen Helium Lithium Leviathan” leans toward a synth-noir caricature of the band’s own aesthetic, while “The Word Becomes Flesh” feels too eager to signal its strangeness. Earlier works would often bury the vocal fragments inside synths and drones. The numerology felt more sinister there because it was submerged. On this record, the words and cues don’t have the signature uncanniness, announcing itself across the surface, easily discoverable. Like Boards of Canada making a Boards of Canada album, a pastiche of themselves.
I don’t mean to judge the album retroactively, against an earlier version of Boards of Canada that can no longer exist. Allowing the work to meet me in the present, their integrity is still alive, especially across the album’s back half. “Deep Time” hits more of a note. “All Reason Departs,” “Arena Americanada,” and “I Saw Through Platonia” feel rewarding, timeless. It is simply difficult to forgive some of the more overperformed elements.
The back half still carries the project. If the record were shorter, or more heavily weighted toward those later textures, the overall judgment would likely rise. As it stands, within a larger catalog full of high-level work, this one lands at a B+: respectable, occasionally transporting, but below the standard the duo established elsewhere.
CREDITS
Header: Boards of Canada, 1998 DeBug No 11
Written by: Nil Defaul-Tumore