Board Scores

Beyond the city limits of Edinburgh, Scotland, there is a beautiful place out in the country known as the Pentland Hills. These mystical rolling hillocks are home to the biotechnology firm that cloned Dolly, the Rosslyn Chapel speculated to contain scriptures complementing the Dead Sea Scrolls and the recording studio and living space for the reclusive Boards of Canada.

Amidst waves of green and floating clouds, this electronic duo of Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin create music that lives and breathes with them in their refurbished nuclear bunker.

With their long-awaited sophomore effort, Geogaddi, Boards of Canada manage to capture fleeting glimpses of wonder that are inextricably bound to the geometric simplicity of nature. Indeed, their musical fractals can often crystalize distant childhood emotional states that were lost in the ebb and flow of time. Each individual track establishes some tantalizing concept that slips away just as quickly as it entered the mix.

The achingly gorgeous melodic notes and tense chord structures of "Sunshine Recorder" recall French impressionist composers like Satie, and warm globular synth tones saturate the conscious mind. "You Could Feel the Sky" illustrates an unparalleled mastery of polyrhythmic beat production that allows them to coordinate sonic aberrations into cohesive patterns that delicately frame each track. After a listen or two, it's nearly impossible to overlook the percolating subliminal messages that can only enhance the lucid imagery elicited by this album. So don't be afraid to embrace Boards of Canada and refuse to acknowledge the boundaries of time and linearity.