Product Description

The first American release by this Scottish duo has drawn rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. The music ranges from goofball, Perry-Kingsley style retro-techno to ambient (in fact, sometimes eerily reminiscent of Eno's "Ambient Music I") to just about anything else you can dream up for a couple of synthesizers and a drum machine. Boards Of Canada's music has drawn frequent comparisons to wildlife documentaries from the '70s, but you've got to wonder what kind of nature documentary would have distorted drum machines and weird voices darting in and out of the mix. Weird? How about downright goofy? Like the nitrous-oxide flashback of "The Colour Of Fire" where a distorted girl's voice keeps repeating "I...love...you" through the dizzy haze. Much of the disc has delightful vignettes interspersed between the longer tracks, and the longer tracks will reveal something different with each listen. Unabashedly lo-fi, this is the soundtrack to a drug experience for which no drug exists.

Track Listing

1. Wildlife Analysis
2. An Eagle In Your Mind
3. The Color of The Fire
4. Telephasic Workshop
5. Triangles & Rhombuses
6. Sixtyten
7. Turquoise Hexagon Sun
8. Kaini Industries
9. Bocuma
10. Roygbiv
11. Rue The Whirl
12. Aquarius
13. Olson
14. Pete Standing Alone
15. Smokes Quantity
16. Open The Light
17. One Very Important Thought
18. Happy Cycling (Bonus Track)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4243 in Music
• Released on: 2004-04-05
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Music Has The Right To Be Heard!
Having been a long time strict Rock/Indie fan I reluctantly borrowed this album from a friend who told me that I'd like it. He was wrong, I loved it. From beginning to end you feel like you are dreaming. There's so much character to this music because Boards of Canada really do pay attention to the very fine detail. Since I heard this album I have bought all the rest and upgraded my Hi-Fi so I can hear more of this infinite detail. It's such an organic warm sound for something created with such artificial methods.

Having searched long and hard for other electronica artists, many have imitated, but none have come close. The really do put so much into the music, and you get just as much out of listening to it, more and more each time.

Even though this album is brilliant the other albums they've done to date all have their own unique sounds, vibes and melodies, all of which are equally worthy of great heights.

A rare and hidden gem
I picked this up recently having heard the name through someone's Amazon list and being sufficiently curious to locate their Myspace. There I felt in love with 'Roygbiv' almost immediately, and just had to own it.

No surprise reading other reviews to see that it is many other people's favourite track as well, and I share the sentiments expressing how this remarkable track is somehow simultaneously euphoric and melancholy - and yes it can bring a tear to the eye.

My sole criticism of 'Roygbiv' - and the achingly beautiful 'Olsen' - is that they are too short! I could listen to 10 minutes versions of each, yet sadly they clock in at a combined length of under 3 minutes.

As you listen more, further delights reveal themselves, notably 'Telephasic Workshop', 'Sixtyten', 'Open the Light' and 'Aquarius' ("oooorrrrrange"), though in reality it is one of those albums that each time you listen to it, you will take something different from it so repeated spins bring a more than ample reward.

Excellent electronica from two of the masters in the genre...
Rating: 8/10

Best tracks: "Aquarius", "Roygbiv", "An Eagle in Your Mind", "Turquoise Hexagon Sun", "Smokes Quantity"

Eerie, strange, beguiling...Boards of Canada's debut album proper is a creepy, beautiful and inventive work of wonder which sounds perfect when played late at night, all alone... justly adored as one of the key players in all of electronic music, Boards of Canada have created a stunning run of dark, light, evocative, nostalgic and unusual pieces throughout their series of albums and EPs; despite garnering the most ecstatic praise of all of their works, Music Has the Right to Children may not be the most effective introduction to BoC's sound; maybe try erstwhile lost classic (but now easily available) Twoism or their astonishingly lovely In a Beautiful Place in the Country EP....maybe even the dark, frequently amazing second album Geogaddi (my first BoC experience) or the purely beauteous, relatively underrated wonder of The Campfire Headphase; this album is probably the slowest-burning of all their works. It takes its time to weave its magic, but the rewards are well worth the wait.

After a disconcertingly pleasant prologue, second song "An Eagle in Your Mind" is all itchy, uncomfortable percussion, withering, sinister atmospherics and a sense of something not quite right...like finding your home town desolated and empty, with only the chill air of the breeze to keep you company. "The Colour of the Fire" is very, very, very strange....a child saying "I love you" doesn't sound creepy, does it? Well, it sounds distinctly freaky here, with said vocal snippet stretched, echoed, warped and turned into something really eerie...Boards of Canada were masters at little interludes like this, short, minute or so long pieces interspersed between their longer, more spacious instrumentals...they're scattered all over their albums, and are just as impressive and lasting as the more obvious, epic highlights.

As someone who prefers the more synthesiser-driven BoC works over their percussive-led pieces, the out-of-step, jittery "Telephasic Workshop" initially grated on me somewhat, but like I said; this album's a grower, and this piece works very well in the context of its surrounding tracks; also, the backing synth-line throughout is really great. The two-part "Triangles and Rhombuses" provides a brief respite before the unsettling "Sixtyten", with its samples that sound like they're being quickly rewound and then let go again, and generally feels like a queasy trip into a place that's half-familiar, half spookily dreamlike. This album is less chill-out than it is creep-out; at times it's like the soundtrack to some long-lost zombie movie.

"Turquoise Hexagon Sun", a piece that's also featured on BoC's brilliant Hi-Scores mini-album, is one of the best things here, a strangely becalming and lullaby-esque piece with a chilly undertow to it. A trio of shorter pieces follow, each one better than the last; the futuristic, sci-fi tinged "Kaini Industries" leads into the radiant "Bocuma" which in turn leads into the absolutely fantastic "Roygbiv", one of the closest things to a catchy piece of...er, `pop' music BoC have ever created; to be honest, it's not going to trouble the charts at any time, but it's got a strolling, delightfully playful rhythm and feel that's quite addictive. It's got a vaguely trip-hop beat, an eccentric, beautiful piano refrain and cute samples that retain the unusualness of the preceding pieces yet none of its mildly disturbing undercurrent. It's a real gem.

"Rue the Whirl" moves from the hypnotic, repetitious beat of its two-thirds to a strange, dreamy finale; this piece is a good one, but wow....the next piece is astounding. "Aquarius" is definitely this album's zenith, and way, way up there with BoC's greatest works. The lushest, most delightfully spooky synthesiser imaginable swirls around a quietly funky beat and the silliest, most wonderfully right samples on the record ever; essentially, there's some kids giggling and saying `yeaaaaahh....that's right', as well as some self-satisfied bloke and a calm, almost robotic woman taking turns to say the word `orange"! This piece has got such a beautiful, wonderful to it, and then the second half takes off into somewhere else entirely! Such glorious music, such loveliness....there's moments where the sheer beauty of this piece take my breath away, and then that guy says `orange!' again and I start to laugh. Oh yeah, there's also the woman who starts counting upwards but loses it somewhere around the forty mark and then starts counting at random and then begins to make up numbers all of her own.

The following "Olson" is gorgeous too, a lovely little instrumental to calm the listener before "Pete Standing Alone" shuffles and worms its way into your head with its fuzzy beats and ambient feel. "Smokes Quantity" (also available on Twoism) has a hazy, lazy, loping feel; this is one of my favourites here, it's just so damn creepy, yet so damn gorgeous! "Open the Light" appropriately retreats from the darkness and into sweeter territory, and "One Very Important Thought" is an effective, thoughtful closer.

Overall, Music Has the Right to Children is my least favourite of the three BoC albums, but that's not to indict it - I just like Geogaddi and The Campfire Headphase even more - it's still a terrific work, with many glorious moments.

PS: Some editions of this album feature the astonishing "Happy Cycling" as a bonus track; however, as much as I love this piece, it doesn't really belong here as "One Very Important Thought" makes for a more appropriate closing piece.