The following translation was posted on WATMM by "nene":
1. Does all the pre-Twoism material really exist?
The official BoC discography doesnât begin with the âHi Scoresâ ep on Skam, but much earlier. The Music70 reference list includes an album before even âMusic Has the Right to Childrenâ - âBoC Maximaâ (96), limited to fifty copies on CD and even fewer on tape, the biggest part of the material was rerecorded and recycled subsequently for the debut on Warp - and a series of eps, of which no one had any notice and whose authenticity - the leaks on the web have always been incomplete, many tracks extracted and stolen from the curtains(?) of the duoâs official web - one could never fully guarantee. Has something titled âCloses Volume 1â ever existed? âThey exist,â assures Sandison. âIn their first incarnation they were cassette tapes, and we re-released some on CD, but the runs were very limited and they only circulated among friends. We make sure to give them to the right people, in whose hands they could be safe; we never gave anything to anyone we didnât know very well. If one of those records has leaked on the internet itâs because we placed too much confidence in someone or because maybe we distributed more cassettes than necessary, there are twenty or thirty copies of some records, but there might be up to a hundred of others.â âIn all these years,â continues Eoin, âonly âBoC Maximaâ and the compilation âOld Tunesâ have circulated widely on the internet. But it wouldnât surprise me if next year âAcid Memoriesâ starts to show up there. Anyway, that tapes of ours remain unreleased is a miracle; when we made them we never imagined that something called MP3 could be invented.â Now, a consolation for the fans: apart from an ep for 2006, Boards of Canadaâs most ambitious plan is to release a box with an ample selection of material from between 1987 and 1995. âMaybe weâll do it with Warp.â Please.
2. Why donât they play anything live?
From Boards of Canada only three concerts are remembered: one at Warpâs tenth anniversary party, another in Scotland at a natural place and a third at an old edition of the festival All Tomorrowâs parties and at the earlier request of the boys of Autechre. Since then, nothing. But that stage silence is going to change, at least next year. âWe want to play,â confirms Sandison, âbut we want them to be very special and very well chosen dates. We still donât know anything because weâre talking it over with Warp; they want us to play in North America and we prefer to do it in Europe, and we donât know what it will be in the end. But if we play in Europe, we would like it to be in special places, in natural surroundings or at lovely sites. Weâll do some festival the same way, but they have to be festivals that attract us for some special reason. We want it to be an analogue and elaborate live show, without computers or software in the way. We donât like laptop shows. Electronic music needs to take back a little of the physicality of back then, that touching of machines. We would love to go to Barcelona, why not.â Come on, then!
3. Do Boards of Canada include satanic messages in their tracks?
The facts: âGeogaddiâ lasts exactly 66 minutes and 6 seconds - the number of the beast-, and one of the tracks is named âDevilâs In the Details.â The track âAmo Bishop Rodenâ alludes to one of the victims of the Waco bloodbath, when the sect the Davidians led by David Koresh committed collective suicide before the forced entry of the FBI on the farm where they were concentrated; listening closely in some tracks voices appear that could be played backwards, or psicofonĂas(?) appear; âSixtyten,â on âMusic Has the Right to Children,â includes a series of numbers recited by a childâs voice that some fans, as if they were interpreting the guess(?), have suspected that they hide some secret meaning or message, as if they were the numbers of âLost Onesâ you know them, 4 8 15 16 23 42. âSometimes we do things on the records destined to provoke ideas or states of mind; others are tracks, tricks, or gratuitous elements that we put there so the people will ask themselves about them. Weâre not involved in any kind of cult or occult religion; itâs all esthetics and play,â explains Michael Sandison. âA childâs voice, or a dialogue out of context, can help give that dark touch that we search for, with a subliminal component: you hear something very lovely and later, underneath, youâre hearing something so dark that it gives you chills. But most of the time we do things as a joke,â according to Eoin. âIf Geogaddi lasts 66 minutes and 6 seconds itâs because we like to end the records with a long silence, and our sound technician saw it clearly and told us, âwhy donât you take this opportunity to stretch the record out to 66 minutes and 6 seconds?â and we said âwell sure.â Itâs not a satanic message: itâs a big joke.
4. Are their fans crazy?
Boards of Canada fans do things that, for example, a Sean and Cake or RocĂo Jurado fan would never do. Before the release of âThe Campfire Headphase,â up to three distinct versions were circulating on Soulseek, and the three were fakes, records by imitating fans who, taking advantage of the situation and the minimal information provided about the record -number of tracks, track names- put their music on the internet to impersonate the real Boards of Canada. âA friend of mine from New Zealand sent me a mail,â tells Marcus, âand he said to me âIâve heard your new record on the internet and itâs fantastic.â I didnât understand anything. It hadnât even been sent!â There are also fans who become critics, like the one in charge of the blog Angryrobot, who published a track-by-track commentary of the completely fabricated record that other fans responded to with their posts, uncovering the trick, including a Marcus Eoin impersonator who told Angryrobot face to face that his review was fake. âBut it wasnât me,â assures Marcus. âThey not only fake our records, but our identities!â Many Boards of Canada fans firmly believe that a maxi from 2002 titled âLavender Trapezoidsâ exists, but what circulates on Soulseek is, in fact, an ep by the English IDM producer CiM. And this way to infinity. But if anything shows that the biggest Boards fans are out of their minds itâs in the prices that they can bring themselves to pay for some of their records. Two months ago a test pressing on blue vinyl, and with only one side of four songs from âGeogaddi,â went to auction on eBay. One âamtiskawâ put it up for auction and one âlenapiemâ bought it for 215 pounds (some 315 euros). âWe know âamtiskaw,â heâs a former Warp employee who left the job and is now starting a business, he needs the money and thatâs why heâs selling all those rare records. But he isnât the problem,â says Michael Sandison between laughs. âThe problem is the madman who pays more than 200 pounds for a piece of blue plastic.â The kind who, a little while ago, and without blinking, spent 70 pounds on the first Jega maxi and 120 on the first from Bola, both released by Skam, the label on which Boards of Canada came to be known by being signed by Autechre. Yes, there are fans who are very sick or who have too much money. Or is it that Boards of Canada are so great that there is no choice but to go crazy over them?
We fans are the worst, but at the same time we have -they have, rather- elevated Boards of Canada to cult status thanks to a position of power that not many groups manage to guarantee their followers: powerlessness. Boards of Canada is one of those few names of which itâs impossible to have it all -not even on MP3, for whom they search for rarities on the bird or on the mule (haha, don't know this saying)-, and much less know it all. You canât because they donât let you. The mystery that theyâre still wrapped in, especially their past and their intentions, has given birth to a series of myths, speculations, and eccentric behaviors that Sandison and Eoin have accepted will clear up on their own. The moment has arrived. Ready?