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Difference between revisions of "The Campfire Headphase"
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{{Infobox Release|
 
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| name=The Campfire Headphase
 
| name=The Campfire Headphase
 
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| release_date=13 October 2005 (Japan)<br>17 October 2005 (Europe)
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| release_date=12th October 2005 (Japan)<br>17th October 2005 (Europe)<br>18th October 2005 (USA)<ref> https://web.archive.org/web/20050717021647/http://www.music70.com:80/boc_discog.html </ref>
 
| format=gatefold 2xlp<br>cd (jewel case)<br>cd (digipak)
 
| format=gatefold 2xlp<br>cd (jewel case)<br>cd (digipak)
 
| label=warp
 
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[[The Campfire Headphase]] is the third studio album by [[Boards of Canada]], which was released in October of 2005 via [[Warp Records]]. The album marked a departure from [[Geogaddi]]'s dark, claustrophobic atmosphere to a lighter, more organic tone, with guitars taking a much more prominent role than in the band's previous works.
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In 2005, Boards of Canada released their third studio album, titled'''The Campfire Headphase'''. Perhaps the most acoustic of their publicly available output, The Campfire Headphase represents a significant departure both in mood and timbre from its predecessor, Geogaddi. "We decided to make an escapist soundtrack," Michael Sandison said in a 2005 Playlouder interview, "like a kind of sanctuary; a day-glo vista you can visit by putting the record on." 
 
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In place of the dense and highly electronic nature of Geogaddi, The Campfire Headphase favors a more stripped-down, acoustic approach, with a significantly reduced use of synthesizers. As Marcus pointed out to Playlouder magazine: "There's less use of synths on this record. We've leaned heavily towards a whole 'played, taped and sampled' backdrop this time. I guess sampling for us is different from a lot of other bands, because we routinely sample ourselves rather than other records, so most of the sound generation is coming from real instruments that we played ourselves, mostly recorded with microphones, and a lot of location recording. What you hear on the record is kind of a wall of sound created by sampling as many gnarled acoustic sources [as] we could find."
 
  
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The most obvious of these acoustic sources is the frequent (and recognizable) use of guitar on TCHP. "With the new album," Marcus explains,"we deliberately went for a lo-fi guitar sound on a few of the tracks because we were going for a sun-bleached, Californian summer kind of sound, it's almost reminiscent of a Joni Mitchell sound in places."
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== Recording ==
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Work on [[Boards of Canada]]'s third album began in 2002, with [[Mike]] and [[Marcus]] creating demos for tracks such as "[['84 Pontiac Dream]]" in early 2003.<ref> https://bocpages.org/wiki/Emotional_Abuse </ref><ref> https://bocpages.org/wiki/Music_of_Struggle </ref>. The band intentionally took a more relaxed approach to recording their third album compared to their previous album ''[[Geogaddi]]'', aiming to "switch everything off at six o'clock", as opposed to the "hellish" approach of working "until 4am every day" like they did on ''[[Geogaddi]]''.<ref> https://bocpages.org/wiki/Two_for_the_No-Show </ref> Over the course of approximately a year the band continued to work on new music, and in February 2004 they had a completed album. Following this album's completion, [[Boards of Canada]] undertook a new project of moving their studio.<ref> https://bocpages.org/wiki/La_Part_du_Feu </ref>
  
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Indeed, the brothers have admitted several times in interviews that the North American landscape (and its music) heavily influenced the direction of The Campfire Headphase. "This time we set out to make something simple that had shades of a road movie soundtrack, like the musical score to a surreal journey across a late 70's North American desert highway," Michael Sandison explains, also characterizing the record as something "like a futuristic western or something...but [always with] something subtle and surreal going on in the tracks to remind you that you're hearing something that has been tainted or spiked in some way by unfathomable futuristic technology. It's maybe like campfire music played by android cowboys."
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By the time the studio move was complete, [[Boards of Canada]] had become dissatisfied with the album they had recorded, and decided to scrap it and start over with a new approach. This new approach was to create an album with a "simpler, more positive" tone and prominent guitars, described by the band as "like the acoustic counterpart of ''[[Music Has The Right To Children]]''". The band continued to work on this new album until mid-2005, with the last track to be started being "[[Slow This Bird Down]]", which originated in June of 2005<ref> https://bocpages.org/wiki/Music_of_Struggle </ref>. [[The Campfire Headphase]] was completed around July of 2005.  
  
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But whatever the synthetic undercurrent, The Campfire Headphase is noticeably lacking in one of Boards of Canada's signature sounds: children's voices. "That was a deliberate thing," Marcus explained to Earplug magazine. "We got fed up with people saying that we're a formulaic band that you could kind of describe in a couple of sentences...I think it can become really dangerous for a band if you don't have a certain level of self-consciousness about these things. You always have to stay a few steps in front of your audience. We always have people putting fakes on the Internet before a new record is released, and the fakes are always really electronic with little kids' voices and things like that. Probably next time around all the fakes will include wobbly guitars like the ones we use on the new album [The Campfire Headphase] (laughs)."
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== Release and Reception ==
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The first official word on [[Boards of Canada]]'s third album appeared in [[Warp Records]]' newsletter for July 2005, revealing that the album was finished and mastered, and would be released in October.<ref> https://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=90&p=724#p724 </ref> Around the same time, [[music70.com]] revealed the album's title to be [[The Campfire Headphase]], and also revealed the exact release dates for the album.<ref> https://web.archive.org/web/20050717021647/http://www.music70.com:80/boc_discog.html </ref>
  
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This sort of self-conscious reaction, however, may account in part for why opinion on this record has been so divided. When asked by Pitchfork about whether or not the brothers feared being pigeonholed, Michael responded that "[t]he new record is probably the slowest record that we've done. And it's got guitars on it as well. This is something that we've done slightly deliberately. We knew that we had to break away from this thing [being pigeonholed]. It bothered us that if you go into the big stores our stuff is always sitting in the dance music section. We never made a dance record in our entire career but our stuff still gets thrown in there. Our drive with this record is to try and get us out of the dance section and into the main section with all the others bands, like ABBA and A-Ha. We're just a band. Not an IDM band, not an electronic band, and not a dance band."
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The first interview by the band to promote [[The Campfire Headphase]], "[[The Downtempo Duo]]" by [[Wikipedia:Pitchfork_(website)|Pitchfork]], was published on September 26th, 2005. It was in this interview that [[Mike]] and [[Marcus]] first revealed themselves to be brothers. More interviews with various publications followed in October, and interviews with the band regarding [[The Campfire Headphase]] continued to be published until early-2006.
  
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This conscious break with the conventions of the so-called IDM/Dance aesthetic (which so informed their previous work) have lead many to describe the record as boring or watered down. Pitchfork's Mark Richardson complained that "Campfire is a sluggish record, weary, pointed edges dulled as if by the march of time. Boards could previously be counted on to offer a display of crisp, forceful drum programming to jar you out of your narcotic haze ("Telephasic Workshop" and "Gyroscope"). The Campfire Headphase is all midrange, the mid-tempo shuffles putting the mind-boggling array of instrumental processing front and center."
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[[The Campfire Headphase]] was first released in Japan on October 12th, 2005, and was released in Europe and the US on the 17th and 18th of October, respectively. The album was generally received positively, but divided fans and critics, with some being disappointed with the change in direction away from the band's electronic sound to a more acoustic one.
  
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Yet for some, the very same departure yields the record its charm, even garnering some textural comparison to My Bloody Valentine's classic "Loveless." Differences of opinion aside, the record continues to be a favorite among many fans, and in any case, our best indicator yet of what is to come.
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== Themes ==
  
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== Tracklist ==
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==Tracks==
 
  
 
# "[[Into the Rainbow Vein]]" &ndash; 0:44 ([http://www.bleep.com/player/?/WARP123/33198/midi/D3F9D3/575757/00D126 Bleep preview])
 
# "[[Into the Rainbow Vein]]" &ndash; 0:44 ([http://www.bleep.com/player/?/WARP123/33198/midi/D3F9D3/575757/00D126 Bleep preview])
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# "[[Macquarie Ridge]]" &ndash; 4:57 (Japanese release only)
 
# "[[Macquarie Ridge]]" &ndash; 4:57 (Japanese release only)
  
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=== Analysis ===
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== Artwork ==
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[[Image:TCH yearbook comparison.jpg|thumb|right|''TCH'' inset image (top), IIT yearbook photo (bottom)]]
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:Album Cover
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The liner notes include a grid-like collage of apparently seventies-era photos, degraded in a manner similar to the cover. The source of a few of these images have been discovered:
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The bottom left corner of the front cover (and onto the spine of the digipak) has a smudge that strongly resembles the hexagonal Geogaddi cover.  The front and back covers are repeated in the smaller pictures inside the digipak. The smaller pictures are less distorted than the covers.
 
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:Into the Rainbow Vein
 
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This intro sets the mood of the album just like "Wildlife Analysis" set the mood for [[Music Has the Right to Children]] and "Ready Let's Go" for [[Geogaddi]]. The song plays itself to be a happier than ''Geogaddi's''. "Rainbow Vein" is a band of quartz carbonate from which gold is mined, located in the Bad Vermilion Lake Area, 250 km west of Thunder Bay, Ontario. It was discovered and named by Stellar Gold Mines Co. Ltd in 1934. [http://www.kingsbaygold.com/stellar.html Link] to more information.
 
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:Chromakey Dreamcoat
 
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There are unidentified "samples" of computer game like noises near the end of the this track. There are also voices in the coda of this track. Between 5:16 and 5:35 is a recording of a woman talking and laughing.  She laughs (5:20), says what sounds like "You know, this won't last..." (5:22-5:24), "I didn't like ... that before (?) ... times(?)" (5:28-5:30), laughs (5:32).  It sounds like a sentence of some sort but a lot of words drop out.  "Chromakey" (or colorkey) is a technique used in video production to swap in a separate signal source over a particular chrominance range across the source video, e.g. in bluescreen cinema effects. There appears to be a sample of a seagulls call at around 2:40 and again at 3:10. However these sound different from those sampled on "Happy Cycling".
 
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The title Chromakey Dreamcoat could also be a pun on a musical by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber called "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat".
 
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:Satellite Anthem Icarus
 
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Icarus is a character in Greek mythology who loses his wings when he flies too close to the sun. Icarus and his father were imprisoned on an island and determined to escape by constructing themselves wings and flying from captivity. During their escape, Icarus deviated from the careful lead of his father, flying too high, where the sun melted the wax holding his wing’s feathers together. As a result, Icarus fell from the sky and drowned in the ocean below.  Icarus is also quite literally a celestial body orbiting the sun, and could even be considered a satellite, depending on the definition.
 
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:Peacock Tail
 
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Clear voices. Apart from being the most colourful feature of the peacock, it was also a figure used by Euclid to prove the Pythagorean theorem. [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PeacocksTail.html Link]
 
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:Dayvan Cowboy
 
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:A Moment of Clarity
 
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This track is very similar to the mislabeled third track on the ''[[Live @ Warp10]]'' collection albeit without the flutes.
 
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:'84 Pontiac Dream
 
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Part of the melody in a recurring section of the track is built from what sounds like a 1980's corporate [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingle jingle] (e.g. at 0:27-0:30 on the right channel). This helps the listener remember (if they lived through it) the time period when corporations and organizations were using a certain type of synthetic sound for their catchy jingle melodies to seem "futuristic" and "forward-thinking" while their logo was displayed on the TV. For many this sound should create a nostalgic feeling. Contemporarily we still come across these audio-visual artifacts on certain old VHS tapes, which are usually pretty worn out and imperfect, further enhancing the nostalgia when we re-experience them. BoC, using a jingle in a track with such a title, might be illustrating how certain sensory perceptions experienced repetitively in waking life (as these jingles were in 1984) can become part of the texture in a dream and furthermore that the worn quality of the recording reflects the imperfect quality of memory.
 
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:Sherbet Head
 
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Throughout the track is a recording of some human voices that are garbled and buried and are, therefore, hard to comprehend. The recording seems to be slightly detuned, probably by one or two semi-tones.  The voices are clearest at the beginning, before the bass kicks in.  Noticeable in this section is a man saying a word or two (0:00-0:04), a phrase said by a woman (0:10-0:12) and a phrase said twice by a third voice (0:20-0:24).  It sounds like the microphone is being banged against objects as if somebody is walking around somewhere with a hand-held tape recorder.  Also audible is the sound of a child screaming (0:57).  Similar sounds continue on for the rest of the track's duration.  Perhaps it is a field recording of some public space. 
 
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:Oscar See through Red Eye
 
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:Ataronchronon
 
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The ending sounds a bit like 'Gann', the short track off Boards of Canada's [http://www.boardsofcanada.com website].  The Ataronchronon or "People of the Marshes" were a tribal people living in seventeenth century Ontario.
 
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:Hey Saturday Sun
 
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:Constants Are Changing
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* A photo of a curly-haired man sitting at an [[wikipedia:Commodore International|Commodore]] CBM 2001 computer was taken from a 1979 yearbook photo from the [[wikipedia:Illinois Institute of Technology|Illinois Institute of Technology]]. [http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=8386] [http://web.archive.org/web/20070228221147/http://www.iit.edu/alumni/updates/yearbook/1970s/images/campus%20and%20student%20in%20computer%20center%201979.jpg]
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* A photo of blonde-haired woman in profile was taken from a 1972 anti-drug propaganda film called ''[http://www.archive.org/details/social_seminar_tom Social Seminar: Tom]''.  A sample of dialogue from the film was also used towards the end of the album track "[[Chromakey Dreamcoat]]".
  
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== Comments and Trivia==
  
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:Slow This Bird Down
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*When asked if the record (and especially its artwork) was a throw back to Music Has the Right to Children, Marcus replied that "it's deliberately reminiscent of ‘Music Has the Right to Children'. Musically it's like an echo of that record, all bleached-out blue skies and so on. In some ways it sounds older than ‘Music Has the Right…' because of the choice of instruments and the sheer amount of damage we've done to the sound."
  
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Near the end of this song is an aural collage of shortwave radio noise. Morse, teletype, and various data signals can be heard including a radio modem (called the Harris RF-5710) used by hobbyists and naval military services.
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*The bottom left corner of the front cover (and onto the spine of the digipak) has a smudge that strongly resembles the hexagonal Geogaddi cover. The front and back covers are repeated in the smaller pictures inside the digipak. The smaller pictures are less distorted than the covers.
  
 +
*On the vinyl release, a bird's chirp can be heard in the runout grooves, typically sides C and D.
  
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:Tears from the Compound Eye
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*Playing the vinyl release at 45rpm evokes a completely different listening experience. 
  
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The compound eye is found on most insects and some crustaceans, which is composed of many light-sensitive elements, each having its own refractive system and each forming a portion of an image. Most compound eyes feature hexagonal lenses in an array forming the pattern.
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*When inverting the colors on the back cover art, the child's expression changes into a ghostly, almost horrified, stare.
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:Farewell Fire
 
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The melody continues very silently until the end.
 
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:Macquarie Ridge
 
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Macquarie Ridge is a song exclusive to the Japanese release of ''The Campfire Headphase''.
 
  
 
=== Reviews ===
 
=== Reviews ===
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* ''[http://www.warprecords.com/mart/music/release.php?cat=WARP123 The Campfire Headphase]'' at WarpMart
 
* ''[http://www.warprecords.com/mart/music/release.php?cat=WARP123 The Campfire Headphase]'' at WarpMart
 
* ''[http://bleep.com/?bleep=WARP123 The Campfire Headphase]'' at Bleep.com
 
* ''[http://bleep.com/?bleep=WARP123 The Campfire Headphase]'' at Bleep.com
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== Artwork ==
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<DynamicPageList>
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category = The Campfire Headphase artwork
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imagewidth=104
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</DynamicPageList>
  
 
[[Category: The Campfire Headphase]]
 
[[Category: The Campfire Headphase]]
 
{{Nav-Releases}}
 
{{Nav-Releases}}

Latest revision as of 20:12, 17 July 2025

The Campfire Headphase
The Campfire Headphase album cover.jpg
Label(s) warp
Catalogue No(s) warplp123
warpcd123
Release date(s) 12th October 2005 (Japan)
17th October 2005 (Europe)
18th October 2005 (USA)[1]
Format(s) gatefold 2xlp
cd (jewel case)
cd (digipak)
Running time(s) 62:05 (standard)
67:02 (japanese)


The Campfire Headphase is the third studio album by Boards of Canada, which was released in October of 2005 via Warp Records. The album marked a departure from Geogaddi's dark, claustrophobic atmosphere to a lighter, more organic tone, with guitars taking a much more prominent role than in the band's previous works.

Recording[edit]

Work on Boards of Canada's third album began in 2002, with Mike and Marcus creating demos for tracks such as "'84 Pontiac Dream" in early 2003.[2][3]. The band intentionally took a more relaxed approach to recording their third album compared to their previous album Geogaddi, aiming to "switch everything off at six o'clock", as opposed to the "hellish" approach of working "until 4am every day" like they did on Geogaddi.[4] Over the course of approximately a year the band continued to work on new music, and in February 2004 they had a completed album. Following this album's completion, Boards of Canada undertook a new project of moving their studio.[5]

By the time the studio move was complete, Boards of Canada had become dissatisfied with the album they had recorded, and decided to scrap it and start over with a new approach. This new approach was to create an album with a "simpler, more positive" tone and prominent guitars, described by the band as "like the acoustic counterpart of Music Has The Right To Children". The band continued to work on this new album until mid-2005, with the last track to be started being "Slow This Bird Down", which originated in June of 2005[6]. The Campfire Headphase was completed around July of 2005.

Release and Reception[edit]

The first official word on Boards of Canada's third album appeared in Warp Records' newsletter for July 2005, revealing that the album was finished and mastered, and would be released in October.[7] Around the same time, music70.com revealed the album's title to be The Campfire Headphase, and also revealed the exact release dates for the album.[8]

The first interview by the band to promote The Campfire Headphase, "The Downtempo Duo" by Pitchfork, was published on September 26th, 2005. It was in this interview that Mike and Marcus first revealed themselves to be brothers. More interviews with various publications followed in October, and interviews with the band regarding The Campfire Headphase continued to be published until early-2006.

The Campfire Headphase was first released in Japan on October 12th, 2005, and was released in Europe and the US on the 17th and 18th of October, respectively. The album was generally received positively, but divided fans and critics, with some being disappointed with the change in direction away from the band's electronic sound to a more acoustic one.

Themes[edit]

Tracklist[edit]

  1. "Into the Rainbow Vein" – 0:44 (Bleep preview)
  2. "Chromakey Dreamcoat" – 5:47
  3. "Satellite Anthem Icarus" – 6:04
  4. "Peacock Tail" – 5:24
  5. "Dayvan Cowboy" – 5:00
  6. "A Moment of Clarity" – 0:51
  7. "'84 Pontiac Dream" – 3:49
  8. "Sherbet Head" – 2:41
  9. "Oscar See through Red Eye" – 5:08
  10. "Ataronchronon" – 1:14
  11. "Hey Saturday Sun" – 4:56
  12. "Constants Are Changing" – 1:42
  13. "Slow This Bird Down" – 6:09
  14. "Tears from the Compound Eye" – 4:03
  15. "Farewell Fire" – 8:26
  16. "Macquarie Ridge" – 4:57 (Japanese release only)

Artwork[edit]

TCH inset image (top), IIT yearbook photo (bottom)

The liner notes include a grid-like collage of apparently seventies-era photos, degraded in a manner similar to the cover. The source of a few of these images have been discovered:

Comments and Trivia[edit]

  • When asked if the record (and especially its artwork) was a throw back to Music Has the Right to Children, Marcus replied that "it's deliberately reminiscent of ‘Music Has the Right to Children'. Musically it's like an echo of that record, all bleached-out blue skies and so on. In some ways it sounds older than ‘Music Has the Right…' because of the choice of instruments and the sheer amount of damage we've done to the sound."
  • The bottom left corner of the front cover (and onto the spine of the digipak) has a smudge that strongly resembles the hexagonal Geogaddi cover. The front and back covers are repeated in the smaller pictures inside the digipak. The smaller pictures are less distorted than the covers.
  • On the vinyl release, a bird's chirp can be heard in the runout grooves, typically sides C and D.
  • Playing the vinyl release at 45rpm evokes a completely different listening experience.
  • When inverting the colors on the back cover art, the child's expression changes into a ghostly, almost horrified, stare.

Reviews[edit]

External links[edit]

Artwork[edit]

Discography Overview | view • edit
Rare/Early releases Catalog 3 • Acid Memories • Closes Vol. 1 • Play by Numbers • Hooper Bay • Boc Maxima • Old Tunes Vol. 1 • Old Tunes Vol. 2 • Random 35 Tracks Tape • Geogaddi (test pressing)
General releases (albums) Music Has the Right to Children • Geogaddi • The Campfire Headphase • Tomorrow's Harvest
General releases (EPs/12"s) Twoism • Hi Scores • Aquarius • Peel Session • In a Beautiful Place out in the Country • Trans Canada Highway
Mixtapes Marcus Eoin's Campfire Mixtape • Societas x Tape
Live Sets Live @ Warp10 • Live @ Lighthouse • Live @ ATP • All Gigs
Promotional Releases Telephasic Workshop • MHTRTC (promo cassette) • Orange Romeda • Geogaddi (promo lp) • Geogaddi (promo cassette) • ------ / ------ / ------ / XXXXXX / ------ / ------ • Reach For The Dead (promo cd) • Come To Dust (promo cd)
Produced by BoC for Others Here Come The Rubber Cops • Orangutang
Bootleg Releases Unreleased Tracks
Other Kaleidoscope • Promotional Events • Promotional Items • T-Shirts • Web media
To Be Determined LP5 • BoCset


  1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20050717021647/http://www.music70.com:80/boc_discog.html
  2. ↑ https://bocpages.org/wiki/Emotional_Abuse
  3. ↑ https://bocpages.org/wiki/Music_of_Struggle
  4. ↑ https://bocpages.org/wiki/Two_for_the_No-Show
  5. ↑ https://bocpages.org/wiki/La_Part_du_Feu
  6. ↑ https://bocpages.org/wiki/Music_of_Struggle
  7. ↑ https://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=90&p=724#p724
  8. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20050717021647/http://www.music70.com:80/boc_discog.html
Retrieved from "https://bocpages.org/w/index.php?title=The_Campfire_Headphase&oldid=19315"