Revision as of 11:16, 17 June 2026

Reach For The Dead
Label(s)	Warp
Catalogue No(s)	WARPDD257A
Release date(s)	23 May 2026
Format(s)	Digital
Running time(s)	4:47

Comments

• donacidae: "I've transcribed "Reach For The Dead" so you can all enjoy playing on the piano / guitar / whatever. http://bit.ly/12zkS0g" ^[1]

• A recurring motif throughout the song shares melodic similarities with the theme in the movie Zombie, albeit much slower. This may be intentional, as the score for the film was done by Fabio Frizzi and the band has specifically cited his work among others as influences towards the sound and production of Tomorrow's Harvest.

• At the end of the official music video, the Sun is seen splitting into three distinct Suns, creating a 'trinity' of Suns.
  • Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project in the New Mexico desert. In the video, we see sweeping images of desert landscapes and abandoned, dilapidated residential structures with the implied meaning of a post-nuclear landscape. Overall, this fits with themes of technological sophistication, apocalypse, and self-destruction revisited on the album.
  • Trinity may also refer to the Christian concept of God as three entities: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Indeed, prayer or ritual is a way in which the living practice communication with the dead, implying they are reaching for the dead. In Christianity, prayer is often started with performing the Sign of the Cross on oneself and conjuring God as the Holy Trinity; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In some Indigenous North American cultures, deceased ancestors are viewed as venerated peoples, sometimes Gods, or in communication with God. This implies ancestor worship, which ties into the themes and aesthetics of the album, with tracks such as "Uritual" (ur-ritual, or "primitive ritual"), "New Seeds" (planted by ancestors, or the work of previous generations), and "Semena Mertvykh" (seeds of the dead).
  • The process of the Sun itself is a massive fusion reaction, which can be viewed as a reversal of a fission reaction, typical of nuclear bombs. The idea of reversal is a theme Boards of Canada has explored across its discography.
  • Initially, the Sun only splits into two Suns, perhaps again referring to the Twins, Gemini, or Boards of Canada themselves. The third Sun fades in soon after between the two, which may be symbolic of the creation of new matter via fusion reactions, a typical process of a sun. If taken to represent humans in general, the appearance of the third Sun may symbolically represent a barrier between the two 'Suns' or humans, of their impending calamity if they do not work together for fruitful accomplishments.
• Narratively, this track presents a nuclear apocalypse, followed from "Gemini" (which heralded the apocalypse), and followed by "White Cyclosa" which implies a nuclear winter.

Samples / Lyrics

• At 03:23, a male voice says "Listen" or possibly "Risen."
  • If the sample is "Risen", that would play into the Christianity motifs in the music video, especially around the Holy Trinity, where Jesus, as God on Earth, rose from the dead. Indeed, the whole album thematically deals with cycles. This may be of civilization, each rising from the dead of previous civilizations. For example, the final two tracks on the album imply this, "Come To Dust" immediately followed by "Semena Mertvykh" (seeds of the dead). Or, it may be implying that each new civilisation, although bringing new hope, continues to make the same mistakes as previous ones, thus they are merely resurrections of prior civilisations that have failed. That we are cyclically doomed to repeat our failures.

Trivia

• "Reach For The Dead" was released as a single in anticipation of the Tomorrow's Harvest release. It was given in advance as an MP3 download to those who pre-ordered Tomorrow's Harvest. ^[2] It was also part of the viral marketing campaign. The "Reach For The Dead" video was originally aired in Tokyo, and the following day, the full song was played on BBC Radio 1 followed by its reveal on the official Boards of Canada website.
• Unseen footage was shown @ A Warp Happening (2025-06-14).^[3]

Videos

Audio

Artwork

External links

• http://warp.net/records/boards-of-canada/reach-for-the-dead
• https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151463231493927&set=a.10151463231488927.1073741825.6168813926&type=1

References

1. ↑ http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10648
2. ↑ https://bleep.com/release/43515-boards-of-canada-tomorrows-harvest#description
3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuB4O_yfp68