Revision as of 09:42, 10 September 2008

From time to time, certain trusted representatives of Hexagon Sun post comments on various message boards. Since the band themselves remain fairly reclusive, these statements can provide intriguing insights into the workings of the band.

Aug 2001

• From: Warp message board
• From: Goderich
• Link: Copied in a post to IDM-l on 04 Sep 2001

... the entire BOC back-catalogue is included in the recording and publishing schedules with Warp Music/EMI, and therefore is copyright protected by those parties. According to the band, the older compilations being circulated at the moment are quite likely to be re-released in the near future complete with their original artwork. Keep your eyes peeled at www.boardsofcanada.com for more news about this.

Peace and all the best to you,
Goderich, Hexagon Sun, Aug 2001 ...

16 Apr 2004

#1

• Forum: WATMM
• From: cob
• Date: 16 Apr 2004
• Link: http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=3935 (defunct; no known copy)

Note: The topic was asking about what instruments/equipment used to produce their unique sound. At some point, cob made a comment. Shortly thereafter, possibly after libelous comments from other users, the thread was deleted. Some report that the original topic was strictly gear related and that the offensive comments were in another (also deleted) thread.

In the gear comment, it is suggested that the Yamaha CS80 was the bands "secret weapon", but that cob indicated it was not. It has also been suggested that user mosca posted specific information on equipment that the band had purchased from him (or his store), which led to the deletion.

Some comments from those who read the thread: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

• boards-of-canada Yahoo! group threads on the WATMM thread:
  • interesting suggestions on how BOC may produce their sound...
  • cob update

#2

• Forum: WATMM
• From: cob
• Date: 16 Apr 2004
• Link: http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=4143 (defunct; no known copy)

Note: Joyrex addresses the issue of the deleted thread (see previous entry) and publicly acknowledges cob as a representative of the band. cob chimes in with a comment himself, affirming Joyrex's statement. [6]

15 Feb 2005

• Forum: WATMM
• Topic: Old Tunes on Ebay!, $800 US and climbing!
• From: Hexagon Sun
• Date: Feb 15 2005, 11:16 AM EST
• Link: http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=15725 (defunct; archived copy)

OK The reason it was jumped on was this: Warp and BOC have been in talks for a long while about putting out a box set of old tracks from these tapes and others, with new packaging and art, to be released sometime after the forthcoming record. The tapes were private comps given out to close friends a few years ago, long before the band imagined there would be this kind of interest, and long before the likes of Soulseek etc existed.

The tracks are out there now, nothing can be done about that, they've been circulating for a while and fans have them, so the decision was taken to at least consider tidying them up and repackaging them with decent exclusive artwork & more rarities. BOC never wanted these tracks presented this way, mislabelled and as poor-quality MP3 files.

There's no 'hype', these comps were never listed on any old discogs as they were never intended for mass release in the first place.

Now the intention is still to get round to scheduling a release of these tunes and other rare comps, but unscrupulous people like 'prince murat' are obviously stealing the thunder of the proposed releases, whilst trying to make a tidy profit in the process (a starting price of $799 speaks volumes about 'prince murat's true intentions. who is trying to profit from hype here? if any money is going to be involved, surely the artist who wrote those tracks should be receiving the royalties, and not this person? there's no difference between this kind of profiteering and someone trying to sell a bootleg CDR of Beck's new album months prior to release.)

Anyway, now you know, we hope the intervention hasn't caused too much negative feeling, after all the concern that Warp and BOC have is that basically it's going to spoil the impact of a nice release that hopefully will be enjoyed by the fans.

-mark, hs

Note: Part of the infamous Old Tunes saga.

19 Apr 2006

• Forum: WATMM
• Topic: BoC Ringtones... On MTV!, Is this a sign of the end times?
• From: mdg
• Date: Apr 19 2006, 8:28 AM UTC
• Link: http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=7291&st=0&p=149383&#entry149383

BOC didn't produce ringtones for MTV's website. That would be ridiculous. When a band has a recording/publishing deal there are a lot of things done with their music that the band has no knowledge of, such as synchronisation on gardening programmes etc.

17 May 2006

• Forum: WATMM
• Topic: Devil is in the Details, what does all this mean
• From: mdg
• Date: May 17 2006, 8:45 AM UTC
• Link: http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=8500&st=0&p=171965&#entry171965

QUOTE(lumpenGriff @ May 16 2006, 11:09 PM)

I think that's a bit too cynical a take on things, and not the whole story. I think there's a strong libertarian streak running through all of BoC's work. But, unlike 60s hippies who naively felt that bucking authority and running free into the woods would lead to peace and love, BoC - with the hindsight of people who saw what the 70's wrought - realize that dark and dangerous things lurk in the woods. But you should go in anyway. I think BoC see themselves as guardians/proponents of the mysterious, which means everything shadowy and inchoate - the "pagan" world. A place where beauty and madness aren't that far from each other, and blissful communal living and brainwashed cultism are only a hair apart. I think at the time they made IABPOITC and Geogaddi they (or perhaps just Mike) were in a very dark spot, where they felt that a person like David Koresh, however delusional, was in fact an example of a truly "free thinker," and therefore worthy of some respect or re-evaluation. It's a radical and perhaps foolish stance, to say "however crazy he may have been, at least Koresh wasn't a conformist." In other words: madness may be preferable to conformity. But in todays world of government intruding ever more into our daily lives, this view makes as much sense as ever.

Basically I think their stance was anti-politically-correct. PCism says that it values multiple viewpoints, when in fact it is very narrow-minded. I think BoC were saying in their own way, that truly free thinking incorporates madness and mystery, where everything isn't spelled out in excruciatingly literal academic terms. I think they want to shake you up by confronting you with "cultlike" music. Whether they believe it or not is sort of beside the point; they are interested in your reaction. Most people probably don't get it or are afraid of it, instead of recognizing and appreciating the pull in the core of their being towards cultlike behavior (BoC worship being one example). BoC are not "safe." They are not just there to repackage nostalgic, sepia-toned images of your childhood. Or rather, they are there to preserve all of your childhood, including the parts you might rather forget: listening to adults argue; being betrayed by your first friend, blind puppy-love, humiliation. They want you to be both seduced and frightened by their music, and to recognize the fact that you are being seduced, and be frightened by your own reaction. They are masterful psychological manipulators; they make Aphex Twin's in-your-face antics seem childish by comparison.

IMO.

finally a good understanding of what BOC do.

1 Nov 2006

• Forum: WATMM
• Topic: BoC on Scottish TV this sunday, 'The Music Show'
• From: mdg
• Date: Nov 1 2006, 2:49 PM UTC
• Link: http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=14180&st=0&p=287408&#entry287408

It's not a performance. We don't know what it is.

Note: The 'appearance' turned out to be a showing of the "Dayvan Cowboy" video.

16 Apr 2007

• Forum: WATMM
• Topic: The Conet Project/Gyroscope
• From: mdg
• Date: Apr 16 2007, 10:16 AM
• Link: http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=19680&st=0&p=403123&#entry403123

the voice in 'gyroscope' comes from a genuine number station recording, but not from the conet project. the recording was made by sean booth on a shortwave radio and gifted to BOC for use in the track.

17 Apr 2007

• Forum: WATMM
• Topic: BoC Gear
• From: mdg
• Date: Apr 17 2007, 10:14 AM UTC
• Link: http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=16443&st=0&p=404071&#entry404071

QUOTE(ishishiba @ Apr 17 2007, 12:09 AM)

the site has changes since i saw their name listed. it used to have a massive list alphabetically of artists using reaktor, some had interviews, some didnt. BOC were listed, but minus an interview. nowadays only those artists with interviews seem to be listed.

software companies like NI often send freebie copies of their wares to artists, and then publish those artists' names on lists for promotional purposes.

Note: NI is Native Instruments, producers of the popular Reaktor music studio software package.

28 May 2007

• Forum: WATMM
• Topic: Macquarie Ridge
• From: mdg
• Date: May 28 2007, 11:19 AM UTC
• Link: http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=21223&st=0&p=444271&#entry444271

BOC didn't sample Basinski for that track at all. Also, 'Roygbiv' was written from scratch, as is nearly everything else BOC have released. The only samples used in Boards' tracks are typically speech/vocal samples. (The exceptions are 'Aquarius' and 'Nlogax', where the former was actually a re-creation on the groove from 'Hair'.)

Note: Some users had noted a similarity between "Macquarie Ridge" and William Basinski's Disintegration Tapes works.

19 Jul 2007

• Forum: boards-of-canada Yahoo! group
• Topic: New album?
• From: hex_official
• Date: Thu Jul 19, 2007 2:53:44 PM UTC
• Link: http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/boards-of-canada/message/7162

All the music Boards of Canada have ever written or recorded, from way back in the beginning, has been written by Mike and Marcus alone. Early works have not been released so far purely because they didn't want to, for artistic reasons.

23 Jul 2007

• Forum: boards-of-canada Yahoo! group
• Topic: New album?
• From: hex_official
• Date: Mon Jul 23, 2007 5:18:11 PM UTC
• Link: http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/boards-of-canada/message/7171

I can confirm that there is a new major release by the band coming up. The announcement will appear first on the official website nearer the time. Re: the previous question by Smoothlab, see my previous post, that is why the amendment was made!

Note: Smoothlab's question was regarding Chris Horne's credit on the original release of Twoism. hex_official's previous post is that of 19 Jul 2007, above.

25 Jun 2008

8:06 pm

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: mood: productive
• From: mdg
• Date: Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:06 pm
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=67197#67197

to clear this up: the myspace page was taken over by warp some time ago, and is now maintained by both warp staff and a couple of friends of the band, on a 'when time permits' basis. the 'you and i' player on the page is apparently only visible to US users, and was added by myspace themselves. they've been contacted a few times with requests to remove the 'you and i' thing but they've ignored the requests.

9:22 pm

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: mood: productive
• From: mdg
• Date: Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:22 pm
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=67204#67204

john fonda: "are they releasing something or not?"

Hi John, yes they definitely are.

28 Jun 2008

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: mood: productive
• From: mdg
• Date: Sat Jun 28, 2008 6:59 pm
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=67407#67407

There's a new Boards album coming, that's really all I'm allowed to post on here for now.

01 Jul 2008

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: Website stuff
• From: mdg
• Date: Tue Jul 01, 2008 10:13 pm
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=67603#67603

novayshun: "what about the other domain that they own signalquality.co.uk, what's that all about?"

Hi, that was an old Hexagon Sun-related page someone was using, but it's now gone. Best wishes, mark

18 Jul 2008

3:25 pm

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: BOC pictures on Ebay - WTF?
• From: mdg
• Date: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:25 pm
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=68549#68549

turquoise70: "Does it strike anyone else as kind of odd that BoC would exhibit a portrait shot at a photography exhibition? I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it feels like the last thing I'd want to submit for a photo exhibition would be a shot of myself."

The band didn't exhibit these prints. They were exhibited by the photographer as part of a show of his own work back in 2002.

7:59 pm

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: BOC pictures on Ebay - WTF?
• From: mdg
• Date: Fri Jul 18, 2008 7:59 pm
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=68566#68566

moebius: "Is that one of PIC's images?"

yes!

04 Aug 2008

10:22 am

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: I think this dilemma is one of the reasons BOC...
• From: mdg
• Date: Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:22 am
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=69944#69944

isawdrones: "Great article. Boc I believe has recently increasingly become a part of these empty "scenes" and "subcultures". I think most of this has been done via the internet through sites like last.fm and promotion on MySpace. Personally when I saw the boc ad on the front page of MySpace I thought I was living a nightmare. That kind of promotion is totally contradictory of what BoC were supposedly "about". I don't understand how anyone who really feels for and takes this music seriously can tolerate something like that.
"Mike: We'd much rather that people find our music by themselves, you know, so that it's something that feels like it belongs to them. If it was up to us there would be no promotion for our music at all."
So who is making these decisions? Warp or Boc?
Music of this caliber becomes something that really does belong to you, and when you see a BoC ad on the front page of MySpace its almost like your personal emotions are being mocked by a bunch of trend hungry teenagers.
Now you hear BoC being played by people in places that totally don't match the aesthetic and meaning of the music. They perceive it as "new age" or "chill-out".
These people are the the consumers brought in by these ads and the internet. To them, music is just some kind of fodder, just as disposable as their petty souls."

FYI when mike and marcus found out about the MySpace promotion that you mention, they asked for it to be removed.

10:31 am

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: 2008
• From: mdg
• Date: Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:31 am
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=69945#69945

Mexicola: "I agree it can be frustrating, but it's been clear for some time that they only do press etc. when they are good and ready to. You can chose to call that annoying, ignorant and pretentious, or you can think of it as dedicated, honest or even mysterious. Personally, I don't necessarily think it's any of these things - I'm guessing they are just busy living (semi)normal lives while making music in the way they always did and the way that made them successful to start with - ie. on their own, taking their time and not getting distracted. Whatever we think, it's immaterial - they make the music, they chose the what, where and when.
As to Warp, I'm guessing it's even more annoying for them. Their biggest artist is media shy and reclusive. Kind of limits the potential £$£ possibilities. I'm sure they would love a new interview, cd, back catalogue release, world tour and line of branded footwear, etc., etc. and I'm sure many, many offers have been made to that effect. The likes of you and me emailing then the same 2 or 3 questions every five minutes is probably just adding salt to the wounds, hence the curt replies from them. *Wink*
Patience."

This message is absolutely right. The guys' 'radio silence' is simply because they're busy. They're not retiring anytime soon. If it gives you guys any kind of useful insight, Mike and Marcus hate doing promotional work, and they see things like MySpace as counter-productive homogenizing communities. But the page was set up by a fan and was already mis-representing the band, so they requested that it was taken over so they could at least know that it wouldn't start filling up with shit. They would have shut it down, but were persuaded by Warp to keep the community going.

08 Aug 2008

11:35 am

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: UMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.........................
• From: mdg
• Date: Fri Aug 08, 2008 11:35 am
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=70220#70220

The early things you're mentioning do exist of course, but the band don't want those to be released nowadays. there are obviously a lot more that you haven't mentioned. most bands with a two-decade history are likely to be sitting on a massive archive, just the same. remember the band started in the mid eighties, they didn't simply pop out of thin air with 'twoism'. the only reason 'old tunes' is available now is because one person let the band down."

novayshun: "so are you saying the fabled forthcoming boc-set of old material that you mentioned a while back on watmm that was coming has been shelved again?
p.s. why did you delete your post???"

At this point, the box set of early material is looking 99% likely to happen. I say that because it hasn't been finally compiled yet. There's a big archive to get through, the obvious tracks that were on various demos and mixtapes given out to friends in the late eighties and early nineties, but also a huge amount of unreleased material that hasn't surfaced so far. There are hundreds of tracks for every year from say 1986 through to 1995, and then for every record BOC have released there are a mountain of tracks that didn't make it onto the record. So the time involved is the only issue from what I understand. There's been regular debate across here about what goes on them and in what order etc. But if you can be patient, these tracks will come out, and a whole lot you won't have heard yet too. Asides from that, let me just say once again for the record, there's a new album coming out first, and maybe more. No dates yet, but they are definitely coming.

11:53 am

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: UMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.........................
• From: mdg
• Date: Fri Aug 08, 2008 11:53 am
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=70225#70225

Fredd-E: "That's some real good stuff!
Even though the "99%" and the sentence "these tracks will come out" is a bit contradictory. It should have been 100% then, unless you imply that old tune tracks could see the day of light by other means than a boc set if the boc set will be scrapped in the end, which would be a pity."

sorry for my wording, no i mean, the desire is there with the guys to do it, Warp are very keen to do it, so it's been an ongoing process in the background for a while.

6:37 pm

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: UMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.........................
• From: mdg
• Date: Fri Aug 08, 2008 06:37 pm
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=70259#70259

LOL Alzado: "are the pre-twoism releases (hooper bay, acid memories etc.) included in the material that's likely to be released in this box set?"

yes, some of those tracks are likely to be included

13 Aug 2008

• Forum: Twoism (messageboard)
• Topic: BoC verses Basinski
• From: mdg
• Date: Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:23 pm
• Link: http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=70559#70559

Cupz: "And...Listen to the Disintegration Loops number 6... BoC used it in Macquary ridge *Shocked*"

Mexciola: " Can't believe I've never realised this before! I've had Disintegration Loops for ages and somehow never noticed this before. *Doh!* "

BOC didn't sample William Basinski for that track!