Tomorrow's Harvest

Tomorrow's Harvest

Label(s)	Warp Records Beat Records
Catalogue No(s)	WARP257 BRC-382
Release date(s)	5 June 2013 (Japan) 7 June 2013 (Australia) 10 June 2013 (Europe) 11 June 2013 (United States)
Format(s)	Gatefold 2xLP CD
Running time(s)	62:07 (Original release)

Tracks

"Gemini" – 2:56
"Reach For The Dead" – 4:47
"White Cyclosa" – 3:13
"Jacquard Causeway" – 6:35
"Telepath" – 1:32
"Cold Earth" – 3:42
"Transmisiones Ferox" – 2:18
"Sick Times" – 4:16
"Collapse" – 2:49
"Palace Posy" – 4:05
"Split Your Infinities" – 4:28
"Uritual" – 1:59
"Nothing Is Real" – 3:52
"Sundown" – 2:16
"New Seeds" – 5:39
"Come To Dust" – 4:07
"Semena Mertvykh" – 3:30

Palindromic Structure

"We've Become a Lot More Nihilistic over the Years" is a 2013 interview by Louis Pattison.

It originally appeared online at The Guardian.

You've spoken in the past about how mathematics and science have been an inspiration on Boards Of Canada. One Tomorrow's Harvest track is called "Split Your Infinities". Another is called "Jacquard Causeway", which seems like it might be a reference to the Jacquard Loom, a sort of rudimentary mechanical computer. Have you found more musical ways to integrate mathematics into the fabric of the music on Tomorrow's Harvest?

Mike Sandison: "Yes, it's loaded with patterns and messages. There are various tricks embedded throughout the whole body of this album, so it'll be interesting to see whether people pick up on these things. Some things are just simple structural things. For instance, "Come To Dust", the second-to-last track, is a musical reprise of "Reach For The Dead", which comes in as the second track. There's a palindromic structure centred around the track "Collapse" in the middle. There's actually more use of subliminals on this record than on any previous album we've done, so we're interested to see what people will pick up on."

Palindromic Tracks

"Gemini" – 2:56
"Semena Mertvykh" – 3:30
"Reach For The Dead" – 4:47
"Come To Dust" – 4:07
"White Cyclosa" – 3:13
"New Seeds" – 5:39
"Jacquard Causeway" – 6:35
"Sundown" – 2:16
"Telepath" – 1:32
"Nothing Is Real" – 3:52
"Cold Earth" – 3:42
"Uritual" – 1:59
"Transmisiones Ferox" – 2:18
"Split Your Infinities" – 4:28
"Sick Times" – 4:16
"Palace Posy" – 4:05
"Collapse" – 2:49

Palindromic Playlists

Release notes

Warp

After considerable speculation since Record Store Day, we can reveal that the new album by Boards of Canada Tomorrow's Harvest will be released on Monday 10th June 2013 (Tuesday 11th June in North America) on Warp Records.

Promo video for Tomorrow's Harvest

Amazon

The idolized and enigmatic duo are back. After considerable speculation by their rabid fan base (not to mention the media following every step of the way), Boards of Canada have revealed that their new album Tomorrow's Harvest will be released on June 11 via their long time home, Warp Records. Musically, the album is somehow dark yet positive, with atmospheric dissonance and mind-bending melodic creations. ^[1]

Quotes

Mike Sandison

"The challenge with this record was crafting the tunes into a specific style and time period we want to reference. In fact it's not just the time period – we analyse the specific medium we're going for too." ^[2]

"Some tracks deliberately finish earlier than you want them to, like actual cues in older soundtracks where they've been ripped out of much longer original masters that nobody ever gets to hear." ^[2]

"There are quite a few influences on this record. Carpenter is kind of an easy reference point for most people though I'd say the main ones would be Fabio Frizzi , John Harrison and Mark Isham. We're very much into grim 70s and 80s movie soundtracks so there are maybe nods to composers such as Stefano Mainetti , Riz Ortolani, Paul Giovanni, Wendy Carlos , even Michael Nyman." ^[2]

"There's actually more use of subliminals on this record than on any previous album we've done, so we're interested to see what people will pick up on." ^[2]

""It's not post-apocalyptic so much as it is about an inevitable stage that lies in front of us. But it's better if listeners find the narrative themselves, in the titles and the sounds." ^[2]

"Our listeners seem to be really cool, savvy types of people. They didn’t let us down." ^[3]

"In the studio we still spend a huge amount of time destroying the sounds in our music, though on this record we wanted to use older electronic instruments in the kind of well-produced, precisely orchestrated ways that film composers did back in the late seventies and eighties." ^[3]

Marcus Eoin

"We're based in Scotland, although some of the early sketches on this record were done in New Zealand. We have a main studio that is literally on a farm surrounded by deer and rabbits." ^[2]

"In fact if you look again at the San Francisco skyline on the cover it's actually a ghost of the city. You're looking straight through it." ^[2]

"We've been busy in our rehearsal space lately, so never say never." ^[2]

"It’s about finding something beautiful in desolation, something draws us to the atmosphere of destroyed, abandoned places. It’s a bitter-sweet thing that we’ve always tried to achieve in our music. It seems too obvious to make music that is just purely dark, that just seems too easy and naïve." ^[3]

"I hope that it works to make the listener pause and consider where we are right now, where we’re going… I guess it’s essentially a political album, but we shouldn’t spell it all out, it’s important that the listener finds their own thing in there." ^[3]

"We were involved with the art direction and we helped devise some of the ideas but we had a really great team of people helping us to make it all happen. We really wanted to bring back a feeling of anticipation for new music that has largely been lost in recent years, mainly because of the internet." ^[3]

"We’d be making music anyway even if nobody was listening, and we’ve no intention of stopping, so this is just a continuation." ^[3]

Themes

The following divisions will address some of the primary themes found throughout Tomorrow's Harvest:

Apocalyptic

Many people have reported that the album feels cold and desolate. This album is generally viewed as having the apocalypse as its main theme although the brothers have said in an interview that it is "everything but apocalyptic"
The artwork features a dead animal carcass.
It also features road signs such as a U-turn, a No U-turn allowed and a runaway truck ramp. One could make the assumption that this means we as a civilization have to turn around but we can't. Making us a runaway truck waiting to crash.

Division and Duality

A sun can be seen splitting into 3 suns at the end of the "Reach For The Dead" video.
The album is composed of two vinyls.
The palindromic nature of this album leaves each tracks with their own counterparts.
Some track titles also follow the theme of division:
- "Gemini"
- "Collapse"
- "Split Your Infinities"
- "Come To Dust"

Communication and Transmissions

Mercury, the ruling planet of gemini, is known as “The Messenger of the Gods” and is all about communication.
Part of the album announcement featured transmissions/Number stations/The cosecha transmission website.
One of the track is titled "Transmisiones Ferox".
The album is sprinkled with a lot of shortwave radio samples.
"New Seeds" begins with sounds alike those heard when a cellphone loses signal.
The artwork features communication towers.

Trivia

The cover art is the skyline of San Francisco as seen from the runway at the old Alameda Naval Air Station.
- The Alameda Naval Air Station is where the show MythBusters tests many of their myths which require a large open area or empty road longer than a mile.
- purgruv from the Twoism (messageboard) found the original source picture of the artwork. ^[4]

The vinyl release is two discs long:
- Disc 1, side 1 includes Gemini, Reach For The Dead, White Cyclosa, Jacquard Causeway
- Disc 1, side 2 includes Telepath, Cold Earth, Transimiones Ferox, Sick Times, Collapse
- Disc 2, side 1 includes Palace Posy, Split Your Infinities, Uritual, Nothing Is Real, Sundown
- Disc 2, side 2 includes New Seeds, Come To Dust, Semena Mertvykh
One of the vinyl sleeve's images is the inverted/upside-down number 822
- The number 822 may actually refer to Genesis 8:22, which states, "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease."
- 822 may also refer to the "last interactive login" on the cosecha-transmisiones website. The login date is 22-AUG-1996 02:57. The North American date would be written as AUG-22 or 8/22. The significance of this date is still under speculation.^[5]
Another sleeve image is a broken sign with only the letter G visible. This may refer to the G of Christian/Masonic Gnosticism, which is the belief system of the revelation of God through enlightened personal experience instead of religious dogma. The revelations of both God and Satan are recurring themes in BoC's works.
The CD release of the album says "I OVERFLOW MAN" around its rim. One anagram of this is "Owl of Minerva," which, in greek mythology, represents wisdom, and accompanies Athena, goddess of wisdom. A quote of Georg Hegel's connects true wisdom of a culture with its impending destruction.

When philosophy paints its gloomy picture then a form of life has grown old. It cannot be rejuvenated by the gloomy picture, but only understood. Only when the dusk starts to fall does the owl of Minerva spread its wings and fly.^[6]

The album's total running time is 62:07. 6+2+0+7=15 1+5=6

Videos

Neil Krug

Boards of Canada posted the following three videos on their official Facebook.com page. The videos are directed by Neil Krug and feature cinematography by David Myrick.

Cinematography Reel Cuts

YouTube Playlist

Viral Marketing

Cosecha Transmisiones

Part 1: Cosecha Transmisiones