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Road to Inferno
| Inferno | |
|---|---|
| |
| Label(s) | Warp Records |
| Catalogue No(s) | WARPXXX |
| Release date(s) | 29 May 2026 |
| Format(s) | Gatefold 2xLP CD Digital |
| Running time(s) | 69:51 |
Inferno is the upcoming fifth studio album by Boards of Canada, scheduled for release on 29 May 2026 via Warp Records. It is the long-anticipated follow-up to their 2013 album Tomorrow's Harvest—a gap of nearly thirteen years, the band's longest to date.
Tracks
- "Introit" – 0:36
- "Prophecy At 1420 MHz" – 5:04
- "Hydrogen Helium Lithium Leviathan" – 4:44
- "Age Of Capricorn" – 3:52
- "Father And Son" – 3:24
- "Somewhere Right Now In The Future" – 2:26
- "Naraka" – 5:01
- "Acts Of Magic" – 1:18
- "Memory Death" – 2:37
- "The Word Becomes Flesh" – 5:20
- "Into The Magic Land" – 4:35
- "Blood In The Labyrinth" – 4:55
- "Deep Time" – 3:18
- "All Reason Departs" – 6:14
- "Arena Americanada" – 5:22
- "The Process" – 3:01
- "You Retreat In Time And Space" – 5:25
- "I Saw Through Platonia" – 2:39
Total running time – 69:51
Announcement
The album was officially announced in the lead-up to its 29 May 2026 release date, following over a decade of speculation and a substantial uptick in activity on Boards of Canada's social media and affiliated web properties through 2025 and into early 2026.
For the prior period of anticipation and speculation, see the article formerly titled LP5.
Official Statements
- Marcus Eoin, June 2013: "It feels like neither of those things from our perspective because we've always been working! We'd be making music anyway even if nobody was listening, and we've no intention of stopping, so this is just a continuation." — in response to the question "Is this record a new beginning or maybe the end? How does it feel for you?", from the interview The Charms of the Sphinx.
- MDG, June 2022: "Nothing specific I'm allowed to share yet unfortunately, just that a new album is on its way."
- Bleep, April 2023: "we don't know when the new BoC album is coming" — note the use of when rather than if, implying the album was confirmed to be in progress.[1]
Leadup
Instagram Likes (2025)
Main article: LP5
Starting in March 2025, BoC liked numerous comments across their official Instagram, the vast majority on the topic of new music. See Category:Instagram for the full archive and the LP5 table for a summary.
Cosecha Transmisiones
Main article: Cosecha-transmisiones.com
On 1 May 2025, users on Twoism and r/boardsofcanada noticed that the website cosecha-transmisiones.com—originally used in the promotion of Tomorrow's Harvest—had been updated to read:
nobody home... /// -. --- -... --- -.. -.-- / .... --- -- . .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.-
Over the following months the site displayed a rotating sequence of error messages and cryptic fragments before being redirected to the original Tomorrow's Harvest Transmission video on 29 August 2025. With the announcement of Inferno, the relationship between the 2025 reactivation of the site and the eventual album release is an open question for fans.
New Merchandise
On 6 June 2025, new Boards of Canada merchandise was announced and exclusively available at Bleep, produced on unisex Stanley and Stella blanks with a Boards of Canada neck label.[2][3][4][5] Shipping from Bleep's UK and USA warehouses began on 11 June. The release was widely read as a prelude to an album announcement.
Twoism 30
On 15 August 2025, Boards of Canada uploaded a Twoism 30th-anniversary celebration video to their social media accounts.[6][7][8][9][10] The band's first publicly-available vinyl mini album Twoism—originally limited to 100 copies in 1995—was made available through Bleep.com.
On the same post, Boards of Canada liked a large batch of comments speculating about a forthcoming album.
Title and Themes
The title Inferno is the first explicit literary reference in the band's catalogue since the Branch-Davidian and mathematical allusions of Geogaddi. Track titles across the record return to territory familiar from the Boards of Canada vocabulary:
- Astronomy / cosmology — "Prophecy At 1420 MHz" (the hydrogen line, used in SETI), "Hydrogen Helium Lithium Leviathan", "Age Of Capricorn", "Deep Time"
- Religion / mysticism — "Introit" (a liturgical opening), "Naraka" (Buddhist/Hindu hell), "The Word Becomes Flesh", "Acts Of Magic", "I Saw Through Platonia"
- Father/son / childhood — "Father And Son", a motif echoing Music Has the Right to Children
- Memory / time — "Memory Death", "Somewhere Right Now In The Future", "You Retreat In Time And Space"
- Ritual / place — "Into The Magic Land", "Blood In The Labyrinth", "Arena Americanada", "The Process"
Release Notes
(To be populated from Warp's promotional copy once released.)
Quotes
(To be populated as interviews appear around the release.)
See Also
- LP5 – archived speculation/leadup page
- 2026 Promo Campaign
- Tomorrow's Harvest – previous studio album (2013)
- Discography
- Timeline
- Statements from Hexagon Sun
External Links
- Boards of Canada on Warp Records
- Boards of Canada on Bleep
- Twoism discussion: General New Release Speculation Topic Part II
References
- ↑ https://bleep.com/newsletters/boards-of-canada--music-has-the-right-to-children-25th-anv-1
- ↑ https://bleep.com/boards-of-canada-2025-merchandise
- ↑ https://warp.net/artists/boards-of-canada
- ↑ https://bsky.app/profile/bleep.com/post/3lqxaqw2mj22s
- ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/DKkNBcdIEfz/?img_index=1
- ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/DNYMbzWMJIZ/
- ↑ https://www.threads.com/@boardsofcanada/post/DNYN0UYMSVj
- ↑ https://bsky.app/profile/boardsofcanada.bsky.social/post/3lwhdn4y3vk2d
- ↑ https://x.com/boardsofcanada/status/1956358894902550775
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/boardsofcanada/videos/1494936234977208