👉 Societas x Tape's Missing Info 🔎

"Who can help fill in the missing pieces?"

 Actions

Statements from Hexagon Sun

Revision as of 15:32, 28 May 2009 by Fredd-E (talk | contribs) (→‎17 Apr 2007)

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.

2001 - 2006

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

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]

#2

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

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

MDG: "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

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.

MDG: "finally a good understanding of what BOC do."

1 Nov 2006

MDG: "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.

2007

16 Apr 2007

MDG: "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

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."

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

</blockquote>

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

28 May 2007

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

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

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.

9 Sep 2007

Opoth: "I think the situation is that the Old Tunes tapes were actually compiled after Twoism and Maxima, sometime before Hi Scores was released, cherry picking their older material that seemed the most similar to what they were putting out at that time. This was a pretty turbulent time for them, as they were building their name in the IDM scene and probably dealing with some people for the first time that might not hold their music as closely or privately as they would have liked. The tapes are basically compilations of their time - you don't really get a taste of their supposedly gothic or MBV phases like they've talked about in interviews, other than a couple of songs on OTV1 that use more traditional instrumentation. We'll probably never know, but it's a safe bet that something like Play by Numbers which sounds like it's probably the closest thing they've done to straight ahead rock music based on the sample they released from Wouldn't You Like to Be Free? and that sound probably wasn't very compatible with how they were trying to establish themselves around the time of Twoism and Hi Scores."

This is more or less right - what you've heard on these leaked compilations is really only the tip of the iceberg. There's a number of other compilations, demos and so on that were made even prior to these, going back years, beyond the handful of known titles that have surfaced. Bear in mind that even the tapes and discs that were put together and distributed are still relatively only a small selection picked from a much larger legacy of unheard work. If they were to release every single track they've ever recorded, you'd be looking at a massive number of albums simply to get through it all.

Behind the scenes Mike and Marcus are very prolific, and have always produced a lot of what they call 'collateral' material. There's a huge archive. Some of the material dates right back to 1983, but the real body of work in the archives begins around 1986-1987 and ramps up around 1991. The band has been working through these archives for the past two years or so - whenever they've been free, in an effort to place the work into 'chapters'. But it's a huge time-consuming job in itself just to archive it properly and clean it up. (The analogue cassette archive alone took a year or so to work through). It seems there's a good chance that some of the older work (and the side-project work) will now get a release in some form, maybe in installments. The plans for this are still being thrashed out, although it's always a low-priority issue as obviously the upcoming album is the main thing everyone is concentrating on right now.

I hope this clears it up a bit for you!


22 Oct 2007

Joyex: "He's implying that when Acid Memories was supposedly "made", (1989), Mike and Marcus were aged 10. Not possible."

BOC were about 19-20 in 1989

9 Dec 2007

Moebius: "It's simply the case that, with the amount of samples BoC has used from old songs, films, tv shows and the like, they'd be hypocrites not to allow others the same freedom with their work."

BOC are very thorough about the painstaking creation of sounds that seem to be samples of something old, when in fact they're not.

The actual music-sample usage by BOC from other people's work is really not very much at all, and in any case is quite explicitly obvious when it has been done; examples include the beat and bassline in the 7" single version of "Aquarius" (which the band then re-created from scratch for the album version, using real bass and percussion), and the beat in the 12" version of "Nlogax".

Boards of Canada have obviously used a lot of speech samples in their work over the years, such as the Leslie Nielsen sample in "Dandelion", the "Energy Warning" speech, the "From One Source All Things Depend" speech, etc.. But even with speech samples, much of it is created by BOC collaborating with various friends (for example half of the speech on "Geogaddi" was custom-done, and again much of "Music Has The Right To Children")

And contrary to popular belief, "Magic Window" wasn't sampled from John Cage, it was actually assembled from samples of the gaps on "Bitches Brew".

2008

15 Jan 2008

hexagon sun: "i'm really sorry lumpenprol. sometimes sarcasm just can't be articulated properly by typing alone. the last news we heard at all officially from the site was 14 months ago for some offical t-shirts. any news of a release was from 18 months ago. they didn't even bother to update their site for their latest remix they did. not really showing much love for their fans, are they?"

mike and marcus have been too busy making a new album to have any time left to make a pretty website for you as well. They're not particularly interested in wasting valuable time on the net, in general.

25 Jun 2008

8:06 PM

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

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

Hi John, yes they definitely are.

28 Jun 2008

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

01 Jul 2008

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

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

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

yes!

04 Aug 2008

10:22 am

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

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

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

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

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

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!

8 Nov 2008

Hi everyone, I've not been able to look in here for a while until today, my apologies... I noticed this thread, so please let me reiterate for those of you who missed it the last time: There is a new BOC album on the way. I realise you've heard this a few times, these things take quite a while to reach the stage when they're confirming a release date, so please be patient until we're allowed to give out all the info. All the best...

2009

12 Jan 2009

ninetyoneplus:

hungry_manweaselbeast: "that image which a Twoismer got tattooed

you all know it stems from the TV gameshow Blockbusters, hosted by Bob Holness who is in my avatar and is sampled on Old Tunes? pretty sure most do know this but thought i'd mention it" http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=usdeiJP7xh0 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=N7bOVvaCJeQ

haha! no, in fact that pattern has nothing to with that at all...

19 Jan 2009

ninetyoneplus:

"Unfortunately, he's right. Here's why, in my opinion:

As you know, in 2005 more than half of Boards of Canada's super-mystical secret discography was unleashed on the net. Quotes from Hexagon Sun officials say that they were planning on polishing these up and releasing them in the future as a box set. This is what I presume they were working on pre-internet leak and subsequent hubub. Once it was released, they figured that a rerelease would be kinda pointless, so they started over from scratch, which explains the three year gap since a proper release. That combined with three significant events that point to an end of BoC: Mike becoming a father (baby girl, 2004), their beginning of a production career, and the completetion of a trilogy. First, fatherhood for Mike means he is probably desiring a steady income which cannot be hurt by the rise of pirated music, which leads to production (Sexual Objects or Whatever) and remix work which provides a steadier income. Finally, BoC are symbolists and it would have been very BoC like to create a trilogy of albums on a major label and leave it at that.

They've lost steam. It's over, for better or worse."

The absence of any real info seems to inspire a lot of amusing fiction on this forum. For the benefit of the newcomers (and the amnesiacs!) there is a new BoC album on the way.

23 Mar 2009

iec: "Figured this is the right thread for this...

I searched "Michael Sandison" as a songwriter on the Harry Fox Agency (where musicians go to obtain licenses to make cover songs on their own records) to see if there was anything interesting in any official catalogs.

The first result, among other tracks that are recognizable, is "Echus"...?

Has anyone heard of it/know what it is? I can't link to the search results because of how the web page is... Click this link, and search Michael Sandison. It's also, oddly, the first result.

(or, just search 'echus')

If anyone can't replicate it, here's a screenshot of the Songfile: clicky

If it's something dumb, or obvious, I'm sorry in advance. I'm not hunting around for new things like a madman, I am not after starting silly hype - to be honest I typed in a lot of my favorite artists because it was cool to see their works come up. But when this popped up... I just don't know what it is."

Joebot Kill: "Interesting find! perhaps MDG can shed some light on this?"

this is possibly something to do with the warp20 releases. i'll check it for you.

25 Mar 2009

Skydiver:

"Ok, i haven't been today, but when I went yesterday to vote for a BoC track there was one glaring omission.

Where was Everything You Do is A Balloon ?

Is it just me, or wasn't it on there ?

Perhaps it'll be one of the tracks selected by the Warp dude.

Who knows.

Sorry.

Skydiver"

"Everything You Do Is A Balloon" was released on Skam Records.

28 Mar 2009

12:39 PM

ok, now I know, Boards Of Canada will have a new track called Echus on the warp20 comp.

Im asking MDG to confirm this.

"In Autumn 2009, Warp will release a collection of both premium edition and accessible music products.

The music will consist of new and unreleased tracks from the majority of the current Warp roster, as well as some of the finest artists from our history.

Some premium items will be produced in extremely limited quantities."

There you go.

"Echus" is not on Warp20.

12:58 PM

Essiness: "they produced a solange track. are you really that surprised"

Solange used an existing BOC track in its entirety as a backing track for her song. BOC didn't produce a Solange track.

1:10 PM

echus chasm:

"One of the premium releases will be a collection of previously unreleased boards of canada material. This material will not consist of the tracks from pre-Twoism releases such as Hooper Bay and the like. This material will not constitute a new boards of canada album."

No.

9:22 PM

Earthbound:

"So, dear MDG, can you give us a release date, or something? When do you expect new stuff will come out?? And while you're at it, say hi to Marcus and Michael for me"

I can't give you the release date yet, but there is a new album coming.

9:38 PM

earl the pearl:

so what's the significance of September 22, 2009 then? and what's 07. 314?

Nothing to do with BOC.

29 Mar 2009

earl the pearl:

"any truth to the rumor that 'boards of canada' will be retired after this next release?"

you can keep posting these and we'll keep deleting them. good luck.

31 Mar 2009

that's not a photoshop image, it's an oil painting by a friend of the band, on a huge canvas. The image is based on a vhs freeze frame.

29 Apr 2009

booleanlogic: "jeez, most idm if you want to call it that no matter how "analogue" it sounds is made on a computer with whatever is lying around and amassed on a hard drive, sure they own some synths and they have used them probably in at least a few of their songs,

christ add some software reverb to any synth or keyboard or sample or anything and if you keep at it and find the right sounding pads its gonna remind you of boards of canada,


most of these guys dont have piles and piles and piles of gear, they just have up to date computers with lots of software... thats the secret.

besides i wouldnt be surprised if the boards duo secretly set up all that old crappy gear to throw everyone off. hell they might not even be using it, it could just be for show."

well, BOC are quite hardcore about their use of analogue equipment. The equipment you see in those pictures is nothing at all, that's a bare minimum midi setup that any electronic band would use to perform an AV show, (if you don't want to use laptops) and obviously not an indication of what they write with. Nobody in their right mind would bring vintage analogue equipment on tour!

21 May 2009

In response to the suggestion that "The Story of Xentrix" was originally taken from an amateur computer animation short film

BOC wrote the track originally.

28 May 2009

12:31 pm

Skytree: What's a shame is that we're calling this an "update".

ross adey: word. not a syllable from the brothers. just two more boc branded accessories poked in our face. it's gone beyond the joke. they know well how hungry people are for a new release and all we get are indirect spats from a supposed hexagon sun affiliate. why should it be so effin' covert? it's ridiculous.

Synthetrix: Agreed. After a certain point the whole mysterious persona thing just gets old and makes it easier to just forget about this band.

D Some people on this forum need to chill out! The new tees appeared as a positive response to the fact that the old stock had run out and new requests for tees were being received by Warp. There had also been some complaints about the lack of updates/broken links on the official site, so the links were changed to show the new stock. While some fans have welcomed a sign of life at the official site, others have used it as an excuse to vent and complain again.

I should point out that none of this has anything to do with the band. The idea that these trivial updates are in some way a result of the band nurturing a 'mysterious persona thing' is totally laughable; they're simply too busy working on the new records. BOC don't deal with their sites or merchandise any more than to approve the items, despite erroneous claims that they designed the shirts. There hasn't been an official announcement put up yet about the forthcoming records because there are still no firm release dates as yet. The site will be new, the records will be new and even new merch etc will appear. At the end of the day, most fans would rather that the artists are completely happy with the releases, rather than banging material out every 12 months. And BOC are notorious perfectionists.

Once again, I completely understand the frustration felt by people waiting for the new releases, but until we're allowed to update the sites, you'll have to take my word that the new album is looming.

As for the live side etc, there are rumblings in that direction too. Just don't do what someone did this week via the MySpace site; A fan sent a message to the band demanding the guys tour North America by using this general approach: "Why won't you fucking assholes come and play live over here you fucking cunts". Needless to say, that doesn't work.

12:42 pm

Techboy: hmm, do you run the myspace page mdg?

there are at least four people keeping an eye on it to keep spam off, and i have access to it.

Retrieved from "https://bocpages.org/w/index.php?title=Statements_from_Hexagon_Sun&oldid=6503"