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Statements from Hexagon Sun

Revision as of 20:57, 29 May 2013 by Fredd-E (talk | contribs) (→‎May 2013)

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.

2013

May 2013

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/2nXtqzB.png" />

MDG: "The band couldn't have been clearer, politely asking the attendees not to record the music past the third track. Obviously to have the entire thing uploaded against their wishes is a shame. Sadly his response sums up his attitude."

Note: In response to the full YouTube leak of the Lake Dolores listening party.

Terpentintollwut, on 26 May 2013 - 12:46 PM: "lol: I was told the guy who went to the Tomorrow's Harvest listening party instead of my guy didn't like the album at all.
This is the same person who LOVED the new Daft Punk.
Kinda rustles your jimmies, doesn't it ... "

MDG: "Except there haven't been any listening parties yet."

MDG: "That is fake."

Note: In response to the website http://www.bunker.org.uk/ mimicing the cosecha-transmisiones.com website.

MindElevation: "Hey MDG, Just wondering, is it likely that previous BoC releases will now be re-pressed on vinyl upon the release of the new album, Tomorrow's Harvest? I am considering buying a few off ebay but will wait it out if there is confirmation of represses. Cheers."

MDG: "I'd wait it out if I were you"

MDG confirms vinyl represses

February 2013

harpoon dodger: "There are also unconfirmed reports (if you go back and read thru interviews, etc) saying that the very early releases (Catalog 3, Acid Memories, etc) featured a lineup of 6 or more members. Of course, the brothers themselves have not given any solid answers to this, and unless we ever get a proper release of that material, we probably never will."

zeoevil: "At this point, I think it comes down to finding the other members and dealing with the legal ramifications of releasing the old material. If they just threw it out there all willy-nilly, they could open themselves up to trouble. They might not even be able to find some of those people so the possibility that we might hear all of Duffy or Infinite Sevens or "insert your favorite here" is effectively null."

MDG: "Any and all early material by BOC was 100% written by Mike Sandison & Marcus Eoin. There's absolutely no question of "legal" regarding the BOC back-catalogue, and any hold-up with remastering or curating early work has been purely down to the time involved!"

2012

March 2012

mechanismj: "This is my personal theory. The track on that tape with those supposed vocalizations (which I think are actually flutes) has nothing to do with 747. The piece of music from the old website that was known as 747 was later combined with whatever the song is that had those flutey vocalizations. The version that was released by Warp was the combination of both of those pieces of music. This was done as a nod to fans, acknowledging that they are aware of the tapes existence and that it is legit.

The slowed down version is unrelated and was made by a fan and posted to youtube.

This is always how I have thought of it... and I could be wrong. MDG, if you are so inclined, could you straighten this one out and provide the name of that song from the tape in the process?"

MDG: "I'm sorry I don't know why there are multiple versions of this track. I do know that if you listen very closely to the release version, you'll hear Freddie Mercury. See if you can spot it!"

2011

August 2011

Fearless Flounder: "Supposedly. A bit of chat between both parties and some talk of colloboration back in the early 2000's apparently. Coil seemed to have been in contact with Warp and it's artists over the years. http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2836&highlight=coil

I can picture BoC as TG fans though. There are just some wee elements of their music that reminds me of TG sometimes."

MDG: "Yes, BOC and John Balance were working on something at the time of his death, a compilation album of some kind."

July 2011

Yellow Records: "I love having binyl because of the artwork! And being that BoCs vinyl goes for about 100$ every LP, I won't enjoy that custom. I have to just settle with the CDs I have...unless someone reissues them. But it probably wont happen...soon anyways. it must happen some day"

MDG: "There's a good chance the previous albums will see a vinyl reissue upon the release of the next album - this is definitely something the band have been talking about."

April 2011

tonymorc: "As a newbie, I thought it might be helpful and indeed pertinent to this thread, to impart a little information that might not be common knowledge; it could also shed some light on the prolonged and interminable delay with regard to BOC's lack of recent output. I was having a conversation with Ulrich Schnauss in Dublin a while ago and he quite casually dropped this little nugget into the discourse; that Warp were putting the boys under pressure to tour the next album, whatever the release date. He wouldn't elaborate but you can only speculate as to their reaction. Would this have caused pause for thought, would fledgling tracks have to be rewritten, discarded with this in mind or more likely , would they take stock. sit back and review their relationship with their label. Just some food for thought in juxtaposition to the prevailing opinion that they're being mysterious for mysteriousness sake."

MDG: "This post caught my eye. Not only is this a lot of made-up rubbish, but it doesn't even make any sense. And it's probably not a good idea to be putting words in the mouths of innocent artists, either."

2001 - 2010

October 2010

MDG: "Thanks guys, we know about this, Warp are investigating it already. There's a chance the prank has backfired, because I'm guessing this would earn BOC a lot of royalties at this rate. There was never any doubt that this was a fake track, was there?"

Note: In response to the on iTunes released hoax track Chameleon.

MDG: "Sorry, I missed this, it's nothing to do with BOC."

Note: In response to the IMDb entry "3D" which supposedly featured original music by Boards of Canada.

August 2010

BG4444: "Dear Peter, I read that you might have some contact with BOC through Hexagon Sun. Would you be able to shed light as to when they might release music? Thank you for reading. Sorry that this Email was not more relevant to your photography. "

pic: "...thanks for your email and apologies for not getting back sooner. I know that the boys are currently working on several projects and that news on any music release(s) may not be too far away. My best suggestion is to keep a close eye on their website and that of Warp Records. Best Wishes. Iain"

January 2010

MDG: "Yes this is an official page."

Note: In response to a question about the legitimacy of the new twitter account www.twitter.com/boctransmission.

Numerator: "twitter? perhaps they're going to tell us whether they've just had a shit or what they had for breakfast..."

MDG: "In response to this, (and I agree with you); these official pages have been picked up in reaction to a series of bogus pages lately, where people have squatted on the band's name. The guys have very little interest in using sites like these, but they will be used by music70/warp for news announcements etc when needed."

digger: "I picked up the Family Of God debut album on which the track, also called Family Of God, BoC ripped for From One Source All Things Depend. Exactly identical kids talking about God but longer and with a different backing track.

They either lifted it or both took it from the same source, which i doubt. It's 2 cd's of psychedelic folktronica, a combination of Julian Cope, Syd Barrett and downtempo grooves, and could have influenced their career path. Shit, they even look the same as a two piece with beanies!

Worth checking out if you're into weird shit."

MDG: "from one source both things were sampled :facepalm:"

December 2009

MDG: "the new album has been held up over the past year by one or two issues outwith the band's control, but it is finally coming out in 2010."

Tekomosis: "I can wait and be patient, I just want to be verifyed that I'm not waiting for nothing"

MDG: "Once again, for anyone else who has missed previous posts, you are not waiting for nothing. There is definitely a new album coming; I realise we've been posting this message for over a year but that's just how these things go sometimes."

September 2009

Note: This quote refers to the locked grooves on the Warp20 (Infinite) Double 10” Vinyl. media:Warp20sleevedetail480.jpg

MDG: "the track is called "Spiro"(from a previously unreleased track) and all the loops on the disc are 1.8 seconds long @ 33rpm."

ryetronics: "1.8 seconds? Are you fucking kidding me? This is akin to waterboarding!"

MDG: "Unfortunately, all locked grooves at 33rpm are 1.8 seconds long. This is due to some stupid law called physics."

MDG: "Hi guys, this is an interesting discussion, a few things: there were many compilations made by BOC in the early years, but as with most bands when they began releasing music properly on a large scale they just preferred not to acknowledge that early material. The music that has become available on the net in the past is just a small portion of the band's recordings from those years. I've seen comments a few times about a mystery "35 track" tape which itself is a mystery to us too, sorry. Another post above mentioned "Pendle Coven" and I looked into this and the band have never heard of the guys who record as "Pendle Coven", so that's maybe another one to add to the growing list of people who falsely claim to have known BOC personally. On that subject, can any of you let me know what happened to the "music70" person on YouTube who was claiming to be BOC, did the account disappear?"

MDG: "Ok, on a related thing, recently Mike said they've never sold anything so if you ever see anything up on eBay that claims to be previously owned by BOC, it's rubbish. There have been a few things like this more recently."

MDG:"I've seen comments a few times about a mystery "35 track" tape which itself is a mystery to us too, sorry"

audiotrack: "these tracks have to be BOC. they are what i listen to the most. MDG are you saying they are not BOC?"

MDG: "No I'm not saying they're not BOC, but the compilation itself is a mystery, just a mixture."

MDG: "Another post above mentioned "Pendle Coven" and I looked into this and the band have never heard of the guys who record as "Pendle Coven", so that's maybe another one to add to the growing list of people who falsely claim to have known BOC personally."

annex: "so you deny that BoC ever knew these guys, without actually denying their allegations. subtle!
btw i'm not defending Pendle Coven's comments, for all i know they're full of shit. and let's face it, the existence or otherwise of those releases is a moot point if you don't have any chance of hearing them either way.
but if they do exist, it would be nice to think that the fans would have an opportunity to legally purchase them one day..."

MDG: "As I said, I asked and BOC said they have never heard of those guys. As for the buried early tapes, as they were, the band don't seem interested in acknowledging them now. This is particularly because they've been working on a new exhaustive collection of their favourite early work, for future release, which would take in parts of many previous compilations including the ones that have previously leaked."

August 2009

MDG: "Hello, yes this is a hoax."

novayshun:

"dang. got any news????"

MDG: "Still none that I can share yet really, though we're thinking of putting up a Twitter or something somewhere on the official site to shoot down this stuff, there's so much of it coming so regularly - we could call it Bullshwitter™. I can tell you there's more than one record in an advanced stage right now."

dp: "this music7O person is quite adamant that he is Michael Sandison...."

Opothecary: "This guy is way too incoherent to be the real deal. Maybe if he wasn't typing everything all like "c.i.R.c.L.E" it would be more believable. Nice try but not nice enough."

MDG: "I can guarantee that the person behind this YouTube channel is nothing to do with BOC at all, not even an associate of the band. This is just one of those things that happens on the internet."

Tekmosis:

"(If this isn't true I hope MDG can come here and shoot it down as quickly as possible)
But, anyways, someone who claims to have inside knowledge says this regarding new Boards of Canada in the near future:
'All I will say is the new album will be around Sept/Oct. I'd say work on this now is in the late stages but there is an album this year [2009].'
Even if this guy isn't an offical source, part of me believes it."

MDG: "No, sorry, again whoever said this is having you on. If the album was coming out in Sep/Oct (that's between only 2 and 6 weeks from now) there would have been announcements up for a while."

Mexicola: "It wouldn't make any sense. Why would they suddenly launch another MySpace site? Why suddenly engage via the social networking sites at all when they've always been opposed to them? Why suddenly start replying directly to questions from fans?
It just doesn't stack up, and neither does the unwieldy "mixing" of the Circle snippet we've all heard onto the end of God-knows-what that this guy has called C.i.R.c.L.e or whatever. It's a fun fake site and worth a quick look for about 5 minutes, but if this is in any way connected to them I'd be very disappointed and surprised."

MDG: "read above please, i've already stated that this is a hoax site."

July 2009

MDG quotes the following post to give a reason why there is only one new BoC track featured on the warp 20 (box set).

theSun: "they're working too hard on their next album to have time for this."

phaelam: "im with you...WEAK at best. they may not get to 'choose'. who knows. all i know is my disappointment level continues to grow."

MDG: "Pete, as I said above, BOC are in the thick of finishing a new full length album. They obviously weren't in a position to give away any brand new tracks, just as some of the other artists on the roster couldn't contribute anything at all, for similar reasons."

thegr8brian: "I hear rumors that they are coming out with another color next time the restock."

MDG: "This is right, there's a black variation coming soon too."

turquoise70:

"the site still says they were designed by the band. is it still not true? i thought earlier on we confirmed they didn't actually design the shirts. i forget. i'm not too good at this following-every-minute-BoC-detail thingy..."

MDG: "afaik the band had approval over the colours used, but the actual design was done for them in the past by someone else"

joshkowski:

"Farewell fire you spring chickens. I can see Polar's initial topic and agree about many obnoxious aspects of the repetitive enigma of BOARDS OF CANADA. There is a simple fact even beyond fan boys battling bloody. Boards of canada do HAVE a fucking dedicated fan base with greenbacks to burn on the spot. And you also KNOW those guys recieved passionate and obsessed messages about their sound. They clearly know they impact a large number of people but their failure to even throw a scrap or atleast a heads-up is evident.
Maybe they are finished, maybe not. Atleast tell the fucking dedicated fans something at some point. The enigma was only enticing for a a bit. If they wanted to continue releasing charming tapes to friends and family music70 would of kept humming silently. But warp records is a big deal aimed for spilling off amazing sounds to people like us all around the world. If they are possibly working on new tunes why would it hurt these guys if warp said " Our lovely BOC are currently working on new tunes....dates uknown... "
I haven't thought about these turkeys for a while but I finally checked these forums again after a two or more year absence. Still all the same shit. Any other real band with a partical of respect for a fanbase would of contributed some harmless information.
Whatever, 666, red moons, devils, childhood themes destroyed and recycled by us all, tacky sub-genres, Maybe they do have legit reasons to vanish. Hell I'm fair on both sides.
Luckily their old shit is fairly timeless so they can't quite die on me yet."

MDG: "BOC are never 'not working', they're always in the studio. They've been in the studio solidly since 2006 working on the new records you'll be hearing soon. If we had put a notice up on the official site back in 2006 to the effect that "BOC are in the studio", you would no doubt be complaining now that the notice hadn't been changed in three years.
And once again, the 'enigma' you're talking about doesn't exist, it's created out there by listeners who are impatient for new material."

May 2009

MDG: "BOC wrote the track originally."

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

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."

MDG: ":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. "

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

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

Joebot: "good point! but here's an example of what i was talking about before when i mentioned caring about fans: bibio responds to your emails!!!
but i know BOC aren't bad guys, and i'm sure they really do appreciate their fans. its great to know that the only reason they are so silent is because they're hard at work. i'm really looking forward to whatever it is they're working on. I'd love to hear new songs from them..."

Fredd-E: "#mails boc receives > #mails bibio receives
and with > I reckon like a boczillion times more mails"

MDG: "this is exactly right. we had to remove the po box address because of the huge volume of mail arriving. even now there are scores of personal messages piling in via the myspace site every day and the band obviously don't have the time to deal with it."

April 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."

MDG: "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!"

March 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?"

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

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"

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

Archrival: "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."

MDG: ""Echus" is not on Warp20."

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

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

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."

MDG: "No."

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"

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

earl the pearl:

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

MDG: "Nothing to do with BOC."

earl the pearl:

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

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

MDG: "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."

January 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"

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

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."

MDG: "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."


November 2008

MDG: "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..."

August 2008

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."

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

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."

MDG: "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."

MDG: "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???"

MDG: "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."

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."

MDG: "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."

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?"

MDG: "yes, some of those tracks are likely to be included"

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!* "

MDG: "BOC didn't sample William Basinski for that track!"

July 2008

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

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

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."

MDG: "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."

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

MDG: "yes!"

June 2008

MDG: "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."

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

MDG: "Hi John, yes they definitely are."

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

January 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?"

MDG: "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."

December 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."

MDG: "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"."

October 2007

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

MDG: "BOC were about 19-20 in 1989"

September 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."

MDG: "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!"

July 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.

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.

May 2007

MDG: 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'.)</p>

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

April 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."

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."

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

November 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.

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."

April 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."

February 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.

April 2004

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]

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]

August 2001

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

Goderich: "... 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 ..."

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