Gemini
Running time	2:56
Appears on	Tomorrow's Harvest

Comments

• Skytree observed the following:
  • "Gemini": track one
  • "Gemini": May 21 - June 20
  • Dredging up of the subconscious mind.
  • This past weekend saw the last of three eclipses of 2013 (until the Fall), ending in "Gemini".
  • Music Has The Right To Children: "Aquarius". Both "Aquarius" and "Gemini" are air signs.
  • Much of BoC's video imagery involves flying through the air.
  • -- end transmission --
• I read a review (sorry, someone else needs to edit this post to properly cite the reference) noting that Gemini are twins, and suggesting that separation (or invisible, maybe inevitable) connections might be a recurring Tomorrow's Harvest theme. (e.g., Split Your Infinities, Last Rites Of Spring/"Twin gods of death at the end of the tunnel", Beckett's Ghost Trio, Virgil's Aeneid, & Dante's Divine Comedy)
  • Many others' comments focus on palindromes, suggesting cycles in the tracks' sequence.
• The track, and therefore the album begins with a short trumpet vignette. In the Bible, the Book of Revelation says that the end of times - the apocalypse - would be heralded by seven angels sounding seven trumpets. This fits in with the themes and motifs of the album, in particular the apocalypse, as the trumpet vignette is immediately followed by seven distinct chords.
• Narratively, this track may be heralding an impending apocalypse, which is presented by Reach For The Dead.
• Embers observed the following quote: "From the Twins come less laborious callings and a more agreeable way of life, provided by varied song and voices of harmonious tone, slender pipes, the melodies inborn in strings and the words fitted thereto: those so endowed find even work a pleasure. They would banish the arms of war, the trumpet's call, and the gloom of old age: theirs is a life of ease and unfading youth spent in the arms of love. They also discover paths to the skies, complete a survey of the heavens with numbers and measurements, and outstrip the flight of the stars: nature yields to their genius, which it serves in all things. So many are the accomplishments of which the Twins are fruitful." - Marcus Manilius (fl. 1st century AD), a Roman poet and astrologer, said of the Gemini twins in his poem Astronomica.
  • Astronomica itself is a hexameter didactic poem.
    • The number 6 and associated symbolism (primarily, hexagons) is a recurring item in Boards of Canada's music.
    • Didactic refers to something that is "intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive." - Tomorrow's Harvest could be interpreted as didactic, commentating on how our current behaviours affect ourselves, our environment and inform our future (direct instruction / teaching), but also providing an opportunity for self-reflection, reparations and a path to salvation (moral instruction - "a more agreeable way of life", "banish the arms of war", "life of ease...in the arms of love").
  • Specific sub-quotes can be said to refer to the Boards of Canada's themselves, imagery of flying or other representations of air, cycles, technological sophistication, destruction, life, death, apocalypse, etc. See user's post for some interpretations.

Samples / Lyrics

At 2:52 you can hear in the left channel the words "Does anybody copy me?" followed by "Roger" at 2:55. It becomes more recognizable played 25% slower.

Trivia

• Gemini was an American spaceflight program from 1962-1966. [1]

• Gemini is a subcritical nuclear test project ran by The National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA). The NNSA runs the U.S. nuclear warhead program. [2]

• Gemini (♊) is also the third astrological sign in the Zodiac. Gemini were twin brothers, and therefore, could be a symbolic reference to the Sandison brothers themselves, even though they are not identical.

• Gemini can be also a direct reference to Gemini Films, a film production and distributor. [3] The duo already made a small reference to them, when they sampled the ending of the 1982 adult film titled "A Brief Affair" [4] on One Very Important Thought. [5]

• In Ancient Greek mythology Gemini are Castor and Pollux[6], twin gods who are associated with Venus in its role as the morning and the evening star, and whose attestation dates back to an earlier reconstructed Indo-European myth of the Divine Twins,[7] who are descendants of the Sky-God Dyēus and brothers/consorts/rescuers to the Dawn. They are responsible for carrying the sun through the sky each day and said to rescue mortals from peril in battle and at sea.