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But whatever the synthetic undercurrent, [[The Campfire Headphase]] is noticeably lacking in one of [[Boards of Canada]]'s signature sounds: children's voices. "That was a deliberate thing," Marcus explained to Earplug magazine. "We got fed up with people saying that we're a formulaic band that you could kind of describe in a couple of sentences...I think it can become really dangerous for a band if you don't have a certain level of self-consciousness about these things. You always have to stay a few steps in front of your audience. We always have people putting fakes on the Internet before a new record is released, and the fakes are always really electronic with little kids' voices and things like that. Probably next time around all the fakes will include wobbly guitars like the ones we use on the new album [[The Campfire Headphase]] (laughs)." | But whatever the synthetic undercurrent, [[The Campfire Headphase]] is noticeably lacking in one of [[Boards of Canada]]'s signature sounds: children's voices. "That was a deliberate thing," Marcus explained to Earplug magazine. "We got fed up with people saying that we're a formulaic band that you could kind of describe in a couple of sentences...I think it can become really dangerous for a band if you don't have a certain level of self-consciousness about these things. You always have to stay a few steps in front of your audience. We always have people putting fakes on the Internet before a new record is released, and the fakes are always really electronic with little kids' voices and things like that. Probably next time around all the fakes will include wobbly guitars like the ones we use on the new album [[The Campfire Headphase]] (laughs)." | ||
| − | This sort of self-conscious reaction, however, may account in part for why opinion on this record has been so divided. When asked by Pitchfork about whether or not the brothers feared being pigeonholed, Michael responded that "[t]he new record is probably the slowest record that we've done. And it's got guitars on it as well. This is something that we've done slightly deliberately. We knew that we had to break away from this thing [being pigeonholed]. It bothered us that if you go into the big stores our stuff is always sitting in the dance music section. We never made a dance record in our entire career but our stuff still gets thrown in there. Our drive with this record is to try and get us out of the dance section and into the main section with all the | + | This sort of self-conscious reaction, however, may account in part for why opinion on this record has been so divided. When asked by Pitchfork about whether or not the brothers feared being pigeonholed, Michael responded that "[t]he new record is probably the slowest record that we've done. And it's got guitars on it as well. This is something that we've done slightly deliberately. We knew that we had to break away from this thing [being pigeonholed]. It bothered us that if you go into the big stores our stuff is always sitting in the dance music section. We never made a dance record in our entire career but our stuff still gets thrown in there. Our drive with this record is to try and get us out of the dance section and into the main section with all the others bands, like ABBA and A-Ha. We're just a band. Not an IDM band, not an electronic band, and not a dance band." |
This conscious break with the conventions of the so-called IDM/Dance aesthetic (which so informed their previous work) have lead many to describe the record as boring or watered down. Pitchfork's Mark Richardson complained that "Campfire is a sluggish record, weary, pointed edges dulled as if by the march of time. Boards could previously be counted on to offer a display of crisp, forceful drum programming to jar you out of your narcotic haze ("Telephasic Workshop" and "Gyroscope"). The Campfire Headphase is all midrange, the mid-tempo shuffles putting the mind-boggling array of instrumental processing front and center." | This conscious break with the conventions of the so-called IDM/Dance aesthetic (which so informed their previous work) have lead many to describe the record as boring or watered down. Pitchfork's Mark Richardson complained that "Campfire is a sluggish record, weary, pointed edges dulled as if by the march of time. Boards could previously be counted on to offer a display of crisp, forceful drum programming to jar you out of your narcotic haze ("Telephasic Workshop" and "Gyroscope"). The Campfire Headphase is all midrange, the mid-tempo shuffles putting the mind-boggling array of instrumental processing front and center." | ||
Yet for some, the very same departure yields the record its charm, even garnering some textural comparison to My Bloody Valentine's classic "Loveless." Differences of opinion aside, the record continues to be a favorite among many fans, and in any case, probably our best indicator of what is yet to come. | Yet for some, the very same departure yields the record its charm, even garnering some textural comparison to My Bloody Valentine's classic "Loveless." Differences of opinion aside, the record continues to be a favorite among many fans, and in any case, probably our best indicator of what is yet to come. | ||
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| + | == Artwork == | ||
| + | [[Image:TCH yearbook comparison.jpg|thumb|right|''TCH'' inset image (top), IIT yearbook photo (bottom)]] | ||
| + | The liner notes include a grid-like collage of apparently seventies-era photos, degraded in a manner similar to the cover. The source of a few of these images have been discovered: | ||
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| + | * A photo of a curly-haired man sitting at an [[wikipedia:Commodore International|Commodore]] CBM 2001 computer was taken from a 1979 yearbook photo from the [[wikipedia:Illinois Institute of Technology|Illinois Institute of Technology]]. [http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=8386] [http://web.archive.org/web/20070228221147/http://www.iit.edu/alumni/updates/yearbook/1970s/images/campus%20and%20student%20in%20computer%20center%201979.jpg] | ||
| + | * A photo of blonde-haired woman in profile was taken from a 1972 anti-drug propaganda film ''[http://www.archive.org/details/social_seminar_tom Social Seminar: Tom]''. A sample of dialogue from the film was also used towards the end of the album track "[[Chromakey Dreamcoat]]". | ||
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| + | == Comments and Trivia== | ||
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| + | *When asked if the record (and especially its artwork) was a throw back to Music Has the Right to Children, Marcus replied that "it's deliberately reminiscent of ‘Music Has the Right to Children'. Musically it's like an echo of that record, all bleached-out blue skies and so on. In some ways it sounds older than ‘Music Has the Right…' because of the choice of instruments and the sheer amount of damage we've done to the sound." | ||
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| + | *The bottom left corner of the front cover (and onto the spine of the digipak) has a smudge that strongly resembles the hexagonal Geogaddi cover. The front and back covers are repeated in the smaller pictures inside the digipak. The smaller pictures are less distorted than the covers. | ||
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| + | *On the vinyl release, a bird's chirp can be heard in the runout grooves, typically sides C and D. | ||
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| + | *Playing the vinyl release at 45rpm evokes a completely different listening experience. | ||
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| + | *When inverting the colors on the back cover art, the child's expression changes into a ghostly, almost horrified, stare. | ||
==Tracks== | ==Tracks== | ||
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# "[[Farewell Fire]]" – 8:26 | # "[[Farewell Fire]]" – 8:26 | ||
# "[[Macquarie Ridge]]" – 4:57 (Japanese release only) | # "[[Macquarie Ridge]]" – 4:57 (Japanese release only) | ||
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=== Reviews === | === Reviews === | ||