Boards of Canada have shared ‘Tape 05’, their first new music in thirteen years, out now via Warp Records.
The Scottish brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin have been one of electronic music’s most enigmatic presences since ‘Music Has the Right to Children’ in 1998. Their last album, ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’, arrived in 2013 to widespread critical acclaim. What followed was over a decade of near-total silence.
The return was preceded by a campaign as carefully constructed as anything in the duo’s back catalogue. Several weeks ago, Warp sent mysterious VHS tapes to a handful of fans via its retail arm Bleep. The tapes contained audio from a discontinued 1991 Christian Bible school magazine advertisement.
This was followed by an international poster campaign. Eerie images of ghostly figures with entirely white eyes, stamped with Boards of Canada’s Hexagon Sun logo, appeared in London, New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo, with phone numbers and street sign details embedded in the imagery for those paying close enough attention.
‘Tape 05’ itself sits firmly within the duo’s established world: vintage synthesis, filtered melodic loops and analogue textures that recall ‘Geogaddi’ and ‘The Campfire Headphase’. Whether it heralds a full album remains unconfirmed, but given the scale and precision of the campaign surrounding it, few are betting against one.
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source whynow.co.uk ’
