a review of geogaddi
by boards of canada
released 2002 on warp records
by matt "mr. apol" collier
1/2 out of four
I'm listening to Geogaddi by Boards of Canada right now. I figured, hell, if I'm going to write a review of this thing, I might as well start listening to it again - not counting the hundreds (probably!) of times I've listened to this album while driving. I get my best ideas - that I never end up actually following through on - while driving, and specifically while listening to droning, ambient electronic music that bands like Boards of Canada do so well.
I've been on a sort of album buying spree lately. Since I don't have a computer that I can sail the Internet seas with, I go to my local record store and buy albums - unthinkable, I know. In the past few weeks, I've picked up The Go! Team's Thunder, Lightning, Strike, Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children, Geogaddi, and The Campfire Headphase, Boris's Pink, and DJ Shadow's The Outsider. Luckily, I have a great local head shop/record store, Cosmic Debris, whence lurks a very intuitive owner who talks and acts like Tim Rogers if Tim Rogers wasn't Tim Rogers and went completely insane, shot himself in the head, moved to Alabama and opened up a head shop/record store. Carl knows his shit, and - given fifteen minutes and your favorite band - can recommend you at least three albums you won't completely hate.
Although, this one time he told me Aphex Twin's chosen lords was good and I bought it. It wasn't good*. Carl offered to buy the CD back from me for eleven dollars. I had paid thirteen for it to begin with, and was able to use that eleven dollars to buy a two CD Squarepusher album, so in the end I still ended up with a record I enjoyed. He's a good man - just a bit excitable.
Geogaddi is the sophomore effort from Boards of Canada, who mostly became famous because of their first major release, Music Has the Right to Children. The album itself is darker in tone than Music Has the Right to Children, and is far more complex. Listening to both in parallel, Music Has the Right to Children is almost primitive sounding in comparison to Geogaddi. Geogaddi is not only more layered, it's more experimental and dreamy. I can't shake the feeling that Music Has the Right to Children simply played it safe in order to be more palatable, but I can't figure out if that's due to inexperience or prudence.
Geogaddi starts out with a short track - fifty-nine seconds, in fact - called "READY LETS GO" that's vaguely reminiscent of a tune you'd hear at the end of an old cartoon or television show when the production company shows its logo. Well, except it's fifty-nine seconds long. Things really didn't click until I was reading the wikipedia article about them and saw that their sound has been compared to soundtracks on television shows of the 70s and 80s, something the band has partially fessed up to in one of the few interviews they've given - apparently they're notorious for being sparse and quiet about themselves and their projects. Going through these albums I have by them, the television and film note makes sense, although I didn't notice it at first. Considering that I was five years old when 1990 rolled around, I'm probably missing most of the references to begin with.
As Geogaddi rolls on, the sound gets darker and more foreboding, culminating in the pounding and claustrophobic fourth track: "GYROSCOPE". (small note: track three is the same background music that plays during the Salad Fingers series of short flash films.)
For you Silent Hill fans out there - I know at least one of you reading this is one - several tracks on this album are similar in composition to Akira Yamaoka's work on those game's soundtracks. If you like his music, I would bet you exactly twenty-seven cents that you'd like at least several tracks on this album. Admittedly, Yamaoka's grown up a bit since the original Silent Hill - if you need a comparison to any one game I would look towards the music in Silent Hill 3 and 4.
Though, just as the music gets dark, the album cracks the shades with track five - "DANDELION" - that features the voice of a documentary narrator talking about lava flow on the ocean floor and an apparatus created to capture dandelions. If anyone knows where the voice sample is from, please feel free to hit me up - I'm curious as hell about it!
Overall, this is the tone of the album: A track or two of dark, almost unsettling music, followed by a more soothing song. It keeps hammering at you, chipping away at you, and then lets up and gives you room to breathe. The album goes on like this until the final track: one minute and forty-six seconds of almost complete silence. This is borderline pretentious, but not so much as the music of similar bands - Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Ros, I'm looking at you. Geogaddi is not just a musical work of art, it's a psychological experiment in the form of audio. It's pertinent to mention here that Boards of Canada has long been accused of putting subliminal messages in song - this is true and they're extremely bad at it, considering you can easily tell the messages are there. Several songs have garbled voices in the background and Boards of Canada has even admitted to putting things into their songs on purpose, though more for kicks than to brainwash fans. Though, it does make you wonder: What information have they put there that you're unable to hear?
Either way you look at it though, Geogaddi is extremely easy to get lost in, and an exquisitely produced piece of electronic music - whether you just use it as noise or for entertainment.
If you're interested in listening to some samples of the tracks, just to see what the fuck I'm babbling on about, head down this road;Warp Records is nice enough to host clips of the songs, that way you'll know if what you're buying is trash or not.
Highly recommended.
*chosen lords is good if you like mid-eighties/early-nineties acid house. i don't.
by boards of canada
released 2002 on warp records
by matt "mr. apol" collier
1/2 out of four
I'm listening to Geogaddi by Boards of Canada right now. I figured, hell, if I'm going to write a review of this thing, I might as well start listening to it again - not counting the hundreds (probably!) of times I've listened to this album while driving. I get my best ideas - that I never end up actually following through on - while driving, and specifically while listening to droning, ambient electronic music that bands like Boards of Canada do so well.
I've been on a sort of album buying spree lately. Since I don't have a computer that I can sail the Internet seas with, I go to my local record store and buy albums - unthinkable, I know. In the past few weeks, I've picked up The Go! Team's Thunder, Lightning, Strike, Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children, Geogaddi, and The Campfire Headphase, Boris's Pink, and DJ Shadow's The Outsider. Luckily, I have a great local head shop/record store, Cosmic Debris, whence lurks a very intuitive owner who talks and acts like Tim Rogers if Tim Rogers wasn't Tim Rogers and went completely insane, shot himself in the head, moved to Alabama and opened up a head shop/record store. Carl knows his shit, and - given fifteen minutes and your favorite band - can recommend you at least three albums you won't completely hate.
Although, this one time he told me Aphex Twin's chosen lords was good and I bought it. It wasn't good*. Carl offered to buy the CD back from me for eleven dollars. I had paid thirteen for it to begin with, and was able to use that eleven dollars to buy a two CD Squarepusher album, so in the end I still ended up with a record I enjoyed. He's a good man - just a bit excitable.
Geogaddi is the sophomore effort from Boards of Canada, who mostly became famous because of their first major release, Music Has the Right to Children. The album itself is darker in tone than Music Has the Right to Children, and is far more complex. Listening to both in parallel, Music Has the Right to Children is almost primitive sounding in comparison to Geogaddi. Geogaddi is not only more layered, it's more experimental and dreamy. I can't shake the feeling that Music Has the Right to Children simply played it safe in order to be more palatable, but I can't figure out if that's due to inexperience or prudence.
Geogaddi starts out with a short track - fifty-nine seconds, in fact - called "READY LETS GO" that's vaguely reminiscent of a tune you'd hear at the end of an old cartoon or television show when the production company shows its logo. Well, except it's fifty-nine seconds long. Things really didn't click until I was reading the wikipedia article about them and saw that their sound has been compared to soundtracks on television shows of the 70s and 80s, something the band has partially fessed up to in one of the few interviews they've given - apparently they're notorious for being sparse and quiet about themselves and their projects. Going through these albums I have by them, the television and film note makes sense, although I didn't notice it at first. Considering that I was five years old when 1990 rolled around, I'm probably missing most of the references to begin with.
As Geogaddi rolls on, the sound gets darker and more foreboding, culminating in the pounding and claustrophobic fourth track: "GYROSCOPE". (small note: track three is the same background music that plays during the Salad Fingers series of short flash films.)
For you Silent Hill fans out there - I know at least one of you reading this is one - several tracks on this album are similar in composition to Akira Yamaoka's work on those game's soundtracks. If you like his music, I would bet you exactly twenty-seven cents that you'd like at least several tracks on this album. Admittedly, Yamaoka's grown up a bit since the original Silent Hill - if you need a comparison to any one game I would look towards the music in Silent Hill 3 and 4.
Though, just as the music gets dark, the album cracks the shades with track five - "DANDELION" - that features the voice of a documentary narrator talking about lava flow on the ocean floor and an apparatus created to capture dandelions. If anyone knows where the voice sample is from, please feel free to hit me up - I'm curious as hell about it!
Overall, this is the tone of the album: A track or two of dark, almost unsettling music, followed by a more soothing song. It keeps hammering at you, chipping away at you, and then lets up and gives you room to breathe. The album goes on like this until the final track: one minute and forty-six seconds of almost complete silence. This is borderline pretentious, but not so much as the music of similar bands - Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Ros, I'm looking at you. Geogaddi is not just a musical work of art, it's a psychological experiment in the form of audio. It's pertinent to mention here that Boards of Canada has long been accused of putting subliminal messages in song - this is true and they're extremely bad at it, considering you can easily tell the messages are there. Several songs have garbled voices in the background and Boards of Canada has even admitted to putting things into their songs on purpose, though more for kicks than to brainwash fans. Though, it does make you wonder: What information have they put there that you're unable to hear?
Either way you look at it though, Geogaddi is extremely easy to get lost in, and an exquisitely produced piece of electronic music - whether you just use it as noise or for entertainment.
If you're interested in listening to some samples of the tracks, just to see what the fuck I'm babbling on about, head down this road;Warp Records is nice enough to host clips of the songs, that way you'll know if what you're buying is trash or not.
Highly recommended.
*chosen lords is good if you like mid-eighties/early-nineties acid house. i don't.
