Boards of Canada
ISSUE #331
Last week, for the first time in 13 years, Boards of Canada released a new album—and boy, is it the shit. Inferno is up there with the very best of the Scottish electronic duo’s catalog, and it’s not like they’ve really missed before.
This is relevant, not only because it’s one of the year’s greatest albums from a pair of elder statesmen back with a vengeance, but because Boards of Canada hold a dear and precious place in the history of this newsletter.
Firstly, this is because they are paragons of the hauntology genre—music built on an uncanny, “haunted” sense of nostalgia and faded memory—which is basically what comprises every October Earwyrms, not to mention its peppering into just about any issue over the years. And secondly, because Boards of Canada were featured in our second issue ever. You could even call it the first, if you consider Earwyrms to be a television show of sorts, which I certainly do (what other boutique newsletter provides craft services every week?), in which case the first issue was simply the pilot episode, and that was the first in the proper series.
But regardless of its personal significance, Inferno is a staggering listen. Filled with vaguely apocalyptic samples from the likes of Aleister Crowley, talking heads from what sounds like a Nova-esque educational program, and the insane babblings of what are most likely televangelists, this cohesive sonic statement is a pulsating, polygonal labyrinth that probes existential topics as big as the meaning of life. Did I inflate your expectations too much? I’m jazzed on this bad boy!
If anything, being released the same day that Backrooms achieved the largest opening weekend in the history of A24—a movie influenced by the same internet forums on which Boards of Canada first appeared on back in the late-90s—is a victory lap for these pioneers of downtempo electronic music.
Alongside Massive Attack and Aphex Twin, both of whom continue to renew their leases at the cutting edge of the genre, Boards of Canada have reemerged with a glass-shattering dunk right as a new generation discovers the enthralling, liminal nature of the world their music evokes. The album, in full, is in the playlist below—and I tacked on my 10 favorite tracks from their beautiful history as a bonus.
Last week, for the first time in 13 years, Boards of Canada released a new album—and boy, is it the shit. Inferno is up there with the very best of the Scottish electronic duo’s catalog, and it’s not like they’ve really missed before.