Boards Of Canada Geogaddi 32034
Boards Of Canada Geogaddi
Boards of Canada have made a 2nd masterpiece, and one that I prefer on most days. They created an atmosphere that is inimitable and wholly unique, and allowed me to explore places that other music simply cannot reach, resulting in quite a catharsis each time. Geogaddi also offers up some new developments - 'Gyroscope' features an uncharacteristic tribal rotation of drums put through the BOC system, sounding like a lost tape unearthed and carefully restored, retaining the mark of nostalgia that directs BOC tracks so instantly to that part of the brain reserved for its earliest memories.
Afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this week's For Your Consideration, the weekly series where we discuss albums that aren't on our Essentials chart, and maybe why they should be. This week, grab your best headphones and a psychedelic of your choice, because /u/The_Chillosopher is taking a deep dive on Boards of Canada's kaleidoscopic Geogaddi.
Artist:Boards of Canada
Album:Geogaddi
Listen:
Background by /u/the_chillosopher
Brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin (Sandison), each of whom make up one-half of the electronic music project Boards of Canada, claim to have been making music together since their childhood. Maybe that’s the reason why the overwhelming majority of their listeners interpret their music to be imbued with themes of nostalgia and memory. One clear influence from their upbringing is television, serving as an escape from the dull monotony of their quiet and calm Scottish hometown, and, more specifically, the strangely psychedelic documentaries and animated shorts produced and released by the National Film Board of Canada, which they seem to have watched and absorbed enough to have it become their namesake.
The brothers “formed” the band in their mid-teens, but didn’t release a full-length studio record until their late twenties, and actually, didn’t even reveal that they were brothers until their mid-thirties (supposedly a tactic to avoid being lumped in with other electronic producer duos who were also brothers, such as Orbital). Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why many of their fans exhibit obsessive qualities: that element of mystery and the need to uncover whatever lies beneath the surface of the reclusive duo’s music. And that’s just it: the music. A much more concrete and compelling reason for that phenomenon, as well as for being heralded as one of the most prominent and pioneering artists in all of electronica, despite only having four full-length studio albums, is the creative otherworldliness of their music.
The mythos began with their first full-length studio release, Music Has the Right to Children. After a string of EPs and cassettes, the duo brought forth a landmark record that still sounds fresh to this day. Combining youthful samples and swirling synths with their uniquely driving beats, Boards of Canada created a record that was as close to being visual as you can get with your eyes closed. The album’s warm, rich textures and evolving soundscapes are just a small part of what makes this electronic album sound so human. It’s now held as one of the most revolutionary records of the 90’s.
After BoC received significant recognition and amassed a large following, all without releasing any singles, music videos, or performing live, it came time to create and release a follow-up. I’m sure many were scrambling to predict what they would come out with next. Their excellent 2000 EP, A Beautiful Place Out in the Country, gave some idea. But I doubt many were prepared for their 2002 record, the abstract and mystifying Geogaddi. Countless posts have been written regarding the album’s dark themes about everything from Satanism and religious cults to the supernatural, nature, and the dangers of technology. Regardless, I feel that the experience will be unique for each listener, and there’s no way to truly get a feel from what the music is or what it’s really about than to hear it for yourself.
Review by /u/the_chillosopher
Preamble: There’s many thoughts and theories about Geogaddi, and there’s no way I’ll be able to list them all in this review. Let’s just say that people can get thorough and very creative. In some cases, Geogaddi is thought of as more of the same, classic BoC style from Music Has the Right. And in a way, it kind of is. While they are undoubtedly tied to each other, they personally strike me as being from the same coin, but opposing sides.
Music Has the Right provokes feelings of youthful mystery and imagination, which can be wondrous at times, and eerie at others. It makes one recall their dreams and the hazy journeys we take through them. On the other hand, Geogaddi aims to have us explore our nightmares, our fears, and the sinister side of the unknown. Maybe it was the desire to catch their fanbase off-guard, maybe it was the discomfort with the sudden attention the duo was receiving, or maybe it was something as simple as the September 11 attacks, but whatever the case, they made sure that Geogaddi would certainly be one hell of a creepy, unsettling record. And rather than try and explain the technique of the record and what makes it so important (because I would be doing it a disservice, and there are many pages where you can read up on such), I am going to be using this review to try and explain how it makes me feel, and why.
Amble: I’ve always thought that listening to Geogaddi was the equivalent of getting your brain massaged or explored by someone or something whom you don’t quite know whether to trust. This album could certainly narrate the experience of getting abducted and probed by aliens, an experience so foreign and strange that you wouldn’t even be sure whether you ought to be scared or not. Equal parts beautiful and terrifying, it is truly a record like no other.
The album opens with the aptly-titled “Ready Let’s Go”, a 1-minute track comprised entirely of a fuzzy, wavering drone and some gyrating background effects that simulates what it must sound like to be beamed up into a UFO and abducted away from everything you’ve ever known, perfectly setting up the next 65 minutes.
The next track, “Music is Math”, starts out space-y at first, but jumps straight to its thin, but thumping beat, which, along with a sample that repeatedly utters “the past inside the present”, leads into the swirling synth cycle that follows soon after. When I think of what “the past inside the present” really is, I conclude that it’s the process of memory recall: I am bringing the past (memories) to the present (via the recollection of those memories). What follows in the second half of the song is us floating past and through these distorted and echo-y voices, which barely even sound human anymore. This could be the part after the abduction where the aliens have given us a sedative that gives us a brief flash through our lives as we fall unconscious on their operating room table.
Track 3 is brief, but effective. What sounds like record player fuzz occupies the background of these creepy looping synth noises that could belong to an abandoned and decrepit merry-go-round. When combined with the equally creepy title, “Beware the Friendly Stranger”, it makes this little piece pretty memorable.
The next track, “Gyroscope”, is one of my favorites and one of the best on the album. It begins with these distorted and totally evil, almost tribal, drum beats. We then get what seems to be a looping sample of a child attempting to count to 10, and repeatedly failing before they’re able to get there. The count eventually becomes random and nonsensical, almost like the child is either seizing, disfigured, or just plain too young to know how to count and is just babbling along. Either way, it strikes me as an attempt to flash forth those memories of when we’re too scared or anxious in front of others to follow a simple command, and end up just spilling nonsense. Holy hell, what a track.
Another quite common theme in BoC’s music is nature, and perhaps our (negative) effect on it. We get the first of a few of what appears to be samples from nature documentaries with track 5, “Dandelion”. The reversed synths and their raising and lowering loudness along with these samples (which we learn begin to loop back near the end) give off a surreal feeling of confusion. We’re in a waiting room between probings and the aliens are showing us a nature clip they found (voiced by none other than Leslie Nielsen), hoping we can explain to them what is going on.
“Sunshine Recorder” could probably pass for a track from their previous record, or even their last EP, especially with the “a beautiful place” and “an eagle in your mind” sample. We get a pretty consistent shuffling percussion through the track, and some strange muttering and groaning child noises. Eventually, we reach a section with prismatic flashes of voices, simulating a slow and lonely loosening of our grip on reality. They’ve taken us to the observation deck where we slowly watch the planets pass by as we wave bye-bye (to our sanity as well).
“In the Annexe” is the title of a melancholy little interlude, which when combined with the faint samples of birds singing, puts us in some type of cell or place of containment. We put our ear to the wall and hear the rest of the world and yearn to be there, yet we know that we’re stuck here for the time being.
Next, “Julie and Candy”. Holy…what the hell is going on? What is that chaotic rumbling at the beginning, are we leaving this universe at light speed? We’d better go to a safe place in our mind to free ourselves of this fear. We could try and escape too…Oh look, we’ve made it out of the ship but have fallen into the ocean, and it’s pitch black outside. We’re swimming and scared and we don’t know where we are or where we’re going. We’re damn near drowning in the thickness and coldness of this murky, constricting track. And just when we thought we’d get away, they’ve found us again. And right at the end, they’ve grabbed us by our arms and taken away our chance for freedom.
The “Smallest Weird Number” is kind of a continuation of the previous track. A sad resolution of sorts. The aliens are dragging us back to the ship as we hear the beach waves and bird squawks in a disoriented haze, and the ship reverses back away off of whatever space rock we had found ourselves on. Fun fact: The smallest weird number is 70.
“1969” is the next track, and is pretty unsettling with it’s repetitive sample of someone referring to a small religious group and its leader, which BoC have referred to before, who have a history that began with positivity and hopefulness, and ended in tragedy. Maybe “1969 in the sunshine” is that place and point in time of optimistic naiveté that opens the door for bad things to happen. Also a pretty easy track to tap your foot along to, which is impressive for something so psychedelic. Makes me feel like I’m being sucked into a whirlpool made of lava.
With the plainly-named “Energy Warning” we get our next, quite brief, interlude of a nature-themed sample. A student is talking about energy conservation and the importance of doing our part in contributing to it. We all remember doing one of those science reports about the environment for school when we were young, right? So do BoC.
It’s about the halfway mark of the record now and we’ve pretty much lost any hope of escaping this place. There’s a certain calmness to this realization. The windy, watery, flowy noises that run through “The Beach at Redpoint” provide a good background to the wandering, hazy beat and the trippy atmosphere of the track. We’re alone again and wandering aimlessly around the dark corridors of the ship, feeling colder and more tired by the second. It’s on Opening the Mouth where we then lean on a wall for support, give into the heaviness of the daze, and slide to the floor to drift into unconsciousness.
Cue the start of “Alpha and Omega”. We’re dreaming now, and exploring the images and memories that crop up in our mind as the tinny drums are tapped away at. This track is abundant with various voices and words, barely intelligible, yet quite provoking. What sounds like some type of wooden flute invokes a kind of hot and desert-like atmosphere, quite the opposite of the water we were drowning in earlier. Maybe now we’re taking a walk down all of the strange random encounters we’ve made throughout our lives, encounters we’d rather forget. Some type of strange signal noise crops up at the 5-minute mark. People with questionable intentions are trying to lure you into dark places, and all you want to do is get away safely. One in particular grabs your full attention and now you’re tuned into their station.
Boards Of Canada Geogaddi Vinyl
“I Saw Drones” is the shortest track on the album, and serves as a sort of transitional piece. We’re slowly regaining consciousness and coming out of that weird daze.
The next track is undoubtedly one of the creepiest, most unsettling but memorable parts of the entire record. “The Devil is in the Details” isn’t even intense or chaotic, it’s just plain unnerving. A voice that is so distorted that it sounds underwater begins a lengthy attempt at what sounds like some sort of “bedside manner”, as we hear a toddler crying out in the background. This is exactly what you would hear if you were a mosquito that got caught inside a spider’s web, and the spider were to talk to you and try to soothe you as it slowly weaves you into a silk cocoon, to be consumed later. Maybe we’ve awoken to discover ourselves to again be on the operating table, except this time the aliens have thoroughly analyzed our brain enough to have learned some human speech, and are attempting to calm us down as they continue with its experimentation. Our inner child knows this is strange and insincere, and is resisting this attempt by crying out from within us.
Track 17, “A is to B as B is to C”, raises a few questions, namely, “Is the worst part over?” and “What was the purpose of this journey?” Well, maybe the purpose was to face what we are fearful of. We get a sample of a man, possibly a teacher, lightheartedly counting to 10 with ease, possibly a callback to “Gyroscope”. We then experience some slightly weird vacillations as we’re led into the calm and surprisingly ambient “Over the Horizon Radar”. We’re now content and relieved after learning that yes, the experiment is over, and we’ve made it through alive, though possibly changed forever. This track serves as a nice little breath of air in preparation for my personal favorite track and perhaps the climax of the entire record, “Dawn Chorus”.
What starts with some trippy little lo-fi twinklings soon becomes a stunning spectacle of glimpses into our future as a society. Maybe now we’re getting an answer to the first question of the purpose of this journey. Using their exploration of our brain, the aliens were able to build a visual prediction of what life will be like 100, 200, 500, or even 1000 years from now, and have allowed us a peek into this world. There is a recurring sample of a child being utterly astounded by something they see, and letting out an audible “ahhh!”, “oh!”, and “whoa!”. The climaxing synths and airy beat only serve to enhance this expression of amazement. Indifferent to the judgment of the vision being good or bad, it’s the recalling of that childlike sense of staggering wonderment and awe that is conveyed so beautifully in this track. A thrilling and monumentally rousing cut from the record.
“Diving Station” feels like the end of an experience, a resolution similar to “The Smallest Weird Number”, but a happy one this time. It feels like going home.
Geogaddi Meaning
With “You Could Feel the Sky”, we get a repetition of what sounds like scratching or some type cranking or lace-pulling noise. A simple little snare hit carries us along as we try and piece together and re-inhabit the person we were before we began this journey. Maybe now we’re trying to get ready to go back to our normal life, if that’s even possible after all we’ve experienced.
The last “real” track, “Corsair”, is an oddly soothing drone-y bit that serves as the album’s closer. This hazy, almost foggy, track evokes the feeling that maybe what we’ve just experienced is not as scary as the regular, normal life that we’re about to go back to. Maybe all of the frightening recollections that we’ve had to stare straight in the face during the last hour were not as bad as they had originally seemed. Maybe we’re a better, and even stronger, person than we originally were before. Instead of running away or trying to bury the things that disturb or scare us, could it be that it’s better to meet them head-on, shake hands with them, maybe even put our arm around them? We’re left to ponder this for the two minutes of silence that follows with the last track on Geogaddi, “Magic Window”, rounding out the album to 66 minutes and 6 seconds (a totally on-the-nose gimmick, but kind of a fun one, so I’ll give them a pass for that).
I’ll end the review here with hopes that my way of explaining the way I feel about this album wasn’t too grating for you. I purposefully avoided talking about the concrete details of the record like the album cover or the stories behind the songs. I don’t know if many, or any, of you have a similar experience to me whenever I put this record on. All I can say at the end of the day is that it is one of the few records that transports me to another place, and is incredibly successful at stirring feelings, both positive and negative, in me multiple times throughout. Boards of Canada have made a 2nd masterpiece, and one that I prefer on most days. They created an atmosphere that is inimitable and wholly unique, and allowed me to explore places that other music simply cannot reach, resulting in quite a catharsis each time. I hope you enjoy this record as much as I do.
Favorite Lyrics by /u/the_chillosopher
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
“Corsair”
Talking Points
Do you, as a listener, buy into all of the Satanic/occult/evil themes that have been embedded into this record? Are they interesting to you? Why or why not?
Is this record inherently spooky, or is that feeling something that the listener derives from within him/herself? What type of mood do you have when you listen to this?
What specifically draws you into listening to this record? What do you enjoy about Geogaddi? If you don’t enjoy it, do you still rate it highly?
Mathematics is a big part of BoC’s work. Why do you think that is, and what role do you think it plays in their music?
Which do you prefer, this record or Music Has the Right to Children (or another BoC album perhaps)? Why?
Thanks again to /u/The_Chillosopher for the fantastic writeup! Next week, barring a schedule change, /u/Fyuur will be talking about Krill's Lucky Leaves. If you'd like to write for FYC, send me a DM with the album, artist, and maybe a bit about why you'd like to write about it. You'll be added to the schedule, which you can find in the comments below. Thanks for reading!