Slipping into a new Boards Of Canada album is very much
like trying on a new pair of slippers. Although it is
all new, certainly a bit stiff and smells fresh, the
gentle soundscapes and melodies feel instantly comfortable
and safe. With most acts, it would somewhat feel disappointing
at the very least, and more than likely frustrating.
Yet, Mike Sandison and Marcus Eion, the brains behind
Boards Of Canada, manage to make this feel very much
a natural process.
The Campfire Headphase comes three and a half
years after the last proper Boards Of Canada outing,
and very much like its predecessor, there is something
of a slight déjà-vu about it. Yet, like
Geogaddi, it
somehow sets to imperceptibly infiltrate the mind and
play with the subconscious and reveal hidden depths
as only a Boards Of Canada album can. The album opens
with the cloudy Into The Rainbow Vein, a short
intro that leads to the meatier Chromakey Dreamcoat.
Here, the listener is faced with the debilitating revolutions
of a guitar loop placed over a hip-hop-infused drum
pattern and a classic sepia-toned backdrop. At times
reminiscent of the band’s remix of cLOUDDEAD’s
Dead Dogs Two
of last year, this track, with layers of real instruments
left hovering clearly over typically textured soundscapes,
settles the score for most of the album.
The refined melody of the epic Peacock Tail,
one of the standout tracks of The Campfire Headphase,
sees the pair applying guitars in much moodier fashion,
playing on the various cinematic elements of their sonic
realm to reach a truly impressive emotional peak. Dayvan
Cowboy continues on the same path for its first
half, but the guitars become sharper later as the melancholic
imprint of a violin, amplified and treated, casts its
shadow on a much more pastoral scenery.
Elsewhere, the pair appear to return to more purely
electronic textures. On tracks such as Oscar See
Through Red Eye or Slow This Bird Down,
Eion and Sandison push elegant soundwaves back to the
forefront, with additional noises crossing the scope
at regular interval to distract the mind away from the
main musical elements which they then gently distort.
In a recent interview with British magazine The Wire,
Eoin and Sandison talked at length of the aging process
applied to their compositions. Rejecting the clean-cut
digital perfection option in favour of more organic
structures, Boards Of Canada deliberately infuse defects
within their soundscapes, which contributes to the rampant
melancholy of in their music. When applied to guitars,
this process reveals the rich golden tones of a setting
sun and, combined with BoC’s impeccable melodic
sense, adds to the natural relief of the tracks on offer
here.
Very much like Geogaddi
before it, The Campfire Headphase requires a
few listens to shake off the impression of comfort initially
implied by the band’s sound, and reveal its hidden
beauty. Although coming a full seven years after the
seminal Music Has The Right
To Children, this latest opus cannot escape
the monumental shadow of the band’s debut album,
so impressive and different it was from anything else
around. Yet, The Campfire Headphase sees the
band exploring new avenues and re-thinking their musical
template, while remaining faithful to the very essence
of their work. While the duo remain firmly on familiar
grounds with this latest album, they still manage to
produce a truly captivating piece of work.
4/5 |
