4ll t3h r0b0tz r b3l0|\|g t0 m3 - 3p150d3 0|\|3

Are you in Vermont this summer? Do you listen to 91.1? Have you been wondering what the ambient psychedelism that makes you want to erupt into a giggle fit is all about?

Well, I am in control of the robots - that is, until they develop sentience. But for the time being, they're broadcasting only Boards of Canada.



While at one time they did live there, Boards of Canada actually is currently unaffiliated with our neighbor to the North. Instead, the group consists of two Scottish brothers Marcus Eoin and Michael Sandison. The two have built up quite a mythos surrounding their band. They're part of the artist's collective/cult/Dionysian orgy Hexagon Sun. Their first four releases are nowhere to be found. They openly discuss the role of the psychadelic experience in their music. And they are forever in pursuit of the perfect album.

To get at this elusive goal BoC craft musical fragments using a combination of real instruments, analog electronics, drum machines, samples, digital effects, and anything else they thing sounds cool. Often, the group several hundred ideas only a few seconds long which they then distill into songs. When a group of songs seems to connect in that special way, they've got an album. You see, BoC is not content to merely give you an album of good sounding songs, they're after something much more, in the band's own words, spiritual.

BoC believe that music is close to the divine. They sample melodies reminiscent of nursery rhymes, that get stuck in your head almost universal. They draw inspiration from John Carpenter soundtracks and nature documentaries alike. They fill their records with subliminal messages and numerology -noting the way that science and math pervade the natural, cultural, and artistic. They want you to do more than just passively listen to their work, they want to fell it and become a part of it. So do that, and tune in to 91.1 or stream it.

Wardicus Wednesday #6 - Library Relics

In an effort to be remembered as the music managers who finally got the record library under control, Rachael and I have been spending a lot of time going through the stacks trying to figure ways of better organizing the labyrinth. While not actually succeeding and only finding my way out of the depths by firelight fueled by Ben Kweller albums, I did manage to find some relics of an era of music long since passed. Here they are:





Boards of Canada released their Hi Scores EP in 1996 before any of their major record releases. While not their first record, it is a nice melding of their (at the time) developing sound with some of their influences such as Warp labelmate Aphex Twin.





DC trio and distortion masters Trans Am take simple rock motifs from established bands of the past and expand them. There's something mechanistic about their songs but in a way that makes you believe that the coming robot revolution may be a good thing.





The Last Great Wilderness is the final album by C86ers The Pastels. It is the soundtrack for the David Mackenzie movie of the same name. Bleak and distant, it separates itself from The Pastels normal sound in order to recreate the winter highlands of the band's home as portrayed in the movie. (Also, the movie is pretty good.)





Finding this album apart from other Sleater-Kinney works and refiling it correctly was my personal high point of the work in the library. (Though I realized that people need to play it more and marked it my pick of the month on the shelves in studio.) I remember when the album came out six years ago and, damn, that makes me feel out of touch. At the time I liked it because I was angry and I wanted to rebel and shit and the songs, like, meant something. I still like it because I'm angry but also because every song is perfectly crafted.