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"Rue the Whirl" - Boards of Canada

Boards of Canada are my favorite electronic artists. They stem from the remote seeds of Can, Kraftwerk and French electronics guru Jean Jacques Perry, though their sound is completely their own. The first time I heard Geogaddi I was floored. At that time I hadn't listened to electronica but had started hearing its influences in some of the more mainstream indie rock that I had been exposed to. Geogaddi caught me off guard... in a really good way.

Since then I've continued to listen to many facets of electronica and count it among my favorites types of music. Boards of Canada rate high for me, in part, because of their endlessly shifting and interlocking beats. The pounding electro feel and cerebral, hypnotic flow attaches itself to my brain - I can't stop hearing the beats in my head. Their approach is haunting, and while their techniques of minimal scratching, relaxed hip hop beats and synth accompaniments aren't groundbreaking, Music Has A Right To Children can arguably be considered the best electronic album of 1998.

"Rue The Whirl" is a very solid track. Its swirling synths and infectious beats pace this song very well — the same rhythym is repeated over and over but it seems new every time it cycles around. There are minor additions and subtractions throughout this song with a solid two bar bit repeated from beginning to end. The best part about this song is the feel it gives you — you bob your head, you become entranced. It's accessible IDM. It doesn't make your head hurt with shrill feedback or sharp guitars. It makes you want to cruise around in your '89 Civic and pimp it like it's a '64 Impala.

Now those are what I call sweet beats, man.

 

Thursday, January 24, 2008
by Imaginary Shrie

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1   Imaginary Shrie said on January 25, 2008

Oh come one... no love for Boards of Canada? Seriously, this album is premium!

2   Erik Gonzalez said on January 25, 2008

I am fond of Boards of Canada, although I think they hit their peak on "In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country"

3   Big T-Ton said on January 25, 2008

I have to agree with you. This Boards of Canada album is one of those few albums that I can listen to over and over again, without getting bored. It is also an excellent traveling companion.

4   Imaginary Shrie said on January 25, 2008

it IS an excellent traveling companion. moving from Texas to WA this album was a staple.

"In A Beautiful Place Out in the Country" is also good. As is "Geogaddi". "Music Has A Right.." is just it for me. I get my music boner for that album.

5   cosby said on January 28, 2008

i remember in 1998, previous to a million blogs and p2p's that allowed to get whatever whenever, when there were a lot of murmurs about boards of canada's then new album on warp records (which was in a bit of a rut at the time). i can honestly say that i was apprehensive to hop on the bandwagon, but a friend of mine somehow got a copy of the 'hi scores' ep on skam (the release previous to 'music has a right') and we listened to it three times back to back to back one night. i ordered the album from a cd store that allowed me to special order anything in their distributor's catalog and were nice enough to call me when things came in (leaving messages trying to pronounce names like funkstorung and nobukazu takemura)

'music has a right' is one of my favorite albums all time. i listened to this a hundred times during college and probably a hundred times since and i can still listen to it today.

for some fun, check out the page and pages of possible religious references throughout their music (including the reason for 'magic window', a silent track at the end of 'geogaddi', and a possible hidden picture of david koresh on the liner art of 'in a beautiful place out in the country').

6   Imaginary Shrie said on January 28, 2008

Yep! The religious references are very apparent if you look hard enough. And BoC is hard to ignore once you get sucked in. It's great that other people love this album as much as I do.

7   Buy Beats said on July 21, 2008

I absolutely love BOC!

8   Lost & Never Found said on November 20, 2009

I happened to come across Boards of Canada by complete chance. I was listening to Adult Swim music one day and during one of their bumps for the anime, "InuYasha" I heard an eerie yet strangely attractive song. It was comprised of faint, static sounding radio. Turns out it was "Sherbert Head". From that point on I was hooked. As far as my favorite album, I can't say with complete certainty, but I'm probably leaning towards "The Campfire Headphase".

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