GENERAL NEW RELEASE SPECULATION TOPIC

[Mozart]

My personal theory is by the time they put out their final album (which I don't think the next album will be their last) then they will reward us with the boxset. But who knows if that'll ever even happen, and I certainly wouldn't bet on it by any means. It would kind of ruin the mystique of Boards of Canada, and something tells me from what I've read that a lot of the ideas are unpolished, raw works in progress. They're probably just central ideas for tracks that were jotted down in case they wanted to expand on them later. That would still be awesome to hear, but I personally wouldn't get my hopes up for them anytime soon either. Although I must mention that there is a quote of MDG's from 2008 (oof) that states, "At this point, the box set of early material is looking 99% likely to happen. I say that because it hasn't been finally compiled yet. There's a big archive to get through, the obvious tracks that were on various demos and mixtapes given out to friends in the late eighties and early nineties, but also a huge amount of unreleased material that hasn't surfaced so far. There are hundreds of tracks for every year from say 1986 through to 1995, and then for every record BOC have released there are a mountain of tracks that didn't make it onto the record. So the time involved is the only issue from what I understand. There's been regular debate across here about what goes on them and in what order etc."

[GeoDose]

An interesting social experiment on their part would be to release what APPEARS to be a new album, but they leave in subtle hints that indicate the songs are actually outtakes written during TCH and TH. Or even just rough demos that they decided to put the finishing touches on and develop into a cohesive whole.

I wouldn't even be mad, I'd think it was neat to be honest

[Echelon]

I still feel there was a reason that Boards of Canada brought attention to themselves with Societas X Tape. Unless they were contractually obligated, I do feel it hints at a future in the past for BOC.

I've been paying close attention to the blank Bleepstore page, hoping one day, a ripe BOC set might sprout from it, or at least, something intriguing.

I forget where MDG said this but he said the gap wouldn't be as long as Trans Canada Highway was to Tomorrow's Harvest. Considering it's been 6 years, and it took 7 years for TH to come out, we may have something on the horizon.

In the meantime, I've actually refrained from listening to a few BOC tracks, the old tunes compilations and the live concerts so I have plenty of stuff to wade through in the meantime.

[Valotonin]

I still feel there was a reason that Boards of Canada brought attention to themselves with Societas X Tape. Unless they were contractually obligated, I do feel it hints at a future in the past for BOC.

I've been paying close attention to the blank Bleepstore page, hoping one day, a ripe BOC set might sprout from it, or at least, something intriguing.

I forget where MDG said this but he said the gap wouldn't be as long as Trans Canada Highway was to Tomorrow's Harvest. Considering it's been 6 years, and it took 7 years for TH to come out, we may have something on the horizon.

In the meantime, I've actually refrained from listening to a few BOC tracks, the old tunes compilations and the live concerts so I have plenty of stuff to wade through in the meantime.

As far as I can recall, boards directly stated in an interview that it wouldn't be as long a bridge between TH and the following release as it was between Trans Canada and TH. I could be mistaken, though.

What that really means is that they don't intend for it to be as long. It takes as long as it takes and any project of this nature is bound to run into hindrances.

[Echelon]

I still feel there was a reason that Boards of Canada brought attention to themselves with Societas X Tape. Unless they were contractually obligated, I do feel it hints at a future in the past for BOC.

I've been paying close attention to the blank Bleepstore page, hoping one day, a ripe BOC set might sprout from it, or at least, something intriguing.

I forget where MDG said this but he said the gap wouldn't be as long as Trans Canada Highway was to Tomorrow's Harvest. Considering it's been 6 years, and it took 7 years for TH to come out, we may have something on the horizon.

In the meantime, I've actually refrained from listening to a few BOC tracks, the old tunes compilations and the live concerts so I have plenty of stuff to wade through in the meantime.

As far as I can recall, boards directly stated in an interview that it wouldn't be as long a bridge between TH and the following release as it was between Trans Canada and TH. I could be mistaken, though.

What that really means is that they don't intend for it to be as long. It takes as long as it takes and any project of this nature is bound to run into hindrances.

After reading some interviews from them on BOC pages, I totally understand this and have some insight on why the process takes so long.. They love dismantling their equipment and "aging" their sounds and they say it takes a lot of time.

Also a recent listen to the Campfire Headphase has really impressed me with the amount of layers that go into each composition. There's a reason they sound like no one else.

[Josh]

I want to say something that might not go over well with people and I don't mean to offend anyone and what I'm about to try to coherently express is simply my own opinion. I don't intend to bully anyone into my way of thinking. So, with that said...

I'll never fully understand the borderline obsession some people have over the unreleased material. I've listened to Old Tunes and R35TT many times and yes, some of it is terrific and all of it is very interesting as it demonstrates how their techniques and sensibilities have evolved over time. And don't get me wrong, if I had a chance to hear Hooper Bay or any other unreleased BoC material, I'd gladly listen to it. My thing is that I don't expect any of the unreleased material to be as good as the music that's available. I don't share this belief that Acid Memories or Hooper Bay for example is like some Holy Grail that would totally blow me away and surpass what they've done since they started releasing their music on labels.

My impression/guess/intuition is that BoC is holding back on releasing old material because they don't think it's as good as what they've done and are doing now. Also, if the amount of material they have is so massive and spans so many years, including a lot of stuff that's not fully realized -- as we are led to believe, it would be an enormous undertaking to assemble, produce, package and distribute. It may just be a matter of being too great of an undertaking that they feel isn't worthwhile. Some have suggested they should just dump a ton of stuff on Soundcloud or something like Aphex Twin, but that doesn't really seem to me to be their style of doing things nor does it solve the problem of compiling, collating, tweaking/finishing tracks before releasing them.

Another thing is, they seem to hold on to all this material for possible future use in new music. We know that they do this. They have shown that they will dig through their archives and take bits from years past and re-purpose and insert it into new compositions. Could that be another factor as to why we don't have more old tunes? I think it's possible.

Anyway, the main thing for anyone to take away from this rambling diatribe if anything is that I'm much more interested in where BoC is going than where they've been. Again, It's not that I'm uninterested in hearing their old music, but I think they have shown tremendous growth and an incredible level of quality with each successive release. This is why I'm somewhat confounded when people seem to be hyper-focused on the unreleased music. Okay, that's enough. If you read this whole thing, thank you for allowing me to get that off my chest.

[Echelon]

I want to say something that might not go over well with people and I don't mean to offend anyone and what I'm about to try to coherently express is simply my own opinion. I don't intend to bully anyone into my way of thinking. So, with that said...

I'll never fully understand the borderline obsession some people have over the unreleased material. I've listened to Old Tunes and R35TT many times and yes, some of it is terrific and all of it is very interesting as it demonstrates how their techniques and sensibilities have evolved over time. And don't get me wrong, if I had a chance to hear Hooper Bay or any other unreleased BoC material, I'd gladly listen to it. My thing is that I don't expect any of the unreleased material to be as good as the music that's available. I don't share this belief that Acid Memories or Hooper Bay for example is like some Holy Grail that would totally blow me away and surpass what they've done since they started releasing their music on labels.

My impression/guess/intuition is that BoC is holding back on releasing old material because they don't think it's as good as what they've done and are doing now. Also, if the amount of material they have is so massive and spans so many years, including a lot of stuff that's not fully realized -- as we are led to believe, it would be an enormous undertaking to assemble, produce, package and distribute. It may just be a matter of being too great of an undertaking that they feel isn't worthwhile. Some have suggested they should just dump a ton of stuff on Soundcloud or something like Aphex Twin, but that doesn't really seem to me to be their style of doing things nor does it solve the problem of compiling, collating, tweaking/finishing tracks before releasing them.

Another thing is, they seem to hold on to all this material for possible future use in new music. We know that they do this. They have shown that they will dig through their archives and take bits from years past and re-purpose and insert it into new compositions. Could that be another factor as to why we don't have more old tunes? I think it's possible.

Anyway, the main thing for anyone to take away from this rambling diatribe if anything is that I'm much more interested in where BoC is going than where they've been. Again, It's not that I'm uninterested in hearing their old music, but I think they have shown tremendous growth and an incredible level of quality with each successive release. This is why I'm somewhat confounded when people seem to be hyper-focused on the unreleased music. Okay, that's enough. If you read this whole thing, thank you for allowing me to get that off my chest.

I will say one thing in response to this, I know where you're coming from. I just took a listen to R35TT and while there is tons of great stuff and their talent is present, I would be pretty annoyed if they polished up B05 and released it. That track is a prime example of them dicking around in their youth. A seemingly random loop of notes with an admittedly cool keyboard tone that no doubt gets boring when you realize it never develops. There are a few tracks on R35TT that are similar to this too.

I don't believe B05 is on any of their earlier EP though. I think even in their youth they had a good sense of thematics not to include anything like that on their albums.

Still, what a cool keyboard tone. So ice-y and sharp. Would be cool if they used that for a more developed composition.

[Geogandhi]

Totally agree Josh.
there ARE some diamonds on all the old tapes no doubt but they are what they are, old tunes that show us that they are human, a history of how they developed their style, which of course is cool. They should stay exactly as they are, as we have them, they shouldn't be meddled with, no remastering, no compiling. We have them already. If they wanted to leak out the older stuff we don't have, say on SC, then great, amazing. But we'd live without it and to be honest, I believe some if not most are on the random tape anyway.
Of course there is nothing wrong with stepping over from BoC music fan to obsessive completionist so I definitely can see why people want a box set.
I personally want to hear new music even if it is reused old ideas from previous albums. loads of artists do this, radiohead showed they do it with their last album and the leak,said recently that they do it all the time, I do it too. Some old ideas keep cropping up and as you progress over years you can take old ideas into new territory which were not possible before.

[Josh]

Totally agree Josh.
there ARE some diamonds on all the old tapes no doubt but they are what they are, old tunes that show us that they are human, a history of how they developed their style, which of course is cool. They should stay exactly as they are, as we have them, they shouldn't be meddled with, no remastering, no compiling. We have them already. If they wanted to leak out the older stuff we don't have, say on SC, then great, amazing. But we'd live without it and to be honest, I believe some if not most are on the random tape anyway.
Of course there is nothing wrong with stepping over from BoC music fan to obsessive completionist so I definitely can see why people want a box set.
I personally want to hear new music even if it is reused old ideas from previous albums. loads of artists do this, radiohead showed they do it with their last album and the leak,said recently that they do it all the time, I do it too. Some old ideas keep cropping up and as you progress over years you can take old ideas into new territory which were not possible before.

I agree with your agreement.

Of course, I could be way off base with everything I've said. Tomorrow may bring an announcement that the long sought after "BoCset" will become reality in the near future. If that happens, I'll be happy and even happier for the people who've been holding out hope for this for years now. My only concern is that if such a thing were to happen, would it live up to the extremely high expectations people have? So much has been discussed about it for so long is it even possible at this point? Maybe. Probably. I dunno.

[arvy]

I wonder if they know how to play certain sounds, that it will trigger certain feelings in people minds. I recently started to think that memories of your past mostly are connected to happy moments. It is also related, that your memory, that I think is generally responsible for the overall good state of mind. The loss of certain memory could lead to a very deep depression. A creative mind is that keeps us going. If we lose it, what's then?

[Soul_Slip]

I wonder if they know how to play certain sounds, that it will trigger certain feelings in people minds. I recently started to think that memories of your past mostly are connected to happy moments. It is also related, that your memory, that I think is generally responsible for the overall good state of mind. The loss of certain memory could lead to a very deep depression. A creative mind is that keeps us going. If we lose it, what's then?

“...Nothing Is Real”

[Echelon]

When BOC said that their next album.release would hopefully be released in a much shorter time than their previous album, I wonder if they were referring to the time span between Trans Canada Highway and Tomorrow's Harvest or The Campfire Headphase and TH. If they're actually referring to the latter, than they still have "self imposed deadline" of two years.

Honestly though, I have good feelings about 2020. It's one year before their "deadline" and it seems like the kind of number they might like. That and I think Societas X tape was a way to draw attention to them in addition to saying "We're still alive." Don't know if there were any numbers hidden in there but perhaps they could point to the future too.

Don't know how they feel about it, but I mean we've got a month of pot (4/20) next year too.

I am on the hopeful side, even if I'm mostly going by old interviews and statements from MDG. Who knows what their real status is.

[chronical]

Maybe we'll get another Societas tape in 20 years I wonder if they used to broadcast something like this on ham radio or the like. And no one heard it except old Lucy up the mountain feeding her bird grooving to Killing Joke demo tapes

[Echelon]

Maybe we'll get another Societas tape in 20 years I wonder if they used to broadcast something like this on ham radio or the like. And no one heard it except old Lucy up the mountain feeding her bird grooving to Killing Joke demo tapes

As I said, I'm just hopeful but then again, I've only been on the BOC hype train since 2016. Could be a road of further silence and disappointment.

Man, what I wouldn't do to be a BOC fan from 1998 to 2006 back when they actually released stuff every few years that wasn't just a remix.

[Mozart]

Give it a bit longer

[dustbowl27]

Give it a bit longer

[Echelon]

"No matter where we go next, we want people to know that we'll keep returning to our roots, because we love our early records."

I wonder if this still rings true. I always thought that after the bleakness of Tomorrow's Harvest, there were beautiful flowers growing through the desolate cracks with the Sometimes remix.

[Valotonin]

there were beautiful flowers growing through the desolate cracks with the Sometimes remix.

nicely written

nature always reclaims its self

[Echelon]

there were beautiful flowers growing through the desolate cracks with the Sometimes remix.

nicely written

nature always reclaims its self

Thanks I would love for that to be the future concept. After all the desolation, we're back to pastoral, fertile landscapes. I almost feel the "You okay?" sample was asking about the aftermath of Tomorrow's Harvest and the slow but bright synth drones, gentle piano, and feel-good-harmonies were the response.

[Mozart]