Disco de Boards of Canada: “Music Has the Right to Children”

The first full-length album of BoC is a masterpiece of sorts. The material is accurately chosen and sorted in a way to resemble a "mini suite". The music shows influences from various musicians, but always manages to be original. "Telephasic Workshps" is a bit of "My life in the bust of ghosts" (especially "Mea Culpa"); "Turquoise Exagon Sun" has trip-hop overtones (of the Portishead variety). Electric piano and Moog (with additional sound treatment) are ubiquitous, providing a pleasant progressive (say, Tangerine Dream) and/or electric jazz touch to the songs. And are the numbers in "Aquarius" a little quotation from "Einstein on the Beach" by Glass? Overall, I would play the influence of Autechre (and AFX) down: it is present in the rythm programming, but not overwhelming. BOC is not rythm-driven as Autechre or AFX, but rather melody-driven. In fact, what I most liked in this CD is the beauty of the progression of the chords. The melodies are original and never trivial. Sandison and Eoin seem musicians-turned-musicians and not DJs-turned-musicians. This is what makes a BOC piece so easy to recognize and fresh.

A recommended CD for any fan of high-quality electronica who wants to listen to something different than the usual suspects.

I'm not one to go dishing out the five star reviews with casual disregard, but this album really defies superlatives.

On music has the right to children, BOC have tapped into all the strangeness and magic of early childhood memories. The songs envelop the listener with sounds and textures that seem so familiar, that they could almost be memories. I know that much of the music has been culled from those old educational videos of sperwhales mating and what not, but BOC have created something entirely their own with it. Their beats are intricate and often innovative, listen to the chopped up voices on the fourth track, but never too demanding for meditative listening. The sounds swoop and crackle in a really human way. I wish everyone who thinks there's no heart and soul in electronic music was forced to listen to this album until they ate their words!!!

But this album and listen to it late it night. It'll take you places you've long forgotten about, like a patch of nettles on a Summer's day or climbing a skeletal tree on a windy wet afternoon, hands cold and covered in dirt. I swear you'll never hear anything else like it, Until the next BOC release of course.

Five stars, and I really mean it!!!!!!

Boards Of Canada's first full-length is a beautiful work, encompassing some of the most evocative and sweet synth lines ever committed to tape. Similar to the early work of Aphex Twin and Autechre, the duo blends soft melodies with catchy trip-hop beats, creating ever-evolving complex soundscapes ("An Eagle In Your Mind", "Telepashic Workshop"), soothing compositions ("Turquoise Hexagon Sun", "Pete Standing Alone") and child-like digital age funk ("Aquarius"). Other highlights include "Sixtyten", which would sound perfectly at home on a hip-hop record and "Roygbiv", the group's signature ambient pop song.

Filling between these tracks are minute-long tunes, which delight as much as the longer ones, showing just how much attention Boards Of Canada are paying to detail. The only disappointment comes from the exaggeratedly repetitive "Rue The Whirl", which only manages to save itself toward the end. Thankfully, when taken in context with the other songs, it's hardly more than a simple distraction.

What truly makes this record tower above all its peers though, is its sense of melody: no other IDM artists have managed to create such consistently memorable (and enjoyable) set of songs. Thus, the record's appeal is universal: it's perfect if you wish to familiarize yourself or a friend with the genre.

Ultimately, "Music Has The Right To Children" is a very satisfying release, and it overshadows nearly every IDM album to have appeared in the last few years. It is highly recommended for anyone.

Honestly, I don't even particularly like IDM (Intelligent Dance Music), but I find myself listening to this album constantly. From the title of the album and its various tracks ("Roygbiv," "Sixtyten," "Pete Standing Alone"), it's pretty clear that the major theme of the album is childhood. BoC juxtaposes warped and distorted sounds from old gradeschool documentaries from the 70's and 80's against hip hop beats to capture the feelings of uncertainty, mystery, and fear associated with childhood. Don't ask me how it works, but it does.

Music Has the Right to Children has the ability to recall vague, surreal memories of kindergarten playgrounds and all the polarized feelings the listener associates with that time in his or her life. At times the album is warm and inviting ("Telephasic Workshop" and "Aquarius" are two tracks that spring to mind), but for the most part the various tracks of the album have somewhat cold and sinister undertones (A little girl is sampled saying "I love you" in "The Color of Fire," and it always gives me the chills).

In my opinion, what is great about Music has the Right to Children is that it is able to so effectively conjure all the complex memories of childhood emotions without ever sounding like twee. At no point does this music ever remind me of the songs I learned when I was a kid. The music is deep, brooding, and at times even scary, but it never looses sight of its intention. Honestly, I think several tracks (namely "Rue the Whirl" and "Happy Cycling") are a bit repetitive and meandering, but for the most part the album definitely succeeds in the sheer range of feelings it is able to achieve.

My personal favorite tracks are the consecutive "Bocuma" and "Roygbiv". "Bocuma" is a distorted, swirling, ambient track that uses a simple documentary sound sample and turns it into the mystery of something like seeing a balloon drift in the sky for the first time or a dragonfly lighting on a dandelion. It is abruptly interrupted by the bold, sinister first strains of "Roygbiv," which first evokes a feeling of fear, but quickly becomes one of the most beautiful tracks on the album.

It's an album that takes a little effort to completely enjoy for what it is, a masterpiece, but it's also one that anyone should be able to understand. The buyer should bear in mind that BoC albums are often extremely hard to locate in chain stores, so it would probably be best to order this album online, at say, amazon.com, for instance. :)

There are two factors to consider when I say that the music on Boards of Canada's "Music Has the Right to Children" is full of some of the warmest music available today, and not just in the field of electronica. The first it that the two members of Boards of Canada come from a snow-filled region of northern Scotland. The second is that Boards of Canada put out music on Britain's Warp and Skam labels, both known for their cutting-edge IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) releases, much of which has a decidely inorganic, or 'cold' feeling to it.

Unlike fellow Warp artists like Autechre and Aphex Twin (with whom I have often seen Boards compared), these two Scots create electronic songs which, while rich in electronic texture, harken back to the late 1970s, specifically the music of public television (Boards of Canada are named for the Film Boards of Canada, which produced a number of documentaries in the 1970s). Still, the music is always looking to the future. A combination of warm synth loops, intricate electronic and hip-hop flavored beats, and a myriad of sounds and voices (but not words) create an extremely tasteful and innovative blend of electronica that makes one feel like a child (especially if one was born in the 1970s).

While certain tracks like 'Smokes Quantity' and the very mellow 'Turquoise Hexagon Sun' are culled from earlier hard-to-find British releases, most are specific to this album. The build-up of textures in 'Telephasic Workshop' is one of the album's highest points, as is the short but anthemic 'roygbiv,' and the majestic 'An Eagle In Your Mind.' There are really no throwaway tracks on the album, and it works equally as well as background music as it does as album to listen to intently.

"Music Has the Right to Children" is an album I have yet to get tired of. It's been in heavy rotation on my stereo for well over a year. Boards of Canada have been making music together for over a decade, and while this is their first release available in America, let's hope there are many more.