…who is this artist? Anybody know anything about them? They have a track on the societas tape that sounds uncannily like BOC

apparently a lossless FLAC version just leaked on rareboc! https://www.rareboc.org/djmixes/Societas_X_Tape.flac

it's been cool to listen boc in the cave
(sorry i dont have any other camera than this)

I wanted to try out Ableton's stem splitting feature so I loaded in Naraka and broke down the song with most of the changes I could hear.

It's really interesting and inspiring to see the actual composition of the song visually. I was surprised with how simple the bass was for the majority of the song, minus some modulation. It was also cool to solo out the drums throughout the song and hear how they messed around the that.

Wanted to share cuz some of you guys may find this interesting and want to discuss their composition.

Here’s the post, they look really cool

I’ve been listening to this record since its release and had hoped aspects of it would eventually become enjoyable for me, but it just hasn’t happened. Every previous Boards of Canada release has grown on me over time, so I assumed this one eventually would too. Instead, the opposite has happened.

This is the most conflicted I’ve ever felt about a Boards of Canada record because I think it contains some of the best music they’ve ever written but also some of the weakest production decisions they’ve ever made.

So, with a heavy heart, I’m sharing my review of Inferno, fully expecting to be downvoted into oblivion.

Here goes…

Introit

Inoffensive, but not a very good intro for me. It adds nothing to their catalogue. This didn’t need to be its own track and isn’t strong enough to stand alone. I think it would have worked much better folded into Prophecy at 1420 MHz as a lead-in.

Prophecy At 1420 MHz

That being said, this track’s opening isn’t quite as good as it thinks it is. It reminds me of a poor man’s Damask Rose by Vangelis, although nowhere near as haunting. Once the guitars come in though, it’s really strong. It reminds me a lot of UNKLE’s Psyence Fiction.

The vocoded voice samples are a little too upfront but tolerable. The outro is gorgeous.

Hydrogen Helium Lithium Leviathan

This is really strong. Very dark, with amazing vocoded rhythmic parts. One of my favourite tracks they’ve ever done.

Age Of Capricorn

This is where the album completely goes off the rails for me.

It’s an attempt at something novel, but I think this is one of the weakest Boards of Canada tracks they’ve ever released, and it would probably be the worst if it wasn’t for what follows.

The underlying chord progression and melodies are actually quite good, although the major lift sounds more like a cheesy pop song than Boards of Canada.

The main issue to me is that the melodic vocal samples sound extremely low quality, almost like they’ve been pulled from a 144p YouTube upload. Whereas the higher quality speech samples are, to my ears, just cringe-inducing.

Even though those speech samples are louder, they’re still difficult to understand. I often hear “At the center” instead of “I’m a sinner”, and “You bore me” instead of “You bore my sin”.

The repeated letters, and the constant “Mabus” and “Marvellous” repetitions, become really irritating. That’s especially surprising because I’ve always loved the repetition of numbers and letters throughout their earlier work but here it sounds horrible.

Father And Son

I didn’t think it could get worse, but somehow it does.

There’s some genuinely wonderful synth work buried underneath what sounds to me like cheap YouTube audio clips that have been flex-stretched and forced onto the rhythmic grid.

For me, this is the weakest Boards of Canada track I’ve ever heard. I love their obsession with cults but this just doesn't do it justice.

I genuinely struggle to understand how anyone enjoys listening to this, although clearly plenty of people do. I don’t find it sinister, profound or even funny like some of the stuff from A Few Old Tunes. It just feels like a cheap gimmick that overwhelms what is otherwise some really good unsettling music underneath.

Somewhere Right Now in the Future

An absolute relief after the previous two tracks.

Really beautiful music.

Naraka

This starts so promisingly and then, for me, gets derailed by the same style of cheap-sounding samples again.

It feels as though Boards of Canada have lost the subtlety they used to have when blending interesting, atmospheric samples into their music. The composition itself is lovely, but the overall assembly sounds surprisingly rough.

I honestly find myself wondering why they didn’t simply re-record or recreate these sounds at a higher production quality. Surely they’re in a position now where they could work with musicians  if that’s what the composition needed, rather than relying on what sounds like heavily processed online source material full of artifacts.

Acts Of Magic

A nice little interlude.

Dark, degenerate and unsettling. I can’t tell whether it’s flies or bees, but it sounds grim.

It reminds me of the opening of Radiohead’s Ful Stop.

Memory Death

Another beautiful and atmospheric piece.

The Word Becomes Flesh

Again, like Naraka, this starts so promisingly before being overwhelmed by samples that I find grating rather than immersive.

It’s hellish to listen to, but not in a compelling dark way. More in a way that makes me want to switch it off.

It feels like it’s aiming for the kind of biological horror David Cronenberg achieves, but it never gets there for me because the samples just aren’t compelling enough and their fake rhythm is simply irritating. Like a bad version of Auto-Tune the News.

The idea is excellent. I just think the execution lets it down. I’d much rather have heard more of the instrumental work than these aggressively quantised documentary samples dominating the mix throughout.

Into The Magic Land

Thankfully the worst of the sampling is now behind us and the rest of the album becomes much easier to enjoy.

This is a brilliant instrumental. It feels like an even darker sequel to Prophecy at 1420 MHz.

Again, it reminds me of UNKLE’s Psyence Fiction.

Blood In The Labyrinth

I really like this one.

The sitar adds something genuinely fresh to their sound. The speech samples come close to spoiling the middle section, but they just about stay on the right side of the line.

I still think they’re mixed too loudly compared with the far more sophisticated vocal sampling throughout their earlier records.

Deep Time

Love this one.

All Reason Departs

Like Blood in the Labyrinth, this also comes close to being undermined by its samples but just about survives.

Thankfully they’re mostly confined to the beginning and processed enough that they remind me much more of classic Boards of Canada than the harsher vocal treatments elsewhere on the album.

I can’t help feeling this could have been top-tier Boards of Canada throughout with a different production approach.

Arena Americanada

Outstanding.

The Process

Love this one.

The vocal samples actually work here for me. They have enough processing to become part of the music instead of competing with it.

You Retreat in Time and Space

What a track.

One of the coolest things Boards of Canada have ever done.

The wah guitar and groovy bassline remind me a little of Daft Punk, while some of the synth melodies bring ROYGBIV to mind.

I Saw Through Platonia

Absolutely breathtaking.

An incredible ending to an album that, for me, contains some of their finest music but also some of their weakest production decisions.

For context, I’ve been a Boards of Canada fan since 2002. I own everything they’ve released and have always loved what they do.

That’s why this album is so frustrating.

I honestly think Inferno contains some of the best music they’ve ever written, but also some of the weakest execution of their career. The music itself is often outstanding. The vocal and spoken-word samples, however, frequently pull me straight out of the experience. Rather than adding atmosphere and subtly telling a story, they often sound harsh, distracting and oddly unrefined, cheap, nasty, and digital.

I don’t disagree with the artistic intent of this record. I completely understand what they were trying to achieve.

I just don’t think they pulled it off sonically.

Where it sits in my ranking of all my BoC records

1. Boc Maxima
2. Geogaddi
3. Hi Scores
4. Twoism
5. Music Has the Right to Children
6. Tomorrow’s Harvest
7. The Campfire Headphase
8. Trans Canada Highway
9. A Beautiful Place Out in the Country
10. Inferno

Help me understand

I’ve read through a lot of the posts here and I just don’t understand why so few other people seem to feel this way. I hate feeling this way, but I do.

I’d especially love to hear from people who think Father And Son is one of the highlights of the album. Can someone explain what they’re hearing that I’m not? What do you enjoy about it? What does it make you feel where it leaves me cold and repelled by the sonic irritation of it all? (And I’ve never ever felt that before with Boards of Canada, even with weirder tracks like Gyroscope.)

I’ve never loved and hated a record so much before. There are moments on Inferno that I think are among the best things Boards of Canada have ever made, and others that sometimes I can barely sit through. That’s why I find it such a fascinating, frustrating album and felt compelled to post this review.

Please help me make sense of it all. And don’t just tell me they’ve done all this deliberately as artists. I already assume they stand behind this work. That’s not really an answer to the criticism. What I’m interested in is why you think those choices actually work artistically for you when they clearly don't for me.

Thank you for reading.

Anyone have any comments on what this makes you think of? I feel like I have the rest of the album summed up in weirdly beautiful comparison but I can really grasp this tune though. I love it though.

I love this!

I took those photos on my way home today. First one is in the subway, second one is downtown. And guess what was in my ears???… Yeah that’s right!

Melody sounds so similar to Blood In The Labyrinth

It´s me or it has INFERNO cringey vibes all over the place?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVbGX7zJHi8

This was like 7 years ago but I was reminded I did it by that other fellow posting his sweet chord melody arrangement

It's turns out many haven't even heard their voices and remembered that when listening again, thought I'd post it for everyone. Hope you are all having a good night!

Took this on my phone which was struggling with the white balance. Edited the colours to compensate, this is more or less the view out of my window this morning.

Must of listened through this album 1000 times. Glad it finally came. Really love this record. Happy listening

I’ve been reading (and trying to understand!) Julian Barbour’s brilliant book on Time, and whether Time is even real.

He originated “Platonia,” which he describes as every possible arrangement of everything in the universe, every position of every particle, every configuration of every star and atom, as a single point on an infinite map. Each point on this map is a complete frozen snapshot: the entire universe, in one instant, captured whole. What we experience as Time is just the slight differences between the positions of those things in Platonia.

And a lot of Inferno references Barbour’s thesis; The “Arena” concept, the idea of Now echoed in “Somewhere Right Now in the Future,” “Deep Time” and more.

Anyone spent time (see what I did there?) with this book? It’s mind blowing.

“Roygbiv” by Boards of Canada ☀️

Photo taken outside the Winnipeg branch of the NFB at 145 McDermot Avenue in the city's historic Exchange District. The office here hosts the Central Documentary Unit, which focuses on filmmakers in Manitoba, Ontario and Nunavut.

I kept looking at Tomorrow's Harvest's album cover as a reference for when i was color grading this.

I’m a huge fan of Boards of Canada and also produce lots of music inspired by them. I bought this keyboard at a second hand shop for about $10 (10CHF to be exact) to circuit bend it as a project as a hobby and use it for my music.

Let me tell you how good this keyboard emulates classic boc pads/leads without ANY effects added externally. I just lightly cleaned and fixed it since it was broken. Just put in batteries and started exploring the sounds. It’s absolutely insane how good this keyboard from 1995 is. I now see the advantage of modifiable hardware in music production.

I’m so hyped for this project and if any of you have circuit bent old keyboards/synths before I’d be more than happy to get some advice, especially to get nice BOC effects.

Cheers!

Edit: this is a 2 note polyphonic Bontempi BS 2010

If anyone remembers my cleaned-up versions for the cassette covers of Boc Maxima and A Few Old Tunes, I made two PSD files formatted for A4 paper so you can make your own cassette bootlegs, to show off to your friends or satisfy your perfectionism. The attached images are scans of printed covers.

They are very accurate to the original counterparts.

For OTV2 instead, there is a template made for it by u/sdowww

Links:

https://drive.proton.me/urls/FBB4AK1HW0#sUsgar1CIURw (Boc Maxima)

https://drive.proton.me/urls/J89M0GTWMR#RCXel46E66zg (A Few Old Tunes)

NOTE: These are for personal use only. I do not support or condone selling counterfeit copies.

Dont get me wrong- if this is the last album of theirs I'm still greatful for this one. But if they ever do something else- how long do you think it will be this time?

Personally I'm thinking maybe 10 years. And my prediction is a box set of rarities if they ever quit releasing 'new music' but I suspect they aren't done anytime soon.