Boards of Canada
Tomorrow’s Harvest
Warp
Street: 06.10
Boards of Canada = Christ. + Squarepusher + Autechre
It is hard to imagine that this is Boards of Canada’s first studio album since 2005. Harder to believe still is that Tomorrow’s Harvest is only their fourth studio album. This is hard to believe because BOC is in just about every post-IDM/ambient/downtempo electronic musician’s release since the late ’90s. As a record, Tomorrow’s Harvest falls back into familiar sounds that have made them a touchstone in contemporary music: decaying, VHS transfer textures, drawn-out synth melodies, understated beats, the occasional guitar line or serrated arpeggio and obscure sampling of robotics long gone by. If their last release, The Campfire Headphase, spoke to the pastoral countryside of Scotland, Tomorrow’s Harvest matches flat, wide-open spaces of the American West in its unhurried and expansive, two-gaze long skylines and foreboding emptiness. –Ryan Hall