AMS album of the week 22

Boards of Canada, the much respected, secretive and shadowy WARP signed duo are back after a six year quiet period with a new album and an often different sound. Tomorrow’s Harvest, billed as their most dystopian and gloom-ridden sounding project to date nevertheless has that irascible BoC sound – not IDM, certainly nowhere close to dub-step, but more like a modern day, grittier Music for Airports. This album, with their characteristic layered soundscapes and off-beat synth stabs over slowly morphing beats is somehow sparser than their previous offerings, as if everything has been put through an industrial filter. It sounds like an urban sprawl on a particularly thoughtful day, one of the few things the duo themselves have confirmed they were aiming for.

It almost goes without saying that the construction of the album is nigh-on flawless. Not a sample or sound has been wasted or used when not required and even though the early tracks individually remain quite static in their composition, the first half of the album retains a lot of energy andkeeps pulling you on. My first thoughts were of Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works 85 – 92, the album that arguably got me into this genre to begin with, but far more melancholic. The few vaguely optimistic or upbeat tracks like ‘Sundown’ and ‘Split Your Infinities/Collapse’ keep the album from becoming too much of a dirge as we enter the second half but you still get the sense of a slight loss of direction. That said I can’t listen to any single track and find the cause although ‘Uritual’ is in my opinion the weakest track on the album, a drone piece which neither goes anywhere or is subtle enough to be of interest.

The stand out moment for me is ‘Cold Earth,’ a mix of the direction Tomorrow’s Harvest has taken them in and some of their earlier work with a well crafted drumline and a complexity and pace that makes you want to keep coming back to it. The album as a whole is excellent, and has crucially beaten the massive hype surrounding it. It’s a great new direction for the duo to be treading and they’ve managed to find it whilst solidly remaining Boards of Canada. Get on it!