Okay so I was going to do this album at first but then I changed my mind to Replica but then I changed my mind back because I don't have enough to say about Replica yet so I'll do that in the future but the point is the album for the week of 9/1 is...
Geogaddi - Boards of Canada, 2002This album is probably one of the darkest ones I've talked about so far, even though there it probably doesn't seem that way. I'll get to that in a bit, but first, some background. This is the second official studio album released by the Scottish electronic duo Boards of Canada, composed of brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin. Their first album,
Music Has The Right To Children, was released to immense critical acclaim, so of course they decided to almost completely alter their musical style for their second album. While
MHTRTC was a fairly light and chilled-out record,
Geogaddi is nearly it's total flip-side. The tracks are more beat-oriented and most have a darkened, out-of-left-field sound that could easily catch anyone expecting a second
MHTRTC off-guard. The duo puts most of the responsibility for this change in style to the 9/11 attacks, which occurred while they were recorded the album and apparently pushed them towards creating a darker album. Sandison also stated the album was a way for the duo to go about "exorcising demons", which is as apt of a description as anything.
As sort of a way of having fun (if you can call it that), Boards decided that it would be neat to make Geogaddi a "devil record". They added back-masking, hypnotism, secret messages, references to cults, and a total album run-time of 66 minutes and 6 seconds. While this is fairly meaningless for the most part, some of the aforementioned elements actually work to add to its' disturbing atmosphere. For example, the somewhat catchy song "1969" is actually about the Branch Davidians (who were all killed in Waco) and their leader David Koresh. In addition, the band incorporates vocal samples of children doing various activities, as in
MHTRTC. However, this technique which brought forth a sense of childhood nostalgia in
Music has a completely different effect in
Geogaddi. The voices are warped and sinister and speak of things like an energy crisis and make noises like they're drowning. When you consider this along with song titles such as "Beware the Friendly Stranger" and "Julie and the Candy", the childhood nostalgia totally disappears and is replaced with a feeling that's a bit unsettling.
This album has themes, even though they're not always immediately apparent. It's about math, it's about energy, and it's sometimes about religion (or at least religious symbols). The song title "A is to B as B is to C" is an example of the Golden Ratio in mathematics. The aforementioned "Energy Warning" is a short track in which a child voices his concern for renewable energy. "Alpha and Omega" is fairly self-explanatory. There are also apparently a lot of easter eggs and shit about how track names and run-times correspond to various verses in the book of Revelations, which might be coincidence but it honestly feels like it isn't. For example, the track "Dandelion", which contains a voice sample about lava flowing underwater, runs at 1:15. Rev. 1:15 contains references to both "furnaces" and "water". This is also appropriate because although a lot of the album sounds like it's happening underwater, its' sound conjures images of fire (at least in my opinion). It's not a cozy campfire, either. It's a fire that's spreading through a darkened cave, or a fire that consumes everything in its' path. This album is a lot like crawling through some sort of surreal cave and trying to find the exit. You'll get to the light eventually, but you have to go through some dark and strange places before you can.
There's no lack of strangeness on this thing either. "Julie and the Candy" opens with what sounds like broken carnival music, punctuated with warped cries of "
you're turn-ing me o-n!". "The Devil In The Details" is a hypnotist monologue by a woman who might be drowning. "A is to B as B is to C" contains a sample of an overly-happy robotic language instructor. "Diving Station" sounds like a hellish reflection on something lost at sea, and "You Could Feel The Sky" sounds like the sky might actually be ripping open like Velcro. Really, the interpretations of this album tend to be sort of broad, and I'm sure that some feel the things I perceive as being dark on this album really aren't. Whatever. One of the best examples of what I'm talking about comes near the album's beginning. "Beware the Friendly Stranger" plays out a short intro of static-filled sinister calliope music accompanied by children playing in the background. When it concludes, there's a brief moment of warm static, then the circling drum beats of "Gyroscope" thunder in, leading the way for a track filled with reversing, shifting sounds and someone voicing a muffled number count-off that sounds equal parts terrified and orgasmic. It's a 1-2 punch that perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the album: bizarre, dark, and haunting in a way that'll leave you thinking about it long after the album has concluded.
Geogaddi, track listing:
1. "Ready Lets Go" 0:59
2. "Music Is Math" 5:21
3. "Beware the Friendly Stranger" 0:37
4. "Gyroscope" 3:34
5. "Dandelion" 1:15
6. "Sunshine Recorder" 6:12
7. "In the Annexe" 1:22
8. "Julie and Candy" 5:30
9. "The Smallest Weird Number" 1:17
10. "1969" 4:20
11. "Energy Warning" 0:35
12. "The Beach at Redpoint" 4:18
13. "Opening the Mouth" 1:11
14. "Alpha and Omega" 7:02
15. "I Saw Drones" 0:27
16. "The Devil Is in the Details" 3:53
17. "A Is to B as B Is to C" 1:40
18. "Over the Horizon Radar" 1:08
19. "Dawn Chorus" 3:55
20. "Diving Station" 1:26
21. "You Could Feel the Sky" 5:14
22. "Corsair" 2:52
23. "Magic Window" 1:46 (silent track)
THIS USED TO BE ON YOUTUBE BUT IT GOT REMOVED SORRY YOU CAN PROBABLY FIND A DOWNLOAD OF IT WITHOUT ANY ISSUE
Here's the second track, "Music Is Math":
NEXT WEEK:
Cardiac, as requested by Chiropto.
