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[wiki] After a few failed attempts at reviewing the real deal, we’ve been able to authenticate our recording as genuine bona-fide. Previews embedded below courtesy of Warp’s music shop Bleep. This new album introduces stringed instrument samples into the sound chest. Violins and guitars acoustic and electric nestle into the familiar and beloved music mesh aesthetic of Boards of Canada, creating the distinctive sound of Headphase. Instead of delivering any sing-alongs or breakouts, the Boards offers us highly nuanced sound collages and deeply melancholic sound structures greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps their work on the recent remix of Beck’s Broken Drum on the Japanese import of Guero influenced the continued evolution of the Sandison brothers’ musical gifts. Those fans thirsting for new music to pour through will be sated, for now. Our song by song verbalizations follow for the fellow obsessed:

1. Into the Rainbow Vein 0:44 The opening songlet nicely ‘tunes’ your ears for the record, and fades out quickly, tagging the album aesthetic with a sonic marker of sorts.
2. Chromakey Dreamcoat 5:47 Tape distorted guitar is the key tone color that is added to the well-established Boards sound with Headphase. Muddy drum samples, and descending bass notes vary with complexity beneath the simple repeating descending wobbly guitar sample. Synth progressions establish the chord complexity in the middle of the song, over a melodic variation, with intricate punctuations. At about 4:30, the track stops like a mechanical tape, introducing the final theme of ascending chords, and a patchwork of stringed instrument samples including violins, and some spoken voice samples emerge that still need to be decoded help close Dreamcoat in a fulfilling fade.
3. Satellite Anthem Icarus 6:04 Oceanic tide rolls in. Classic rock anthem guitar riffs open up this exceptionally low tempo track. Classic rock bass helps contrast against the the spacious synth and brassy pads above. The song feels like it’s in slow-motion, and clear rests in sections remind us it’s intentional. A few vocal touches pepper the track, still to be transcripted. Ocean wave-like washes ebb behind the theme at the 4:30 mark, again signalling the compositional resolution to a very strong track, again with a fullfilling fade. A songlet is embedded at the end of the track which pauses after the fade from about 5:30 to the end. It’s a warbling organy loop, reversed and run through the Boards’ patented filtration system.
4. Peacock Tail 5:24 The previous song’s ending songlet lead us nicely into the first notes of Peacock Tail. A melancholy melody broods over sharp bass drum kicks, and shuffling percussion collages with spacious pads echoing the melody chord progression. The space opens with the emotional tone of the song, which gets ‘happier’ as the upper register melody arrives at 2:00. This upper tune is what you may find yourself whistling or humming, despite its deceptive simplicity. Some ethnic vocals dissonante in the background, at around 3:20, where the song does crescendo into a delicate resolution. The vocal loops grow in on top of the theme, as it fades, revealing some flutes and a sense of how many people comprise the recording.
5. Dayvan Cowboy 5:00 Guitar riffs open Dayvan Cowboy, this time electric rather than acoustic. Again, a simple riff, with a similar tone color to the previous track emerges. It does sound like a theme and variation composition pervades some parts of this new record. Soft percussion hides in the background, steady during the intro, which lasts the first third of the composition. Rewindy echoes appear at the middle, and abrutly shift to an electric guitar strum pattern that sounds like its running into the organ spinner. A classical violin section appears with some majesty. The song is feeling epic, quite a build-up. Filter distortions play against the droplet pads and stereo-shake-shake rhythm. Strings return to remind you that the group is evolving its sound into a new maturity. The opening riffs fade and close up this big track.
6. A Moment of Clarity 0:51 This songlet is an amazing sonic sculpture. Perhaps the most difficult moment of the record to translate into words.
7. ‘84 Pontiac Dream 3:49 The heavy down tempo rolls in again, with thickly layered organ chords and melodies. The main melody line is really catchy, very lyrical. It’s rare that you listen to BoC and imagine vocals fitting in. It happens here at times, especially during the chorus. Bubbly gurgles mumble in the background, as the chords change. The remaining fades out, feeling not quite almost done.
8. Sherbert Head 2:41 Muddied and deep chords descend over static laden matrix. Some vocal elements do pierce through the sound fog, and need more analysis to extract them. A mirrored composition, in that it feels like it ends like it begins.
9. Oscar See Through Red Eye 5:08 Some have conjectured that this the big hit of the record, if there ever could be one from BoC. The song really does work well, although I have a small beef with it, when it goes into a Latin-esque rhythmn patch, sounds a bit too Casio keyboard demo for such a top shelf act on an other wise top-shelf song. At 2:11, the song nicely solos a guitar-esque melody riff, that sounds as if it was made out of reversi. The different tones enmesh melodically in At 3:11, we hit the bit I smile at, it’s a samba out of nowhere.
10. Aatronchronon 1:14 Muddy, distant pulsing tones, melodic, dissolve.
11. Hey Saturday Sun 4:56 Another guitar arpgeggio riffs, with cymbals starts this track off, with swishy percussive accents. Soon a reversi melody rolls in, against the guitar arpreggio, with gentle percussion rests. Another guitar appears, fitting in with the rock drum kit sound. Spacious sound beams chord over the guitar loops, and then the pieces interlayer in a very satisfying, analog, decidedly authentic BoC moment. The reversi melody leads us into a final section, with high register siren tones. The guitar riff remains solo with the drums in a dissolving fade out.
12. Constants Are Changing 1:42 Muddy keys vamp over more electric guitar sound collage, as the bass guitar, very indy-rockish, lays out the theme. Some nice fret echoes punctuate nicely at the end, and then a fade out.
13. Slow This Bird Down 6:09 Distant organs move toward us, with a strong deep bass pulse in the definite foreground. A muted flute tone slithers out a high register melody, in one of the few moments of this record that aesthetically references a previous record. There is a hauntingly familiar tonal voice in this song, that feels reincarnated somehow. Dirgelike male chorus layers drape the backgrounds in ceremonial mystery. Towards the end, a semi-songlet emerges, with a very distant solo guitar noodling.
14. Tears From The Compound Eye 4:03 Dripping wet organs enter, muddy and spacious. The melody hesitantly builds in, repeating, but layering. A harmonizing upper register slightly syncopates the melody. The organ chords get played deliberatively, almost on the beat. At the half-way point, the composition turns towards its final direction, with the resolving melody theme. Again, it’s restrained, not left to mature into a resolving melody and is faded out prematurely, a haunting, teasing end. No cathartic waterfall of sound cleanses us at the end like Everything You Do Is A Balloon or . It’s uncertain, unresolved, instead.
15. Farewell Fire 8:28 Chorus and filtered keytones with one of the only characteristic “childlike” innocent moments on the record appears. The repeating melodic theme here has a purity that somehow contrasts with the heavier, thicker colors of the middle part of the album sequence. Within the first two-thirds of the track, the composition fades deep into the background. You sense a long drawn out ending, metaphorical to the title imagry. The flames settle into embers, smoke hovering, dissapating. Near silence with very distant tones around 4:30. The song still burns. By 5:30 you may be imaging the sounds, they feel so distant, so unreachable, even with maximum volume. And yet they’re still there, listenable, but beyond reach. By 6:30 the tones move closer, briefly, with a varied melody. By 7:30 the melody has devolved into perhaps two alternating notes again dissolving into an end. total time: 1 hour