broads of canasta

I can't fathom the intense interest there seems to be with Boards of Canada. I've listened to everything they've done, mainly out of curiosity - to see where such a loud buzz was from. I've been more underwhelmed with each release. With this new record from them, I think they've actually unimpressed me so much that they have taken music away from me somehow. Created a kind of anti-music or negativemusic which cancels out some other interesting music. From what people say I always expect some great new thing - from those heights of hype, the plummet to reality and my splat of disappointment is greater. What a shame. What is everyone thinking? I think. What do they hear that I don't - after all these years of polishing my ears with every musical solvent and soap? Am I only hearing half of the music somehow? Is there a secret music, or an esoteric way of playing the discs backwards that gives them their revered meaning to the enlightened? I. just. plain. don't. get. it. What I hear is very pedestrian for this day and age, very predictable, very "safe". Dare I say that they might to be called the Boreds from Yawnada?

If you had heard Einsturzende Neubauten, Nurse With Wound, Foetus, or even the Residents, Tuxedomoon, Throbbing Gristle, early Eno, Fripp, Arvo Part, Conlon Noncarrow, Boyd Rice, Eugene Chadbourne, Glenn Branca, Cabaret Voltaire, Cluster, Neu!, Terry Riley, John Cage, Ken Nordine, Gong, Harry Partch, Henry Cowell, Varese and all those other unsung experimental music pioneers, or even Martin Denny, not to mention Phillip flippin Glass, or Kraftwerk, and newer things like Twine, Oval, Climax Golden Twins, Boris, Sunn0))), BlackDice, Wolf Eyes, Stars of the Lid, Tim Hecker, Negativland, the Books, Vladislav Delay, etc, etc, well, you wouldn't be impressed with Beards of Granada either. Compared to any of these other artists, the artist in question is not what you'd call adventurous, original, or anything more than mildly competent; maybe “professionally workmanlike” is more apt. It is well done with clean, square edges; all well-sanded and painted and put together in the accustomed style, completely unobtrusive, carefully inoffensive, and universally palatable. My 5 and 6 year old children don't mind Boards of Canada - in fact they ignore it when its on. Whereas they react strongly to things like Wolf Eyes or Sunn0))) - which they immediately don't like - a lot. Other things like Negativland, the Books, Oval and Kraftwerk they just as immediately love.
Is it relevant to the case of Boars of Colasco why kids hate some music, love some so much, and totally ignore other music? Don’t know. The kids can't tell me, so I can't tell you. But it's an interesting question. After all, taste is such a personal thing, isn't it? We all have our niggling doubts about what we like and why... Its part of one’s “personality” innit? Gee, if I like music of Smelton Yawn and the music of Yanni, is thee Bones of Calisto the halfway point? And what kind of person am I because of this?

I think my mother wouldn't mind Gourds of Cramada - it would fit her idea of "electronic" music. New music to bring home to Mum! Its shaven, showered, wears clean clothes, brings flowers and always says "Please" and "Thank You". It doesn't ride a motorcycle, smoke, or look a shade too... "dark".

While its not really fair to place the sum value of certain music upon one man's scales of worth as I have done, and render it all worthless as Weimar Deutschmarks, and probably its very worrying for you all browknitters and nit-threshers to hear such heresy, I feel that someone has to say something before this Boards of Canada thing goes too far and becomes a dangerous cult with some evil antisocial manifesto, wearing their trademark hairstyle while preaching “the End To Music that is not like Boards of Canada!" This inevitably ends with the drinking of the deadly Koolaid or shooting it out with the ATF and taking down a lot of good musicians and music lovers with them. Lets try to avoid all that early, starting here. To be honest, I would rather listen to Boards of Canada than a lot of other things. Millions of other things. But as long as I have a choice, I won't listen to those millions of other things when I can help it. Most of the other things are unpleasant like Abba or painful like Bob Dylan, and a lot of it can be avoided. Neither will I choose to listen to Boards of Canada again because its boring.

Is there is anyone out there who has listened with interest to most or all of the above over the years, that can tell me with all of their hard-won musical experience that they can still go "Woo-Hoo! Boards of Canada!”?

Bottoms