Boards Of Canada
Tomorrow's Harvest

You enter by calibrating your step, moving one foot slowly after the other, strictly barefoot, sensing the significance of the event you're witnessing. Then you are awakened, gather your thoughts, and take a step back, seeking a secluded spot, almost becoming aware of the inadequate position you occupy.
This is the image a transfigured San Francisco offers at first glance. There is no dawn or dusk. The sunlight has no source, it is suspended, rarefied, almost as a testament to the limbo that looms.
But it is not the rhetorical twilight light that is evoked here. The oblivion towards which the gaze is directed is made of intense light, of infinite brilliance, of an icy heat. A polar summer that condemns without appeal.
If so far the tones seem to brush a sort of apocalyptic demagoguery, perhaps it is not clear where this "Tomorrow's Harvest" receives its baptism.

Starting from last March, following an almost unstoppable domino effect, the Scottish duo began spreading concrete news concerning a fourth studio album. From the release of "Reach for the Dead," the shockwave was able to involve both the last Record Store Day and various independent Stores between Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Holding firm the belief that the soul of commerce reigns and stirs even (and especially) in times of exacerbated file sharing, they have a brilliant idea: to play with their audience, challenging them to decipher messages left online. And "play," in this case, takes on all its ambivalence. Because on one hand it easily becomes "mocking," while on the other it confirms the friendship and loyalty relationship that has been created with the army of aficionados who have followed the band for years.

The climax was reached last May 27. The Boards of Canada, after a rather cryptic tweet, perform in the California desert in a Listening Party of the material that will flow into the upcoming album. 
The anticipation for the work is further fueled after the announcement of the live streaming on their own YouTube channel. Marketing strategies that are setting trends in these years.

And it is here, in this context, that the introduction makes sense. The transfiguration of a city on the horizon becomes both a sacred artifact and the simulacrum of the unstoppable rules of our time. The born-consume-die becomes the evil that grips man and the environment around him, but at the same time, it is the cocoon that allows survival. And it is with this remorse that one is forced to live. The light we see on the cover can captivate us, lull us to sleep, but it must also be able to wake us up, to make us take the necessary step back to reflect on what we see. It can be both dawn and dusk.

In the 17 tracks that make up this work, the theme is carried out following a specific environmental issue, well expressed in the 1977 documentary "Deadly Harvest." Some of the titles indicate how much the work takes charge of it ("New Seeds," "Cold Earth"). But it is the music itself that bears witness to it. "Gemini," the opening track, is introduced by a small musical break, almost to reiterate its nature of broad consumption, the commercial purpose. The leap into the abyss is just a few steps away: you dive directly into basses shattered by an extreme open ping pong delay, before settling on an up-down arpeggiator (also gradually engulfed in a growing delay effect). All this to open the doors to the already mentioned "Reach for the Dead," an ethereal single that shows a beauty with few comparisons. The album flows in its hour of listening and shows how much the two Scots have also detached from some stylistic figures of the past. Unlike previous episodes, here the compositions seem to express panoramic views, remaining static, oscillating, floating. There is no progressive development: stasis dictates the rules. In some points, "Music for Airports" by Eno peeks through, in others it is the most minimal techno that shows the way. The downtempo aesthetics are honored in full, the level of these tracks stands out on what various epigones have been able to do over the years. In "Jacquard Causeway," the snare drum hits with a delay on the attack give the exact measure of how much the attention to detail, the ability to maneuver with widely used software and hardware, and the unexpected touch make the real difference. "Cold Earth," with its broken rhythms, is a true gem of techno-ambient, the pad synths of "Sick Times" and "Come to Dust" create a broad fresco, the powerful kick drum of "Palace Posy" marks an almost martial progression.

But the real masterpiece of the record is the multifaceted "Nothing is Real." The layers composing this piece are so varied and fused that they leave you disoriented: with each new listen, the track seems to take on another shape, adapting to the perception that is privileged. The sounds, noises, and phrases surrounding the listener remain suspended in mid-air, almost waiting to be grasped, caught, following strange gravitational logics.

To close the album, "Semena Mertvykh" ("seeds of the dead") is left: the unavoidable approach of the scythe, the point of no return that gives new life and nourishment to what will follow. Tomorrow's harvest rests on the death of what preceded it, in an eternal passing of the baton. In the same way, the Boards of Canada maintain a foot in what they have been, preparing the momentum for what this album allows us to glimpse.