These songs, painstakingly constructed using demanding equipment, succeed at creating a cohesive sense of paranoia, fear, and awe. And that, if nothing else, is worth obsessing over.
Like a few moments on Tomorrow’s Harvest it’ll take many more listens to decode, but the bulk of the album is immediately dark and succulent, conjuring a beautiful air of malice.
Thankfully, they’ve saved their finest ideas for ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’, which burns as brightly as anything they have accomplished thus far.
It needs to be listened to in the right sort of atmosphere to reach its full effect, but Boards of Canada's return after seven long years and proved it was worth the wait.
Bright spots are woven amidst more ruminative fare, providing a sense of narrative that's too often absent in full-lengths these days. Loaded with recurring motifs and studio trickery, Tomorrow's Harvest makes for an especially cryptic listen.
Tomorrow’s Harvest’s greatest strength is how it brings the classic Boards of Canada sound into the modern age and makes it feel totally fresh and alive again – a rare feat for almost any electronic artist.
It still sounds unmistakably like Boards of Canada, even if their telltale tropes are now scattered across Harvest rather than made to define each of its 17 tracks.
The consistent excellence of Tomorrow's Harvest is as comforting as a collection of quietly menacing android fever dreams like these could possibly be.
It sounds like an extremely well-produced album that took about eight years of slow studio cooking to produce.
Tomorrow’s Harvest finds the duo launching their sound into Lovecraftian orbit. And it sounds terrific;
Simulating forward motion is indeed progress, but it would be great if they threaded in a few elements to signify that. Without concreteness they can only get so dark; it’s hard to have a nightmare about something you can’t visualize.
What we’re left with is Boards of Canada’s moodiest record, a full-length tinted with atmosphere that unfolds slowly and is happy to allow you to come to it.
Tomorrow's Harvest may not shout for your attention, but it certainly rewards it.
The moody synthesizer soundscapes of Tomorrow’s Harvest reveal their rewardingly intricate layers and details with repeated listens.
At times, it is a little overwhelming over the 17 tracks, but there are plenty of beautiful moments here, the sort of moments which continue to propel BOC well ahead of many of their IDM contemporaries.
Neither a huge leap forward nor a step back for the pair, it sounds decidedly humble for an album heralded with such fanfare; it’s as if they’re aware that when the dust settles, it’ll just be another BoC album – and another very good one at that.
Boards of Canada have created a fascinating vision, one that will reveal more and more gifts over time.
Far from daft, ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’ is a psycho-spiritual stormer.
There is nothing radically new here – just a slight overhauling of tone, a broadening of theme and a refinement of technique.
While their latest transmission isn’t the easiest to receive, upon success, it can be the most rewarding piece of science fiction in years.
The granular murk of earlier albums is gone, allowing the band’s brilliant melodies and intricately textured sounds to sparkle darkly.
While other electronic pioneers yearning to be relevant again too often let trends overtake their initial mission, Boards of Canada have synthesized musical and cultural influences the same way they clearly want listeners to take in Tomorrow’s Harvest: through the seemingly impossible but simultaneous combination of osmosis and a critical eye.
The hopeless mood takes priority over any purposeful sense of direction, making Tomorrow’s Harvest a shadowy wasteland where only the group’s devoted cult of diehards will care to spend much time.
It might not be a major leap forward for Boards of Canada, but when the music continues to be so obviously them, maybe Tomorrow's Harvest doesn't need to be.
There's plenty of intellect on Tomorrow's Harvest but not nearly as much soul; like an intricate artifact found preserved in a glacier, this album is impressive to behold, but cold to the touch.
While Tomorrow's Harvest makes for a wonderful listen, and a perfect gateway album for new fans, it's not the revelation many devotees were hoping for.
Tomorrow's Harvest delivers oceans of spare, mellow and melodic electronica, but what it doesn't offer is much in the way of surprises.
Tomorrow's Harvest is another intriguing Rorschach blot of a record from a splendidly arcane band.
After about eight years of silence, Boards of Canada return with Tomorrow's Harvest, which might be their saddest and most desolate record to date; directly emulating much of the progressive synth and soundtrack music that has always informed the duo's style.
For the rest of us who were craving a pioneering record, Tomorrow’s Harvest is a let down.
Where the dog-eared, snapshot ambient wooze of Twoism and Geogaddi once harbored a feverish throb, Tomorrow’s Harvest now prickles with hollow spaces: a fragmentary, pixelated symbolism has been lost in the construction of an outline of a broader system.
Omnious as fuck, but very captivating...
Tomorrow's Harvest is the 4th album from Scottish duo Boards of Canada, released in June 2013. It had been recorded from 2005-2012 at Hexagon Sun, Pentland Hills.
They began working on the album shortly after the release of The Campfire Headphase, until late 2012. Due to being more influenced by film soundtracks from the 70s & 80s, this has a much more menacing & foreboding tone than their other works.
Like the other 3 projects I've reviewed ... read more
I had this a 79 before, but I was bit cold on it because I guess this wasn't like Geogaddi. It is more repetitive and less energetic than most of their other records, but it is still a good record regardless.
This album is the definition of desolation. Nothing makes me feel more like I'm wandering a post-apocalyptic desert searching for lost radio signals than this album. It might be a hot take, but this is my favorite Boards of Canada album. The world they build here is just so vast and so clear that it's hard not to get completely enveloped in it. Listening to this makes you feel like you are one of the only humans left alive. Aside from that the songs here are quite good too, and a lot of the ... read more
1 | Gemini 2:56 | 87 |
2 | Reach For The Dead 4:47 | 93 |
3 | White Cyclosa 3:13 | 81 |
4 | Jacquard Causeway 6:35 | 83 |
5 | Telepath 1:32 | 78 |
6 | Cold Earth 3:42 | 86 |
7 | Transmisiones Ferox 2:18 | 76 |
8 | Sick Times 4:16 | 86 |
9 | Collapse 2:49 | 80 |
10 | Palace Posy 4:05 | 78 |
11 | Split Your Infinities 4:28 | 82 |
12 | Uritual 1:59 | 77 |
13 | Nothing Is Real 3:52 | 90 |
14 | Sundown 2:16 | 88 |
15 | New Seeds 5:39 | 91 |
16 | Come To Dust 4:07 | 89 |
17 | Semena Mertvykh 3:30 | 79 |
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