subtly dark.

what kills me is that some of the people negatively reviewing this album have totally missed the point of the record. the argument usually falls on two extremes:

1. that the album is too similar to mhtrtc
2. that the album is too dissimilar to mhtrtc

people seem to make more out of the fact that the album is 66:06 long than actually describing the music within (and not grasping the concept that its a joke played on people obsessed with the hexagon sun mythos). if youre familiar with their work already than you know that boards of canada is one of the most unique bands, electronic or otherwise, on the face of the planet. the fact that this is similar to their earlier works should come as no suprise, seeing as none of their other cds sound particularly different from one another.

i could go off at length about how much of a concept record this is. while mhtrtc was more about the blissful ignorance of childhood, this is about retaining innocence in a world full of evil. while we all have our childhood memories of abstract, fuzzy summer days outside, we also have our childhood memories of unease; the monster under the bed, the terror of being seperated from ones parents...

...blah blah blah. while this makes the album accessable and relateable to everyone since we all share similar memories of childhood, what really matters is that, while more meloncholy, this album is a staggering work of art thats both enjoyable on casual listens and extremely complex on closer ones. some tracks are both ferociously innovative (alpha and omega, the devil is in the details) and others wonderfully, and humourously, retro (sunshine recorder, 1969). also, am i the only one around here who thinks gyroscope is an awesome track? dark, brooding drones with a pummeling beat aimed directly at the distorted child counting off from deep within the song. brilliant stuff. the "filler" tracks work well i think, and help keep the album cohesive without being overly deriative.

mhtrtc is like a state forest in the daytime and geogaddi is the same woods at near-dusk. while during the day the trees and scenery are beautiful, at night everything is cast in shadow. the beauty is still there, but theres a dark undercurrent distorting all the elements that youre familiar with. a must listen.

26 of 26 found the following review helpful:


It's... alive  Aug 08, 2002
If you have heard the previous full-length Boards of Canada album Music Has The Right To Children, you at least have an idea what to expect with Geogaddi. Boards of Canada produces music filled with colourful reversed synth washes, hip-hop flavoured beats, and downright creepy sampling of vocals (particularly children) and sounds from nature. BoC fits somewhere into the Intelligent Dance Music (IDM) sub-genre of electronica, but it's impossible to nail them down into anything but their very own category.

Geogaddi is a huge change from its predecessor LP. There is no question that it is the work of Boards of Canada, but it is not as claustrophobic as MHTRTC (the previous album was very much "headphone" music, whereas Geogaddi just pleads to be unleashed upon the world), and is also more complex musically and rhythmically.

The album opens with an otherworldly tonal blanket, accompanied by an insect-like wave in the background and slightly-warbling musical pings. This first track sets the mood for the rest of the journey: dark, emotionally charged, and unsettling.

Geogaddi's beats are not terribly unique or rhythmically complex, but the sounds themselves are very much one-of-a-kind; you may at times be hard-pressed to separate the melody from the beats. The sounds used are extremely visceral, and seemingly twisted like sonic toffee to achieve the desired effect. Many of the percussion tracks make me think of crushing a gigantic bag full of potato chips in a bear hug underwater.

The album's most memorable elements are the sensations it induces, rather than the melodies within it. It is unlikely you will find yourself humming the tune to a Geogaddi track, but you might begin associating certain feelings in your life with those present in Geogaddi's music. The album's melodies are rarely prolonged, and usually consist of a series of singular and brilliant musical moments composed of BoC's atmospheric synthesizers, bizarre beats, and disconcerting samples. The album also seems to have a unique organic texture to it; it is not the static that permeates so much IDM, but closer in nature to the spattering of sonic paint from a toothbrush onto a squirming sandstone wall.

Geogaddi is surprisingly accessible music; I have found that many of my friends who are not particularly interested in any unconventional or electronic music enjoy Geogaddi a great deal. It offers something to a wide range of listeners: it can serve as a colourful acoustic backdrop to whatever you may be doing in the meantime, it makes a fantastic soundtrack for travelling, and rewards the careful listener with its rich supply of subtlety and detail.

Geogaddi's most significant flaw may not be a flaw to all, but many listeners may find the shorter "filler" tracks like "Dandelion" or "Energy Warning" annoying or disruptive.

In short, Geogaddi is epic in its depth and impact. It is alive. As you listen, it will grow on you... and IN you... as long as you will let it.

18 of 18 found the following review helpful:


This is amazing.  Feb 19, 2002 By Darragh Mc Causland
...Geogaddi is a multi textured sonic masterpiece. From the opening discordant melody of 'ready lets go,' you know that the band are about to take you on a strange and wonderful journey. All of the elements that made Music has the right to children so special are present on geogaddi, oscillating synths from old documentaries, textures so deep and mysterious you could swim in them, tiny intricate sounds that only reveal themself on the 17th or 32nd listen, all tacked on to hazy, scratchy beats. In a word, magic!!!
There are those who will complain that boards of Canada haven't come that far in four years, or that they haven't broken much new ground. To me, this is the unfairest of criticisms. A band which is already as far out there as BOC and which has such a unique vision does not need to please electronic music snobs by doing something entirely new. Anyway, much of todays so called revolutionary electronic music sounds suspiciously like a cold sneering joke played by the artists on their listeners.
Geogaddi is a unquestionably a different album to Music has the right to children. It is more dense and psychadelic with some tracks feeling like a bottomless pit of texture and reverb, like "dawn chorus". There is a more sinister edge to proceedings too. A lot of the tracks shimmer and shine on one level, but sounds deeper in the mix are frankly really spooky. Boards of Canada were never all sunshine and stars, but now more than ever their music throbs with eerieness.
Finally the melody. Geogaddi is drenched in melody. Songs grow on you and completely hook you after a few listens. Every throb, thrum and bleep seems achingly melodic. Some come across like snatches of childhood song and others like musical toys with their batteries running low. This album is nostalgic but not in a corny way. BOC know that the childhood subconscious can be a scary place to be.
I may not be the most objective reviewer when it comes to this group, but for me geogaddi delivered all i expected and more. i hope everyone else enjoys it this much.

26 of 30 found the following review helpful:


Handmade, worn, and melted.  Sep 24, 2002 By Phil Avetxori
What sets Boards of Canada apart from the rest of the paradoxically homogenous IDM mafia is a real sense of warmth achieved through heavily processed, resolutely electronic music. This is a claim that's often made of other groups with "crossover" appeal for non-electroninuts, but in this case the warm, homey, and, yes, nostalgic feelings exuded here are due to the effects-laden production, not in spite of it. Much has been made of this groups use of sample's from old educational films. It's where they got their name, after all. For me, however, this association rings true for one reason in particular. I'm just old enough to have started school during the pre-VCR era, and I remember watching worn-down old films on a rusty old projector. Due to either the condition of the film or the projector, the sound was often distorted and wobbly. Notes on the soundtrack ran into one another, and the whole dreamy effect was compounded by the acoustics of the gymnasium where we would watch films during recess on rainy days. The tones that bleed together and stratal ambiguity of this album took me right back to sitting cross-legged on the slick gym floor. Ok, so that probably plays right into the cliches about this group, but, really, it's key to understanding what I find most remarkable about Boards of Canada's music. Everything sounds almost haphazardly stitched together, with teetering beats overlaying synths that bubble up with slight irregularities. Any sense of carelessness that this approach runs the risk of insinuating is mitigated by this hazy, soupy quality; not to mention a sentimentalism that borders on the crass, while managing to teeter on its precipice like an emotional analogue of the precarious rhythms. As others have pointed out, this is not the most stunningly original music, but it certainly has a personal quality that makes it distinctive in its own humble way.

21 of 24 found the following review helpful:


Music Has the Right to Autumn  Feb 23, 2002 By Jesse Melat
Like a few reviewers before, it pains me to think of unjust bashing this album will get given the state of music criticism today. All this focusing upon "what's new about it" and "how daring is it" is really getting out of hand. What would make them like Geogaddi? Distorted metal guitars, maybe? A violin section, perhaps? Or what if Boards of Canada had incorporated gabber beats into their music?

Thankfully, BoC do none of these things. The same tools that created Music Has the Right also create Geogaddi, and there is nothing wrong with this. All those who would so desperately search for "what's new" need only look to where "what's new" really need be asked: What is the emotional intent?

Honest listeners will undoubtedly detect this difference: Geogaddi has an entirely different agenda than Music Has the Right. Whereas MHTRTC was Summer-like, warm, and comforting, Geogaddi is a dark and windy place. There's an evil hidden in it, in the distorted vocals whispering about Branch Davidians (1969), in the mentionings of a "God with Horns" that are found in backwards playing. Like MHTRTC, Geogaddi contemplates childhood, but, again, a different, and wholly less pure aspect of it.

Children live in a world that is full of evil they cannot directly recognize, and so it follows that if Geogaddi is chronicling this aspect of children's lives, that its darker patches must not be immediately recognizable, either. This is not, in my opinion, an attempt to appear clever on BoC's part; it's part of the work of art they've created here, a part of Geogaddi. As they once said in an interview, "we always think of the listener as the most intelligent person on Earth." The silent track, "Magic Window" is simply the period at the end of the statement they're trying to make; I'm sure they know full well of 4'33's existence, so there's no need for anyone to point it out to them (or their listeners.)

As for the quality of the album itself-there's five stars sitting up there. They're there for a reason. It's every bit as affecting and draining as MHTRTC, a fitting Autumnal followup to its Summer. Listening to Geogaddi for the first time was like listening to Selected Ambient Works, Vol 2 for the first time, or Ambient 1 for the first time. "The Devil is in the Details" is the stuff of my nightmares, and "Music is Math" nearly brings me to tears with every listen. It's one of the few, that I believe with all my soul, and anyone who's still disappointed at the lack gabber or distorted guitar incorporation or whatever can go back to listening to Venetian Snares.

See all 131 customer reviews on Amazon.com