Tomorrow's Harvest Turns 10

https://www.stereogum.com/2226024/boards-of-canada-tomorrows-harvest-turns-10/reviews/the-anniversary/

There’s no news of a new album, and given that they only have four full-length albums that share a lot of common thematic and stylistic ground, it’s hard to picture what one would even look like, let alone sound like. Would it be dark and unfriendly or pastoral and calm? Would it reward the algorithm or clash jarringly against it? Would the cover be the usual blue or would they settle on a different shade? Would they try some new tricks like vocals or would they stay strictly in their instrumental wheelhouse? The only answer is silence, punctuated by the sound of an alkaline wind blowing faintly and distantly from Tomorrow’s Harvest.

Discuss!

I’m too old for this  

Need to inject some mad monkey dna into my bloodstream first  

Lucky I have a mad mandrill in the shed. Come here Mr Mandrill

*discusses*

Very good article! I was into Tomorrows Harvest from the moment I heard it (we were all online listening to it at the same time if I remember correctly) and never had any trouble getting into it. Their most instant album for me. I specifically remember oscillik having a problem with it as we use to clash over everything back in the day so that was no surprise really lol (I wonder what he thinks of it now). I had spent 3 years in Australia before Tomorrows Harvest dropped and the Red Centre of the Northern Territory and the vast emptiness of the west coast of Western Australia from Darwin down to Perth (and possibly even more empty Perth to Adelaide) so in my minds eye I could easily connect with the themes of Tomorrows Harvest. Uritual in particular sounds like somebody has tuned a radio directly into Aboriginal Dreamtime. Astonishing.

I've probably played Tomorrows Harvest more than their other 3 albums combined. But I would like another one. Please 

Now excuse me, its Mad Mr Mandrills feeding time    

acid memories is better

any nice reissues planned? come on warp!

  On 6/8/2023 at 2:53 PM, Ski Nell said:

any nice reissues planned? come on warp!

Hoping at the very least the brothers peek their heads up (i.e. "like" things on socials remembering the album or better yet, giving hope for a new album)

TH hit me at a very vulnerable time. My wife and I had just moved back from San Francisco (makes the album art hit even harder) and were having a hard time adjusting to our post-SF lifestyle. I needed something to distract me from the turbulance and the Record Store Day stuff couldn't have come at a better time. Already being an obsessed BoC fanboy I was all in on the ARG media campaign. Following the updates, trying to peice together the clips, etc. etc. The Reach for the Dead showing in Shibuya City was euphoric for me, because it was clear at that point an album was en route. 

Like others I wasn't totally sure what we had on our hands at first listen. I almost felt like they leaned into the concept a little too hard and TH almost felt more like a soundtrack than a proper album. After a few playthroughs it started to resonate more and more, and I better understood the approach, influences, and theme. Depending on the day, it's my favorite BoC album. I think it has some of the prettiest vignette tracks out of any of their releases. Nothing is Real is a top 5 BoC track for me, it never fails to give me goosebumps even after a decade. It's such a rich, eerie album in ways that Geogaddi can't even touch (not taking a damn thing away from Geogaddi) but there are also moments of pure bliss, as rare as they are. The end of New Seeds in particular, which will always in my mind be asssociated with the 6 'records' they put out spelling out the codes. 

As bleak as it can seem, it was an album I desperately needed at the time, and still need now. It gave me something I could dive in to, appreciate, and hang on to through a pretty challenging time in my life. The wife and I are good now, and better people for having gone through the move/transition as many couples are going through big life changes together. But godamn did I need this album. 

I'm a cheesy, idealistic homer/fanboy and I accept that, but man does it feel like it's time to have another album to obsess over and cherish. Like the article said it's impossible to imagine what it'd even sound like, which is what makes it an even more tantalizing proposition. Whatever comes, and I do believe they have something on the way, will almost certainly be worth the wait. Tomorrow's Harvest sure as hell was.

Was cool of Warp to envelop NYC in a shroud of smoke for the 10th anniversary of Tomorrow’s Harvest.

I have loved Tomorrow's Harvest from the first listen like I have Music Has The Right To Children and Geogaddi; Campfire Headphase is stil the odd one out, it's nice but doesn't evoke emotions and imagination in me like the other three do.

If TH remains BoC's last album, I think it's a most excellent swan song, inundated with sweet sorrow, hope, and grace, but I understand why it can feel bleak, too - just not to me.

Semena Mervykh became eerily prescient, if you think of it in the context of Ukrainian soldiers keeping sunflower seeds in their pockets so they will bloom where they fall. This is why I used it as the first track in my DSE mix.

10 years old tomorrow.  I find it difficult to wrap my melon around this.

  On 6/9/2023 at 8:41 AM, dcom said:

This is why I used it as the first track in my DSE mix.

That's a beautiful mix man

Yes as time moves on, I can see the temptation of BOC maybe thinking Tomorrows Harvest should be their last studio album. It kind of makes sense.

Maybe that's why there was some activity on their Hell Interface page? Find it best not to think too much about these things as I don't want to be sucked down into a twoism type rabbit hole.

  On 6/9/2023 at 11:14 AM, beerwolf said:

Yes as time moves on, I can see the temptation of BOC maybe thinking Tomorrows Harvest should be their last studio album. It kind of makes sense.

Maybe that's why there was some activity on their Hell Interface page? Find it best not to think too much about these things as I don't want to be sucked down into a twoism type rabbit hole.

I remember being at work when the live stream happened. I wasn't able to listen right as it started, tuned in around the point when the thwapy snare drum was hitting in Jacquard Causeway. p sure next thing I must have done was to lurk over in the watmm thread that was probably going ape shit at that moment, and do recall (like the articles author stated) a lot of resistance to that track. due to this event, whenever that track rears its militant head, I am instantly brought back to that moment from 10 years ago when I first heard it...and I'm still not a fan of it haha. 

  On 6/10/2023 at 6:03 AM, zero said:

I remember being at work when the live stream happened. I wasn't able to listen right as it started, tuned in around the point when the thwapy snare drum was hitting in Jacquard Causeway. p sure next thing I must have done was to lurk over in the watmm thread that was probably going ape shit at that moment, and do recall (like the articles author stated) a lot of resistance to that track. due to this event, whenever that track rears its militant head, I am instantly brought back to that moment from 10 years ago when I first heard it...and I'm still not a fan of it haha. 

Jacquard Causeway is a challenging track for sure, it’s like listening to a panic attack. Even though it makes me anxious I love it for that. It reminds me of how I feel when I hear Gyroscope - it puts me on alert and boosts the heart rate a bit, but I keep coming back. 

jacquard causeway is an incredible track. i definitely agree it invokes a certain sense of anxiety, a kind of painful sense of fragility and disorientation. the way the overlapping miniature synth patterns dance and fleet over each other really conveys a sense of the fleeting and ephemeral. the way the individual drum parts seem to just want to do their own thing and kind of fight to stay together really underscores this tension. the first half of the track just feels like everything's coming apart and struggling to stay together. but then the big pads come in and envelope everything in this deeper layer which feels so powerful, like there really is a strength of all these little pieces coming together to form a whole. the drum tracks especially feel like they "fit" more once those big chords come in and then the whole thing has this undulating, oceanic vibe that's no longer so unsettling. at least, there is a sense of environment where some kind of forward thrust can be felt, where you're not lost in confusion.

truly powerful piece of music. i don't know anything else like it.

I remember during the online drop when JC came on and it immediately disoriented me. It was similar to when you have been at sea for a few days and you step on dry land and still feel the motion of the waves for ages. It’s also, ninja style, perfectly placed. 

 I remember a lot of people bitching about that track as well. Which seemed odd.

I remember being alone in my apartment at the time of the livestream and decided to listen to it in bed with headphones on, eyes closed. I remember briefly getting sleepy during “Jacquard,” but like a good, hypnotic sleepy. It really lulled me in. 
 

I also really remember loving “Nothing Is Real” on first listen, but I lost track of where I was in the track list and thought for sure that track was called “Palace Posy.” I still think “Nothing Is Real” is too nihilistic a name for it, but they were probably going for that…

  On 6/11/2023 at 1:57 PM, YELLOW said:

I remember being alone in my apartment at the time of the livestream and decided to listen to it in bed with headphones on, eyes closed. I remember briefly getting sleepy during “Jacquard,” but like a good, hypnotic sleepy. It really lulled me in. 
 

I also really remember loving “Nothing Is Real” on first listen, but I lost track of where I was in the track list and thought for sure that track was called “Palace Posy.” I still think “Nothing Is Real” is too nihilistic a name for it, but they were probably going for that…

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I think Jacquard might be my favorite BoC of all time (up to this point in time in 2023)