Tomorrows Harvest - Today

Simple, yet very accessible, something like, universal music for everyone

  On 7/6/2014 at 10:14 PM, MassfreeKid said:

 

  On 7/6/2014 at 9:57 PM, Bordie said:

If only TH was more layered...the songs feel empty compared to their previous work

 

I see what you mean, but I think the name of the game is minimalism. I'm glad they went with that approach for this one. On the face of it, the music is so simple that it eliminates most IDM listeners with a short attention span who are looking for millions of hidden layers per second and fucked up complexity and so on. This album is back to the basics: E-MOTIONS.

 

I COMPLETELY do not agree with what you wrote- that layered music is for people with short attention span lol. How long did it take you to hear the xylophone in Peacock Tail?

Minimalism isn't bad but I didn't expect a full album like that and I'll probably never get used to it. BoC are my favorite artists because of how much work they put into each song and if now they convey emotion, they used to convey emotion and put little sounds all over their work.

  On 7/6/2014 at 10:34 PM, Ceerial said:

 

  On 7/6/2014 at 9:57 PM, Bordie said:

If only TH was more layered...the songs feel empty compared to their previous work

 

I don't agree with this, a track like Reach For The Dead is just an explosion of layers and depth towards the end, the same could be said for Jacquard Causeway and New Seeds.

 

Sure there are some tracks that are very minimal: Collapse, Telepath and Uritual etc. But BOC has always had those short and simple interlude type tracks between the more fleshed out songs. It's nothing new.

 

There is probably a argument to be made, that some of the tracks are slightly minimal. But that is not necessarily a complaint for me personally, on some tracks I actually think it is its strength, a minimalist approach doesn't have to be a bad thing if you ask me.

 

But all that being said, I don't agree that TH lacks layers.

 

Our definitions of layers vary, I think. I'm talking about things outside of the main melody which make listening more enjoyable (radio interference in the famous New Seeds is an example). The songs on Tomorrow's Harvest don't have much of that stuff, sorry. Or maybe I'm just going deaf

Just bought the vinyl yesterday. I've only had the 320 MP3 version so far. I think that the album fits great into their discography, but it's not my favorite album (Campfire). But I still don't understand why it took them so long to do this album as compared to their older stuff.

twoism and hi scores aren,t very layered imo,but contain classics,as does tomoz harvest but its more cold/isolated,as apposed to the warmth on the earlier stuff,but i think thats intentional,but for me the track order/1 or 2 tracks means it doesn,t flow easily,i enjoy it on shuffle a lot

  On 7/7/2014 at 1:25 PM, sunshine recorder said:

twoism and hi scores aren,t very layered imo,but contain classics,as does tomoz harvest but its more cold/isolated,as apposed to the warmth on the earlier stuff

I agree sunshine, Boards have always been on the minimal side of composition. A few layers and a huge mood. In that regard, Tomorrow's harvest is no different, only a bit colder and more distant, perhaps. Less human, more alien.

  On 7/7/2014 at 5:02 PM, MassfreeKid said:

 

  On 7/7/2014 at 1:25 PM, sunshine recorder said:

twoism and hi scores aren,t very layered imo,but contain classics,as does tomoz harvest but its more cold/isolated,as apposed to the warmth on the earlier stuff

 

I agree sunshine, Boards have always been on the minimal side of composition. A few layers and a huge mood. In that regard, Tomorrow's harvest is no different, only a bit colder and more distant, perhaps. Less human, more alien.

 

All of it sounds like the cold war to me.

cold earth, cold war.. etc etc.

Whole album sounds like a soviet dystopian society.

I like it.

Interesting that you would hear a cold war theme going on! I also feel like the whole album is symbolic of the end of the world. It's like they have composed the soundtrack to watching the world die from a detached point of view. No more happy-hippy songs for the beach. It's time to leave earth behind and move on.

Maybe a reflection of the continuing escalation of the Russia/Ukraine crisis?

Who knows! Maybe a reflection of the fact that our planet is slowly dying? That pretty much everything on it is becoming wrong in some way or another? These two guys seem to have been green-minded and very close to nature for a long time, after all. But instead of fighting against the destruction of the earth as activists, they have accepted the fact that we can't change the course of history. Everything will self-destruct around us and all we can do is watch it all go away.

"Being a father fills you with a healthy understanding of your own mortality, and on a bigger scale that responsibility highlights the fragility of our society, or the problems with it. We've become a lot more nihilistic over the years. In a way we're really celebrating an idea of collapse rather than resisting it. It's probably quite a bleak album, depending on your perspective."

"It's not post-apocalyptic so much as it is about an inevitable stage that lies in front of us."

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jun/06/boards-of-canada-become-more-nihilistic

Which reminded me of Spinoza's famous motto: "I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them." Could have been a sad album whining about the end of the world, or a joyful one celebrating the ecstasy of destruction, or a hateful bunch of songs set against the negative trends of our society. But it's a very neutral and detached album. An "understanding" album.

  On 7/7/2014 at 12:04 AM, decon said:

Just bought the vinyl yesterday. I've only had the 320 MP3 version so far. I think that the album fits great into their discography, but it's not my favorite album (Campfire). But I still don't understand why it took them so long to do this album as compared to their older stuff.

It wasn't a matter of it taking them a long time to put the album together... simply a matter of life - family, travel, etc. - the album came out when they felt it was ready to.

  On 7/5/2014 at 7:25 PM, MassfreeKid said:

After Tomorrow's Harvest, I think the next logical step for Boards, conceptually speaking, would be to make a science-fiction, futuristic, intergalactic album. They left the earth behind with this album. Now it's time to travel beyond.

Now that's an interesting quote. I shared it on bocpages. https://www.facebook.com/bocpages/posts/10152489587919774

  On 7/7/2014 at 12:04 AM, decon said:

But I still don't understand why it took them so long to do this album as compared to their older stuff.

In one word: life.

fantastic rly, boo the haters, ep needs to quietly come soon....

Truly is a great album, it sounds like the world's population went extinct and this was the soundtrack of the Earth thinking to itself.

I wrote a long post about my feelings on this album after it first came out. I admit I was quite disappointed but not necessarily bc the music wasn't good but more just bc so much had changed in my life since I first got MHTRTC back in 98 that I perhaps wasn't able to be objective about the album or open to it. or...something. but anyway, recently I've been listening to it again and I like it a lot more. there are a few dodgy tracks and overall it does feel too long for me but when it's good it's just some solid, lush boc goodness. I think I'm more receptive to the whole day of the dead vibe now too, for whatever reason.

I think it's just kind of impossible not to have unreasonable expectations after 8 years and this leads people to perhaps be hyperbolic in their interpretations one way or the other. and they have a crazy amount of pressure considering how influential their first eps and MHTRTC were. so yeah, the brothers.

quite good/the brothers.

Not sure I get the whole thing about TH being less layered than their other stuff, but I do agree that it's a very good album. Lots of arps.

Storm or Shortwave

  On 7/19/2014 at 5:43 PM, Alcofribas said:

I think it's just kind of impossible not to have unreasonable expectations after 8 years and this leads people to perhaps be hyperbolic in their interpretations one way or the other. and they have a crazy amount of pressure considering how influential their first eps and MHTRTC were.

definitely.

super bock brothers.

  On 7/20/2014 at 7:23 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

on another note, people are often hard on this album for songs apparently petering out before they're over.

this does annoy me though.

  On 7/20/2014 at 7:23 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

petering out before they're over. I wonder how many people noticed this before boc brought it up in an interview?

A bit late addressing this point, but I had a sneaking suspicion I'd read people saying this before they mentioned it in the interviews.

Going back, I see Lumpenprol devoted this thread to that very topic

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/79153-th-for-those-who-always-wondered-what-an-albums-worth-of-intros-sounds-like/

Which he posted June 3rd

Interview where they first mentioned delibreately tapering songs off was June 6th

Considering no musician/band has ever maintained a genius level of consistency, this is pretty good...

  On 7/30/2014 at 12:08 PM, rvll said:

Considering no musician/band has ever maintained a genius level of consistency, this is pretty good...

can't tell if serious or...

  On 7/30/2014 at 1:09 PM, oscillik said:

 

  On 7/30/2014 at 12:08 PM, rvll said:

Considering no musician/band has ever maintained a genius level of consistency, this is pretty good...

can't tell if serious or...

 

Autechre are well shit.

I was pretty disappointed with this album. Especially after Geogaddi I expected them to become even more experimental and maybe a tiny bit less minimalistic. TH has a few nice tracks, but it's just not very interesting. A little more innovation would have been nice. I feel like they have already wrapped up the exact same style with earlier releases and with a better result.

I feel like Jacquard Causeway and Palace Posy don't fit on the album. The beats are way too "big" and the themes don't really fit to me. New Seeds, while it has a pretty catchy arrangement, also barely fits within the border. I think Come To Dust works much better. It has the big synths and good somber with a touch of optimism melody. But overall, I really like the rest of the tracks, Reach For the Dead, White Cyclosa, Collapse, Cold Earth and finally Come To Dust as the top. And Semena has an awesome desolate vibe, but stands a bit outside the rest of the album.

Love the cover of the album. and the concept.

Also my favorite is Geogaddi, and I like several of the melodies on TCH a lot more. Concept on TH is uncanny though

BoC is not my cup of tea... bye & soon! ;-)

  On 7/30/2014 at 2:56 PM, Anchio Arch io Son Pittore said:

BoC is not my cup of tea... bye & soon! ;-)

Cool bro, see you