Geogaddi [Import]

I bought this CD shortly after it came out on the recommendation of a friend and wow, it totally blew my mind. I still listen to it today and discover new things about the album on every listen. From the back-masking (do yourself a favour and search for the backward versions of these songs) to the references to David Koresh and the occult, this album plays like crazy nightmare that you remember as a happy memory; it's warm and creepy.

I don't know how to describe this album. It is dark, unflichingly desolate and an absolute enigma. It seems dislocated from the apparent 'reality' of an ordinary life and I find it hard to think of it as music. Rather it is the emptiness of sound, superbly crafted into a chilling aural journey through the discomfort that life so regularly brings.

It is also interesting to reflect that a number of reviewers think it has some wasted space. The only wasted space for me is the 24th track. The actual last, the 23rd, is 1 min 40 secs of silence, a fitting end to a remarkable CD.

My second listen to this album was punctuated by a phone call from a dear friend suffering disquieting pain from cancer and its treatment. A fitting interlude - it felt as if the call was part of the journey.

LATER THOUGHTS - ALBUM HIGHLIGHTS:

Unlike others, I can't find a track out of place on this CD. Standouts are:

- 'Music is Math' - even the beats are depressed, under disassociated vocals. Stunningly downbeat.
- 'Gyroscope' - speaks of unrequited life! Kid counting is chilling in its lack of connection to anything.
- 'Dandelion' - synth wash over seemingly unrelated vox samples makes for a brilliant juxtaposition of sounds
- 'Sunshine Recorder' - Vocal interjection "It's a beautiful place" just doesn't fit the arrid accompanying melodies and beats - brilliant!
- 'Julie and Candy' - almost optomistic, this dissolves into darkness organically. Not a note out of place.
- '1969' - what a remarkable track. Definitely danceable, but I can't see it gracing the dancefloor too often.
- 'The Beach at Redpoint' - insistent, driven rhythms beautfully set off by dark synth washes. Almost an album highlight.
- 'Alpha and Omega' - sheer brilliance. Descent and decay clothed in optimism.
- 'I Saw Drones' - delightful filler, as all of the 'interludes' are.
- 'The Devil is in the Details' - Matmos-liposuction-like beat and vocals make this the quirkiest track on the CD.
- 'a is to be as b is to c' - another insightful filler track
- 'Dawn Chorus' - perfect portent of the close of this miraculous CD journey through melancholy, beautifully followed by:
- Diving Station - poignant and almost an antidote to much of what surrounds it, but still managing to remain on the dark side.
- 'Corsair' - could the boys have found a better track to end this?
- 'Magic Window' - silence can be used very skilfully, not very often better than here!

My friend, mentioned above, passed away. I will always remember her when listening to this!

I'm a little late on the Boards Of Canada bandwagon, but I need to sing the praises for Geogaddi. This album is AMAZING. This album has been an experience for me, like voice on "music is math", it will show you how "the past is in the present". This album is both gorgeous and frightening. But the two elements are ESSENTIAL to this. Like "Music Has The Right To Children", you have to give the CD a few listens before it really starts to heat up neuro-pathways that were created and forgotten about 10 years ago, like firing up some old dusty computer. The music hypnotized me, it took me back and forth through time. It was like you were contained in a spiral (and Boards of Canada have said in interview's that they used the Golden Mean to place tones and events in their music--the tones end in a very strange way, milliseconds before you'd expect them to--there's definitely something going on), taking you from the innocence of early childhood to the outskirts of the dark forest of adolescence...then the track "diving station", with it's lullaby piano rendered a vision in my mind of myself as an infant being held by my mother, the creaky whooshing sounds taking me away from this scene and placing me, at "you could feel the sky" in said dark forest...anyways, I'm rambling on. Let me say that I was listening to this dead clean, no drugs! The discomfort that Boards Of Canada asks you to experience, to look deeply into, leads to the reward of gorgeous melodies and harmonies, and pictures and feelings you had forgotten from your earliest years, when you played in the sun and was placed in front of various educational programs-- with the eerie type synth music that Boards Of Canada imitate to help create the nostalgia. I usually listen to music that's good to shake your booty too, but this is not your regular cold metallic electronic--this is electronic music with an organic feel, this is music that fires up your brain cells AND your emotions. Listening to this music for the third time with earphones just before I was supposed to go to sleep was when this music really started to hit home. I was so shaken up I had to listen to Green Day for three hours straight to set the brain cells ricocheting through my mind back to their regular old rounds, something void of synths and memories. This album is something very special and the rewards will last far past the money you shell out for it.