Just a thought about Headphase

Vordhosbn · Post by **Vordhosbn** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:22 am

Disavowed, you might have already seen this. I just want to share this though:

I started out thinking there wasn't anything hidden in this album. I thought it was cheesy, and I was thoroughly disappointed with the sound. I started to get into it after awhile, and I liked it as a relaxing, benevolent album...

As time has gone on, and I've experienced the album on different levels, (ie. a psychedelic time warp out in the middle of an remote field in rural NY on a calm summer day, chilling with a boombox in an abandoned house somewhere out in the woods, etc.) I realize it is just as unnerving as the other albums, just not immediately.

You have to accumulate experiences with the album, you have to force it in a way, and then it is there. Tracks like Sherbet head, Ataronchronon, Slow This Bird Down, Tears From the Compound Eye, are all saturated with a certain element: there is an underlying mental danger to immersing yourself in nostalgia. The main tracks sound nice mostly because the revisiting of one's past can be very enlightening, but there is a hidden atmosphere of uncertainty, of stress, of the possibility that the trip will turn out bad.

volante · Post by **volante** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:40 am

That is a cool take on it. I have loved this album from day one. I'm probably the only poster here who likes it more than Geo.

thedisavowed · Post by **thedisavowed** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:54 am

For those of you that probably missed it, this thread is in response to my comments here:

What I miss about Boards of Canada

silo flame · Post by **silo flame** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:54 am

everything they have put out has been progressively more advanced, no matter how you view it

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:37 am

that blog and this thread are both awesome

campfire has its own identity and appeal, that's for sure. but consider this:

the 3rd in any relatively decent or excellent series of works is always the most harshly criticized (this notion is taking into consideration only the "big" 3 albums, MHtRtC, Geogaddi, and Campfire)

with work 1, you can only judge it in its own context.

with works 1 and 2 out, you can judge one against the other, so you have 1 set of similarities and 1 set of differences.

with works 1, 2, AND 3 out you have both the first set of similarities and the first set of differences to contrast it to, in addition to each of the first two works on its own and the similarities and differences there. so if element A is found on works 1 and 2, but not 3, it might be seen as more conspicuously missing than if element A is found on work 1 but not work 2 and work 3 is not out yet.

and, possibly, if element B is found in work 3 but neither of the first 2 works, it is seen as wholly alien to the entire project since it defies two works' worth of precedent whereas you can't really say an artist has set a huge precedent if they only have one work out and then their immediate next work goes against it in some way.

wwbjd · Post by **wwbjd** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:19 am

volante wrote:That is a cool take on it. I have loved this album from day one. I'm probably the only poster here who likes it more than Geo.

I'm number two.

It's the only one I really listen to on a regular basis now. It's their "go-to" album for me.

<reading>

I think here are vocal samples all over TCH, just not as prominent as the other releases. Peacock Tail (even sounds pagan to me!), '84 Pontiac Dream, Sherbet Head, Slow This Bird Down, etc.

Nothing beats Oscar for me either. I really think that's my favorite track of theirs. Very dark, great mood/atmosphere.

Vordhosbn · Post by **Vordhosbn** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:51 am

I would almost think The Campfire Headphase contains the most vocal samples out of all of the albums, but none of them are upfront. In the previous works there are usually repeated vocal samples that stand out as part of the piece. In TCH it seems there is an abundance of conversations underneath the tracks, just going along with it, and this has been discussed before. (haven't we thought maybe that BoC albums are dubbed over tapes?)

On a semi-related point, I recently listened to Farewell Fire while turning the volume up as it went, and I realized during that last bit of the track, it becomes very whispery, but suddenly there are several very dissonant, and ominous drones before it finally ends. Freaked me out really!! Its kind of like they end this album with a secret reference to something in the future...

Also, to thedisavowed, I guess it wouldn't hurt to just post your journal in this thread. (unless you don't want to)

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 6:01 am

Vordhosbn wrote:On a semi-related point, I recently listened to Farewell Fire while turning the volume up as it went, and I realized during that last bit of the track, it becomes very whispery, but suddenly there are several very dissonant, and ominous drones before it finally ends. Freaked me out really!! Its kind of like they end this album with a secret reference to something in the future...

i gotta try that now!

thedisavowed · Post by **thedisavowed** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:04 am

Vordhosbn wrote: Also, to thedisavowed, I guess it wouldn't hurt to just post your journal in this thread. (unless you don't want to)

K.

Apparently, though I was not aware of it previously, there is, deep, deep down in the mix of Turquoise Hexagon Sun what sounds like, shall we say, heated female breathing, and given the brother’s penchant for sampling pornographic films (of, presumably, 30 years past) it’s totally plausible to me. I admire that quality in Boards of Canada recordings – not really the porn (though there's little of it) - but the idea that no matter how many times you might spin that damn disc there’s always something new.

Of course they’ve dumped all that. For all their talk of seclusion in nuclear bunkers in remote nationally geographic locations holding their secret strictly non-religious bonfires and listening to damaged and worn old recordings that they made like a couple of weeks ago they seem to still react to the people around them. I mean, by the time The Campfire Headphase dropped they were saying in interviews that they’d dumped the creepy youthful laughter and such because people were saying it was a gimmick and that their whole sonic apparatus ran entirely off of quotes and weird quasi-satanic found sounds buried deep in the mix that gave them this mystical post-pagan sort of enigma.. something they thrived off of, I think, and probably sold a lot of records off of (even if, as one Amazon user put it, their music is “deleterious to my soul.” What a dork.

But Campfire is quite devoid of all that. Even what vocals there are (and there’s not many) are mixed so deep (read: into the mix’s molten core) that any suppositions about what they may be saying are a sheer hazard of a guess, and never to be arrived at with any certainty and therefore robbed of what made the first two records (beyond the nostalgic tv psychedelic head-f*** music) fun in the first place.

Not that I don’t like Campfire. But I like it in a whole different context. I see it as more spiritually (and sonically) the bedfellow of Loveless or Heaven or Las Vegas than of Geogaddi or Music Has the Right to Children, almost in a way as if it had been made by a whole different artist, or really, was a side project of the brothers BOC rather than a Boards of Canada project designed as the logical sequel to Geogaddi.

I don’t know. But whatever ends up coming out in the next few months (if any of the cryptic, scatological conversations on WATMM yield any fruit) I hope that it’s not a reaction the way that Campfire (in all of it’s glory) nevertheless seems to be. And I hope that they’ll put some of those ‘easter eggs’ back into the mix so that we can endlessly argue about it and wikify it and all that good stuff that’s made the first few albums so enduring (beyond them being possessed of just really, really good tunes).

Oh, and let’s certainly hope that it's better than Trans-Canada. Oh, well, with the exception of Left Side Drive and the Odd Nosdam remix. Which I’m going to listen to... right...now.

Cupz · Post by **Cupz** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:47 pm

I really don't understand the "hostality" towards TCH... its wonderfull. Its an extension to Geogaddi...to some extent

streamrunner · Post by **streamrunner** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:17 pm

about a year ago I was playing "Slow this Bird Down" at my friend's house. her 4 year old daughter was getting scared by the music so I had to turn it off.

Cupz · Post by **Cupz** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:51 pm

streamrunner wrote:about a year ago I was playing "Slow this Bird Down" at my friend's house. her 4 year old daughter was getting scared by the music so I had to turn it off.

Thats classic....priceless

Vordhosbn · Post by **Vordhosbn** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:57 pm

streamrunner wrote:about a year ago I was playing "Slow this Bird Down" at my friend's house. her 4 year old daughter was getting scared by the music so I had to turn it off.

I've always found that track to be one of the most interesting tracks, especially with the shortwave static on the end...

sacred_geometry · Post by **sacred_geometry** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:04 pm

I love headphase just as much as geogaddi and mhtrtc, but i will admit it took me a while to realize what a masterpiece it is. the album ending tracks Slow this bird down>tears from the compound eye>farewell fire are among the best ambient work ive ever heard by any artist, let alone BoC's earlier work. 84 pontiac dream, peacock tail, satellite theme, OSTRE, all classic.

For those of you who have heard Last Walk Around Mirror Lake, the BoC remix...which I might add is one of my favorite tracks of theirs...doesnt it seem like it would have fit perfectly into TCH...with the acoustic guitar chords and the bittersweet/happy vibe it gives? The beat is definitely more in line with ABPITC, but the guitar stylings remind me so much of this album. Thoughts?

Infinite E · Post by **Infinite E** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:15 pm

thedisavowed wrote:Not that I don’t like Campfire. But I like it in a whole different context. I see it as more spiritually (and sonically) the bedfellow of Loveless or Heaven or Las Vegas than of Geogaddi or Music Has the Right to Children, almost in a way as if it had been made by a whole different artist, or really, was a side project of the brothers BOC rather than a Boards of Canada project designed as the logical sequel to Geogaddi.

I agree. I also kinda agree with what turquoise70 said. I was pretty closedminded about this album until recently, when I decided to try treating it as completely unrelated to anything else BoC have put out. There's still aspects of it I don't really like (eg- the way they layer warped and thick melodies with really clean-sounding drums kinda irritates me somehow, sounds cheap) but I have to admit, it's a killer album in it's own right

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:36 pm

Vordhosbn i just tried playing Farewell Fire with my stereo at max volume, i didn't hear any drones. can you isolate what you heard maybe using an audio program?

Vordhosbn · Post by **Vordhosbn** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:39 pm

turquoise70 wrote:Vordhosbn i just tried playing Farewell Fire with my stereo at max volume, i didn't hear any drones. can you isolate what you heard maybe using an audio program?

I'll do so: farewell fire ending normal.mp3 - 0.56MB

Be careful, it might be loud.

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:01 am

holy shit, that's downright eerie

i certainly hope that's an indication of things to come.

thegr8brian · Post by **thegr8brian** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:31 am

Vordhosbn wrote:
turquoise70 wrote:Vordhosbn i just tried playing Farewell Fire with my stereo at max volume, i didn't hear any drones. can you isolate what you heard maybe using an audio program?
I'll do so: farewell fire ending normal.mp3 - 0.56MB

Be careful, it might be loud.

never noticed this before quite amazing... really changes the whole feel of the song if you can hear that...

Vordhosbn · Post by **Vordhosbn** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:34 am

thegr8brian wrote:
Vordhosbn wrote:
turquoise70 wrote:Vordhosbn i just tried playing Farewell Fire with my stereo at max volume, i didn't hear any drones. can you isolate what you heard maybe using an audio program?
I'll do so: farewell fire ending normal.mp3 - 0.56MB

Be careful, it might be loud.
never noticed this before quite amazing... really changes the whole feel of the song if you can hear that...

I know, I'm starting to feel freaked out by it....like a kind of senseless mania about it.