How did you first hear about Boards of Canada?

[zeoevil]

I don't remember when, but I heard Poppy Seed (Reprise) and it got me right in the childhood.

[thingsthingsthings]

Back in college I had a radio show for quite a few years, and when I was first apprenticing it was with a friend who had an early morning electronic show. After missing my alarm one day I was running pretty late to the station, and as I went in I could hear he had already started his set. In my groggy haze, with the early morning sun rising through the windows (I might sound overly poetic but it's a pretty rich memory) I heard the most amazing sound coming from the booth and filling the building, which ended up being the very beginning of Eagle In Your Mind. I got into the booth right when the drums kicked in and fucking lost it; it was shortly after when MHTRTC came out and I had never really heard anything like it. My friend was just grinning at me because he had the same reaction a few days before; I found a copy of the record that afternoon and must've listened to it 10 times in a row. Hooked since then.

[Magrathea]

Like many, I was first exposed through the work of David Firth (Salad Fingers, Burnt Face Man, etc) which I was following with delight in the late 2000's

As some of the haunting music he used came from BoC I decided to look at it, and I was instantly hooked. This was a far step from what I listened and continue to listen but for some reason BoC has something that just gets My mind into the right gear.

[clearND]

Great topic. It was Meat Beat Manifesto's Prime Audio Soup, and was listening to CBC's ambient satelitte channel when I heard BoC's Vegatable Soup mix.. fuckin' blew me away, hadn't heard anything like it at that point. Had to look them up, and the rest is history. New album soon.

[Aesthetics]

Back in college I had a radio show for quite a few years, and when I was first apprenticing it was with a friend who had an early morning electronic show. After missing my alarm one day I was running pretty late to the station, and as I went in I could hear he had already started his set. In my groggy haze, with the early morning sun rising through the windows (I might sound overly poetic but it's a pretty rich memory) I heard the most amazing sound coming from the booth and filling the building, which ended up being the very beginning of Eagle In Your Mind. I got into the booth right when the drums kicked in and fucking lost it; it was shortly after when MHTRTC came out and I had never really heard anything like it. My friend was just grinning at me because he had the same reaction a few days before; I found a copy of the record that afternoon and must've listened to it 10 times in a row. Hooked since then.

Great story. Amazing how one particular moment can change peoples live, isn't it? I wonder that if you were in time that day, you'd knew who BoC were today.

[vballs]

The first i heard of them I was chilling at a friends house many moons ago it seems. He played some music that i know now to be from old tunes volume one. He obviously grabbed it from some file sharing site. I enjoyed what I heard but it wasn't until a few days later when I had forest moon buzzing in my head that I realized I needed more.

I asked said friend to give me more info on this sound that kept haunting me so pleasantly and all he said was "yeah yeah i think that was boards of canada or some shit like that".

Over the years their music has continued to affect me like no other music has. It is something I cant explain.

[Opothecary]

in the spring of '98, MHTRTC was given a glowing review in the Alternative Press, which convinced me to check out the album. At that point, being shortly out of high school, I liked a lot of punk and industrial. Reading that review (and obviously hearing the album!) was a huge game changer in terms of the type of music that I enjoyed, and also led to a lifelong interest in entheogens.

[Treefingers]

On the Internet, looking for more music that sounded like 'Kid A' and Aphex Twin.

[Fireal420]

about 7 or 8 years ago my friend had sent me some tracks to listen to by boards of canada. some of the tracks that i remember her sending were, 1969, julie and candy, twoism, sixtyniner, and aquarius (among a few others).

anyway. at first the music didn't really hit me all that hard. then about a year later i remember listening to either the track, twoism, or sixtyniner. and it just rushed me with memories from the time that the music was originally sent to me. this was one of the first times that i began using music as a tool to remind me of my past. then i found it even more intense when i found out that most of BOC's music, is meant to do exactly that.


ive been hooked on their music ever since.

[Torn n Frayed]

and it just rushed me with memories from the time that the music was originally sent to me. this was one of the first times that i began using music as a tool to remind me of my past. then i found it even more intense when i found out that most of BOC's music, is meant to do exactly that.
ive been hooked on their music ever since.

The past..inside the present....

[747Music]

Back in 98-99 I was just getting into electronic music, I mostly just listened to Infected Mushroom. Then I heard Everything You do is a Balloon on the radio, can't remember which station though. I thought it was beautiful yeah, but I wasn't quite into that type of music yet. Also a friend of my brothers had Hi Scores. A few years later I came across BoC again on an internet radio station. They were playing MHTRTC in it's entirety. I downloaded the album immediately after and have been listening to them ever since.

[Jonse]

Heard Roygbiv ages ago and never thought much of it. Later in late 2005, Adult Swim was airing some bumps that featured Constants are Changing and eventually I took it upon myself to find the band that had created that music. Went online, eventually found them, listened to The Campfire Headphase and enjoyed it with a moderate interest. Ended up checking out MHTRTC and enjoying that as well. Eventually I listened to Geogaddi and that's when they became more than just a band I enjoy to me and instead one of my top favorites.

[Cab Dreaming]

Whenever it was Hi Scores came out. I heard it more by default that design because I used to hoover up anything that Skam were putting out at the time and I just bought it because it was on the label. A bit prosaic perhaps but there you go.

The guy in the shop ( Way Ahead in Leeds R.I.P) said "I reckon you'll really dig this one" so he span it in the shop and I said "Yeah, I can definitely dig this!". It was actually Nlogax that got me because I was in a bit of a techno phase at the time so it hit the right spot for where I was at, but, you know, the whole thing kinda grew on me a bit after a while...

As a fun little side story, when MHTRTC came out, I found it in a little record shop in Bradford on the Friday before it was officially released. The guy double bagged it so you couldn't see what I'd bought and said "Don't tell anyone you got this here!" or words to that effect, so I got home and rang my mate to come round cos I had a surprise. We both listened to it on the Friday afternoon and felt like we were the first people in the world to hear it. Which we clearly weren't, but it was fun to think we had an exclusive at the time.

[Synthetrix]

I heard Aquarius on a local college radio station when MHTRTC came out and went up to Aron's Records to get the CD. It got quite a bit of play from me for a while and then I kind of forgot about them until Geogaddi came out. That was the album that really hooked me to their sound.

[rainier]

'99ish I was looking for "Age of Aquarius" from Hair on napster and saw Aquarius and "Boards of Canada" sounded familiar, I'd probably seen their album at the record store. I really liked it, then downloaded "Open the Light" and loved it and decided I needed the album.

Weirdly, everyone I've dated since then has been a fan. Like 10 years ago I dated a super fan and heard everything by them that was available and that's when they became my favorite group. There was a good 2 years where I probably listened to them every single day. I was living in the pacific northwest at the time so there's so many of their songs I associate with rainy days.

I'm single now and it's not like a requirement or anything, but I admit it would be weird dating someone who didn't like them. I'm so used to it by now.

[paul]

Great topic. It was Meat Beat Manifesto's Prime Audio Soup, and was listening to CBC's ambient satelitte channel when I heard BoC's Vegatable Soup mix.. fuckin' blew me away, hadn't heard anything like it at that point. Had to look them up, and the rest is history. New album soon.

exactly this! i think it was end of 98 or 99 - but i remember the exact moment. i was working in my office editing undercover slaughter house footage (not hard to remember right?), while simultaneously that rascally Napster program was ripping away at this odd track i found: a remix of Prime Audio Soup called 'Vegetarian Soup by Boards Of Canada' ...

huge Meat Beat fan but never heard of BOC. as a veggie myself, i was tickled just by the title and they got my interest ... song ripped, pressed play and i was blown away. since that day i guess life has never been the same. 'BOC and life' for me are like 'food and wine' pairings for others: every situation i find myself in (be it a grocery store, up on a ridge, or descending to the seafloor) i think "ah, you know what would sound good to this? ..." (insert BOC Track Title Here)

cant say any other band does that for me.

[chilloutscene]

Bought the Ministry of Sound "Chillout Sessions" when I was getting into the genre back in 2001 or 2002 and heard ROYGBIV. Then Julie and Candy appeared on Ultra Chilled 2. I think I downloaded a few BOC tracks here and there but when I really got into them was when I had Rhapsody and then had access to all of their stuff. EYDIAB on the Hi Scores EP blew me away and I was hooked for life!

[Spaced]

I ignored them for a few years because of their name. I thought they were some turntablists from Canada and I was happy with DJ Shadow etc so never even sampled their work!
around 2001 between the release of In A Beautiful Place and Geogaddi I realized what a fool I had been. I also ignored Stars of the Lid solely because of their name, as I thought they were just another post rock band ala Explosions in the Sky and were signed to Kranky home at the time of Godspeed..., In both artists cases I will forever curse myself for missing out a few years of enjoyment for such a daft reason.

[kid]

back in 1998 when mhtrtc was released. a friend of mine had bought it and was raving about it to me on a night out. we went back to his house so he could play it for me. he played me roygbiv first....which I have to say didnt really impress me so much, but then he played the album from the start and an eagle in your mind just blew me away! i went out and bought my own copy the very next day and spent the whole day listening to the album over and over. then came the desperate search for anything else they'd done. managed to get a copy of hi scores from the local record store and some terrible recordings of twoism and BOC maxima and the tracks from the mask records from soulseek.
I remember when iabpoitc was released, a friend text me to say it had arrived at the record store, it wasnt released yet but if i asked they'd let me have a copy early! so i did of course....it felt kinda naughty and cool, he went off in to the back room and came back with a copy which he then put through the till as something else! i miss that store, it closed down quite a while ago. It was only tiny but one time they managed to get plaid to play live in the store, that was a strange experience, about 20 of us packed in to this tiny store whilst plaid played for us. I got so much of my record collection from that place, I was introduced to a lot of new stuff there.....I'd just go to the electronica section and pick out stuff from labels i knew or bands I'd heard of from remixes and stuff, or sometimes I'd just pick something up because i liked the cover, that was sometimes a disappointment, but sometimes you'd find a real beauty that way. the guys in the store always had recommendations and they would order in absolutely anything if you asked them.

[Spirit Fingers]

There was a shoegaze compilation called Sci-Fi Lo-Fi released when I was about 16, it had Zoetrope on it and I though it was one of the most perfect things I'd ever heard (still do). I got MHTRTC shortly after but it honestly never clicked, then I heard Geogaddi a year later and they became my second favourite band in the space of about 3 weeks.
I adore Music Has The Right now though, I honestly don't know why i couldn't get into it..