____twoism

I think TCH is soooo much better than TH.

None of the tracks on TH are actually GREAT. Maybe New Seeds is GREAT...? TCH blew me away many times- Ataronchronon, Dayvan Cowboy, Farewell Fire, Macquaire Ridge, Satellite Anthen Icarus, Oscar See Through Red Eye, Hey Saturday Sun, A Moment of Clarity are still tracks that give me goosebumps. I just love them, I could listen to them on loop for the rest of my life. TH...I liked Palace Posy, but after a while I got tired of it. New Seeds is nice, but it sounds so simple that I just can't think of it as a GREAT song. As one guy mentioned before, there are lots of filler tracks and songs that don't go anywhere...it's so frustrating.

TH also lacks detail. I don't consider details hidden voices which I will never even make out. It's just weak and lazy. There are a few hidden sounds in songs here and there, but that's not enough compared to TCH which bombards us with things you won't notice after the first listen. It even has the infamous hidden voices.

Also I like the fact that TCH is "new". It's happy, it's colorful (ya know), makes you fuzzy inside. TH makes you sad, empty, depressed...I dunno about you guys, but I've already got the same vibes from Geogaddi.

Harvest is the best BoC album imho, TCH feels dated comparing to TH

arvy wrote:Harvest is the best BoC album imho, TCH feels dated comparing to TH

Could you please elaborate on what makes TH the best BOC album?
Im just curious

Najlepsiejszy wrote:Also I like the fact that TCH is "new". It's happy, it's colorful (ya know), makes you fuzzy inside. TH makes you sad, empty, depressed...I dunno about you guys, but I've already got the same vibes from Geogaddi.

I think that is the point for each record though. TH is supposed to be a soundtrack to a post-apocalyptic movie that doesn't exist. Very cold, very dark. It's hard to criticize something that matches their intentions, but just happens to not be your personal cup of tea stylistically. It's actually kind of opinions like this that inspired me to create the thread in the first place. People that got on the train with TCH, or somehow feel its their best album and everything they do now should be derivative of that type of sound.

I can see the comparisons to Geogaddi, but only on a superficial level. Beyond both being "dark" (whatever shorthand that is)/disjointed, they couldn't be more different albums. In the first case, it's steeped in the occult and is very psychedelic, which I think by its nature means its very alive and colorful despite some themes it explores. It's disjointedness comes from its trippiness, especially on the back half of the album where things get VERY weird. It's an album that is full of melody an emotion, in the same ways that religion or a psychedelic trip might make you feel.

TH is almost the exact opposite approach in its intentions while still being an uncomfortable listen for some people. It's dark and cold, and gets its disjointedness from its production values, where songs begin and end where you wouldn't expect them to. The intentional lack of melody for most of the album ties into that theme. It's a bleak listen, it's not the rapturous occult mindfuck that Geogaddi is.

I think in both cases they make production choices that prevent them from being as easy listens as their other more accessible work. Take a look at Dandelion, probably one of their most beautiful melodies ever, put on the album played in reverse. They almost never do what Joe Sixpack would want them to do, they make themselves happy first.

FWIW I think the vignettes on TCH are much more filler-ish than the ones on TH, but everyone has their own tastes. TCH to me is a good album, up to OSTRE and the vignettes up that point aside. There is no other place in their catalog where an album falls off so completely imo and I feel like they learned from that with TH, it just gets better as it goes along.

^Nothing is better than Music Has The Right... but for now, for today, TH just fells much more stronger than TCH and even Geo, TH feels like a higd mirror of our times in wich we all live and this makes it more important as a piece of art, afterall.

My favourite artists/bands as a kid were the ones that could partially reinvent themselves with each record (The Cure, early Depeche Mode, Talk Talk, Radiohead, Bowie…). I could never say which record by them was the best, as they were all so different. I feel that way about BoC too.

Unlike, say, Autechre who appear more driven by technology for each record's sound (and some of the later albums are pretty interchangeable in terms of composition IMO), BoC are driven more by stylistic choices. Today I prefer TH to TCH but that might change tomorrow. I was initially more disappointed by TCH than I was on first hearing TH. I suppose I didn't really pick up on the road trip theme of TCH until it was explained in interview, whereas I got the themes of TH immediately.

What's frustrating about a band like BoC is that it's such a long wait between records. At least when Bowie or The Cure tried something you didn't click with, you only had to wait a year for something new, different and possibly more to your taste.

Opothecary wrote:People that got on the train with TCH, or somehow feel its their best album and everything they do now should be derivative of that type of sound.

God, no, that would be so boring!

You make a great point about differences between Geogaddi and Tomorrow's Harvest. However, I just don't like the inconsistency of TH you talk about. And simple melodies would be fine...Roygbiv has a pretty simple melody, and I love it. But I just don't like them on TH. Well, I hope I'll like the next album better.

It seems to be quite a popular theory that people like TCH because it was their first introduction to BOC and they find the other albums too 'difficult'. I'm afraid I don't get this at all. The first BOC album I bought was Geogaddi, then TCH, then MHTRTC, then Tomorrow's Harvest. I've always thought, particularly after Tomorrow's Harvest, that Geogaddi and TCH were much more similar in sound, if not in mood, than BOC's other albums. In my opinion there is a much bigger gap between MHTRTC and Geogaddi than Geogaddi and TCH - MHTRTC was much more of its era, particularly the dance-orientated beats, which all but disappeared for Geogaddi and TCH.
For me the 'classic' BOC sound is the backwards instruments and samples, warm, woozy/hazy synths and stuttering beats, dance/hip-hop in pattern but not danceable (if that makes sense).
TH is a leap even further in style, but that's not to say that it's better or worse, just different.

I always thought Geogaddi was in more of its own world than most people give it credit for. It's interesting how people divide up the music in their head. Like I mentioned in the LSD thread, it feels like MHTRTC and Geogaddi (and the EPs and other one offs from that general era) seem like the work of people somewhat still in their youth, entrenched in psychedelia.

TCH and TH seem like the work of older artists (because they are!) but without the psychedelic influence. I'm actually listening to TCH right now for the first time in awhile and maybe I'm too hard on it sometimes, but it does sort of drift off into background noise on the back 1/3 of the album.

I don't want to say it felt like it was made on autopilot, but it just seemed like they wanted to pull out everything from their bag of tricks...but in a more workmanlike fashion than they had in the past. That's kind of why I feel the psychedelic influence wasn't there. TCH is certainly psychedelic in its own way...but it doesn't feel like it was developed under the influence of them. I can't explain it any better than that.

It's funny to see that TH has more listens clocked so far than TCH did on my end...and that was a LONG 8 year wait, mostly listening to a lot of Old Tunes and R35TT, truthfully.

I think both albums are beautiful. My favorite thing about BoC is that they have distinctly different albums to fit distinctly different moods.

MHTRTC is playful and dance-y (for Boards, anyway.) It's great to listen to with company.

Geogaddi is dark and introspective. Best enjoyed alone, on headphones.

TCH is ethereal and bright. It's like a painkiller. Put this record on and lie down in the sun. Have a drink. Chill. Sleep. It's the essence of youthful summer captured on wax.

TH is cinematic. Play it loud. Let it be a spectacle. Get lost in the narrative, and pay close attention.

I was so unfathomably upset when TH came out and everybody said it didn't sound like BoC, or that it sounded like "fake BoC" If they came out with a clone of any of their previous records, that would be the only thing breaking Boards' tradition.

Anyway, to answer the original question, I personally prefer TCH, but not by much. I just happen to have a lot of good memories associated with that album. Hopefully TH will have the same weight in the coming years.