Monday, 11 May 2026

Boards Of Canada – "Old Tunes Vol. 2" (Music70 – CANCAS003) 1996



Wow!? this Duo must have invented everything chill room infesting and bedroom festering one could care to imagine, it says 1985 to '96 here!? Not that it sounds like it was recorded on one of those cassette four track portastudios which I assume they must have used, with a noise reduction system that can only have been left behind by fleeing Aliens.
Just listening to this stuff makes me smug enough to lie about how many O-Levels i got in 1983,or is that a Dostoevsky in your pocket or do you like Intelligent Dance Music?
What these Scottish chum bums were doing making music like this in the mid-eighties has ones middle finger resting firmly on the 'dubious' button and another finger up each others arses.
As Pre-post-Club as this may seem, fill in the blank space,(_______).It is this partially inflated,dryly punchline shy, self-indulgent and occasionally clever-clever, attempt to be the Pet shop boys without any Pet Shop boys, does massage ones own 'I was there first' Dorsal vein enough to claim to have been listening to 'Intelligent Dance Music' before Aphex Twin was even born.
I used to say these things about The Fall,but have now cut it down to just preferring the 'Early Stuff'? Which is no doubt what Autechre fans say about Boards Of Canada.

Track List:


A1 We've Started Up 5:39
A2 Jimbo Rehearsing 0:35
A3 Staircase Whip 2:14
A4 Statue Of Liberty 1:52
A5 Dave (I'm A Real Traditionalist) 1:50
A6 Peace/Tony/Devil 0:18
A7 To The Wind 2:30
A8 Iraq Says 0:38
A9 Nine-Rubber Wisdom 1:20
A10 On A Rolling Sea 1:34
A11 Iced Cooly Beatnik 0:36
A12 David Came To Mahana'im 4:39
A13 Sir Prancelot Brainfire 2:51
A14 North Sea Arbeit 1:12
A15 Mushyz 0:35
A16 Heysanna Hosanna 0:59
A17 Fly In The Pool 0:51
A18 Mukinabaht 5:05
A19 It's A Whole 'Nother Year 2:00
B1 Kiteracer 2 2:29
B2 BMX Track 5:05
B3 Hiscores 3:38
B4 Geometric Piss 0:51
B5 Zander Two 3:59
B6 Magic Teens 3:00
B7 Apparatus 0:33
B8 Music For Pylons 1:12
B9 Alpha Rainbow 1:12
B10 Northern Plastics 1:55
B11 Buckie High 5:16
B12 I Love My New Shears 3:11
B13 Solarium 0:22
B14 Breaking Nehushtan 2:41
B15 Orange Hexagon Sun 2:22
B16 Lick 2:39
B17 Powerline Misfortune 1:15

Sunday, 10 May 2026

Boards Of Canada – "A Few Old Tunes" (Music70) 1996


 


Hands Up anyone who thought Boards of Canada were from Canada?
Ah......only me it seems!?
Two smart-arsed Scottish brothers....no not Black Scottish, they were actually proper brothers,as in genetically brothers from the same mother.
Well that's as Funky as it gets i'm afraid, as we are gently lulled to sleep by a myriad of rejected downtempo leftfield LP fillers recorded from 1991 to 1995. If you made it through this without going into a coma, then I shall hold back on the Bored of Canada quips.
Nah, i'm just being rude, its the perfect background accompaniment for a bored game such as Dungeons and Dragons,which boasts a twenty sided dice,while side two has a two sided cassette of fifteen tracks a side.
And like D&D, it is played and listened to by home dwelling geeks nerds and further education technophiles, who have an undiagnosed need to be thought of as Intelligent.Hence this disdainful post club glitch-fest and its even more Disdainful genre, laughably monikered IDM, or, Intelligent Dance Music......not that Geeks and Nerds, or anybody, actually Dances to this awkward Electronica,by Bored of Scotland.
The stoopider sections of society can in fact dance to anything,aided by the stoopid person's super-power.....a total lack of self-awareness, or get off yer Tits on drugs.
However, good to see those Aphex-a-like kids still embracing the freedom of DIY to put out yer own material on cassette,and photocoping up a hand scribbled insert,without the need of no record company man.

Tracklist:

A1 Spectrum 2:19
A2 Light, Clear Hair 0:41
A3 P.C. 0:48
A4 Trapped 3:52
A5 Rodox Video 1:19
A6 Happy Cycling 1:49
A7 House Of Abin'adab 1:55
A8 Finity 5:00
A9 Forest Moon 6:35
A10 Skimming Stones 2:12
A11 Carcan 1:50
A12 Devil 0:14
A13 Mansel 5:36
A14 She Is P 1:42
A15 Davie Addison 1:15
B1 Sac 1:23
B2 Blockbusters 0:40
B3 I Will Get It Tattooed 1:37
B4 The Way You Show 2:56
B5 I Love U 1:41
B6 King Of Carnival 4:18
B7 M9 3:32
B8 Original Nlogax 1:11
B9 Sequoia 4:49
B10 Boqurant 1:43
B11 5.9.78 4:14
B12 Wendy Miller 0:32
B13 Paul Russell's Piece 0:53
B14 Up The March Bank 3:24
B15 Nova Scotia Robots 1:47

DOWNLOAD almost intelligently HERE!

Friday, 8 May 2026

Various Artists – "The Philosophy Of Sound And Machine" (Applied Rhythmic Technology (ART) – art 2 cd) 1992


When things start going all Highfalutin,the nerds reappear from their lair, and try and fix the stuff the Alpha-Males did while they were away. Sick of getting ambient sand from the chill out room kicked in their collective spotty visage-s, they normally attach the word 'Intelligent' as a pronoun, enabling them to look down their lengthy olfactory organs at the Rave kids who had reduced electronic music to merely a medium for dancing like the Twats they were.
Privileged teen-persons from Cornwall, who dug surfing during the daytime, but at night they became the brain of acid house, and invented a kind of background music in their bedroom that embraced such non-musical nonsense as the 'Glitch',and all those sounds no-body had previously thought of using for that post-club party venue in one of Truro's more neglected neighborhoods. Posh they were, and posh they will stay,but it became trendy in those northern clubs to carry a vinyl copy of "Selected Ambient Works" by a certain famous Glitch obsessed Cornish-man*, from which we get stuff like Squarepusher, Drill'n'Bass, Plug and Christwagon,being the same person, not forgetting the great too skool to be cool name-dropee darlings,of older skatebordem dressing...er... ,yes that's right, its only bloody Autechre innit? Beaming down from that chilled jail cell they seem to have inhabited since the exact location of the multiverse starseed was discovered.
Intelligent Dance Music they called it,scarring it as the only musical style in Christendom to actually patronize the listener more that it entertains.......and of course it certainly ain't for dancing to.Look ma I'm Dancin' , I have O-Levels and I don't care!I dance with my Brain mom!

* Aphex Twin aka Richard D. James, who, incidentally, contributes track 13 to this splendid Compact Disc,which means you can make it sound even further 'out' there by merely scratching the disc with your favourite nail scissors.

Tracklist:

1 Future/Past– Nebula Variation 5:53
2 Q-Chastic– CAT 002 3:58
3 Soit - P.P.– n.IASP 5:03
4 Red Cell*– Bio - Dimension 5:54
5 Neuro Politique*– Artemis (Mayday Mix)5:54
6 Kosmik Kommando*– Remember The Feeling6:25
7 Cmetric– Debris 8:40
8 Balil– The Whirling Of Spirits 5:52
9 Esoterik– Pursuit 5:08
10 Future/Past– T.R.Y. 2004 Funk 5:20
11 Twelve Days Of Night– Trance 6:08
12 Balil– Small Energies 6:08
13 Blue Calx – Blue Calx 7:15