As excited as I was by pioneering electronica artists in the early to mid-90s like Autechre, Oval and Mouse On Mars, the bulk of the stuff left me cold. When Radiohead were criticized for pillaging the Warp catalog, I countered that they helped pull the genre out of a rut. Too many albums were bloodless exercises in style and technique. Radiohead’s hybrids helped breathe life into the techniques. After all, the best music sounds alive. When we listen to music, most of us want to be reminded that we are indeed alive, not trapped in a machine, ghosts or not. Recent albums by Leila, Múm, Fennesz and Boards Of Canada are indeed kicking like unborn fetuses soon to take their first breath in the outside world.
Not to say that the Scottish duo have given birth with their second album, Geogaddi, but they’re certainly on their way to creating new lifeforms, both alien and familiar. It’s that sort of tension that drives them — the contrast between warm, comforting sounds of the womb and childhood nostalgia, and the jarring dissonance of harsh reality and unknown horrors. “The Devil Is In The Details” integrates a rhythmic liquid sound, like pumping blood, with childlike cries, and the voiceover of what could be an exorcist or a witch meeting a watery grave. Much of the sound is diffusive and gauzy, disorientating and oceanic, like an updated My Bloody Valentine. It’s no surprise that Boards Of Canada’s previous effort, 1998’s Music Has the Right to Children appealed to people not normally into electronica. Geogaddi is cut from the same cloth as its predecessor, but it’s aged, acquiring some layers of paranoia and dread.
A lot has happened since 1998, and the music reflects it. The songs are weightier, more densely packed, ensuring they will never be confused with, say, Air. On “Gyroscope,” the distorted voice of a counting child is violently assaulted by machine gun percussion to chilling effect, while “1969” is a more melodic, bucolic venture that recalls The Orb. Geogaddi is another genre-defining installment that expertly negotiates the terrain between comforting and unsettling. It kind of sounds a lot like life.
