Is this the return of Boards Of Canada? Is this the return of VHS? And which one of those two possibilities is more exciting?
Boards of Canada have been teasing a possible new album by sending out video tapes of abstract noise and sounds to carefully-selected recipients. It’s all hush-hush: they’ve not told anyone they’re doing this. But the crackling audio and decaying analogue images on the tapes seem very much in the style of BoC.
The devious despatches have left fans trying to decipher the tapes’ mysterious phrases and symbols, as if they were ancient runes that renowned professor Robert Langdon is trying in order to prevent the Pope from morphing into a man-bear or something. Sorry. I’ve been reading too much Dan Brown.
Nottingham electronic musician Lone (pictured) was one of those that received a VHS tape. “Who knows what’s in store at this point,” he said on his Instagram page, “but judging by what’s on the tape I think it’s safe to say they haven’t mellowed one bit.”
YouTuber MATTHS has been updating the internet on the Boards bamboozling. He says 17 have been mailed out so far, as of yesterday, although uber-geeks on a BoC tape mailings forum – yes, that's now a thing – have updated this figure to over two dozen.
It seems legit. MATTHS says the recipients seem to be connected by purchases they made from Warp Records’ online shop Bleep.com. He’s also spotted an image on the VHS tape that has turned up on Warp Records’ Spotify page.
BoC have form for this kind of shenanigan. When they released Tomorrow’s Harvest in 2013, they did a similar Krypton Factor-style teaser by eking out codes via limited-edition 12-inch vinyl. Once solved, the codes led fans to a video page and an album pre-order.
Most people just "drop" an album; BoC are dangling theirs. Mailer campaigns, physical media, online speculation? It's pleasingly old school. Everyone's playing detective and we are loving it. I bet deerstalker and magnifying glass sales have gone through the roof.
If you're reading this, I'll take mine on Betamax, chaps. Cheers.
Photo from Lone's Instagram page
Further Fats: Geo-giddy: Boards of Canada's one word Facebook publicity explosion (2012)
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