Boards of Canada

Scottish brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin formed Boards of Canada in 1987, and sporadically released EPs and albums on cassette for several years on limited runs. These have now been disowned by the band and have not even surfaced on file-sharing networks, apart from the Old Tunes CDs and BOC Maxima, despite fans curiosity to hear them. Their earliest recording that is commercially available now is 1995's Twoism, which was re-released in 2002 by Warp. Initially another limited release, it was sent to Skam Records, who were impressed enough to sign the brothers and release another EP. This was followed in 1998 by their breakthrough album, Music Has The Right To Children. A masterpiece of ambient IDM, it brought them widespread acclaim from music critics and instantly made them stars of electronic music (although Boards of Canada very rarely give interviews or perform live).

After a couple more EPs, their second full-length was released in 2002. Geogaddi was again widely praised, although it was not considered to be quite as good as Music Has The Right To Children. Third album The Campfire Headphase (2005) saw a slightly different style, with more conventional structures and the inclusion of real instruments. It received mostly positive reviews, but some reviewers were disappointed with the new sound. Nevertheless, Boards of Canada are still very well regarded by fans of experimental electronic music, and their fourth album is highly anticipated.