Electronic music isn't known for its sentimentality. However, when critics wrote about Boards of Canada's 1998 release, "Music Has the Right to Children," the word "nostalgia" was kicked around more than once. The amalgam of Vangelis-like keyboards and loops of school kids at play unearthed subconscious images of "Blade Runner" and "Sesame Street," often at the same time. This earned B.O.C. a place in the dubiously named genre of IDM, or "intelligent dance music."
Due to the perfectionist tendencies of the Scottish duo (Marcus Eoin and Michael Sandison), it has taken them four years to return from their Edinburgh hideout with a new full-length album. Fans will be pleased to hear that "Geogaddi" strays little from the concepts that made "MHTRTC" such a success. A warm drone melts glacially slow beats, permeated by nearly indecipherable vocal samples that leave you guessing what subliminal messages have been enclosed. Future, present and past are galvanized as Eoin and Sandison meld state-of-the-art production with the sounds of science fiction and a wavering analog-synth reminiscent of an 8-track on low batteries.
B.O.C. are well-suited to their label, Warp Records, home to other IDM artists such as Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and Autechre. "Geogaddi," in fact, sounds like all of these guys spent the last four years locked in a bio-dome with French techno-popsters Air. The result sounds less like an album and more like some sort of educational programming for young cyborgs.