Day 221: Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children

Today I thought I’d go for an album that has a nonsense name with a nonsense name performer — I mean what the hell are boards of Canada, and how does music have the right to children? I’m assuming I’m about to find out, or possibly that no one knows and they are your bog-standard esoteric-sounding garbage names.

Album cover courtesy of Warp

Boards of Canada are a duo of brothers from Pentland Hills in Scotland who have been making music together since 1986. They’re elusive Scottish artists with a slightly strange reputation who we don’t really know much about because they keep to themselves, which is the lifestyle I’m aspiring to so I was excited to explore what that might sound like.

Music Has the Right to Children was released in 1998 and it has become a landmark album in its genre. It’s electronic music but done very differently, with a flowing and organic sound that’s often accompanied by voices of children or nature sounds. Apparently they also try to add in various strange things like subliminal messages to create depth to their songs, saying:

We are a bit ritualistic, although not religious at all. We're not really conscious of it in our music but I can see that it is happening. We're interested in symbols. I don't know, we never just make a pleasant tune and leave it at that, it would be pointless. So I suppose there is an intention to let the more adult, disturbed, atrocious sides of our imaginations slip into view through the pretty tunes.

I can see why people like it so much. It’s the nostalgic, groovy songs that are easy to sink into but with something slightly darker and more sophisticated bubbling under the surface. I also love the inclusion of nature sounds to it. I listened to it while I was writing something else and my only note from when I was originally listening to it was “It’s music that sounds like what fungi could say if they could speak to us, I fully believe that if those bad boys could talk to me, I’d just hear “Telephasic Workshop”.”

That being said, I’m not as enamoured as some of the more enthusiastic fans of this album are, I think it might need a few more spins for me to get into it. It was great to write to and I probably will add it to my writing music rotation, but I’m not in love with it just yet.

I’m giving it a preliminary 8.5/10, but that might change in the future.