Pitchfork

[Posted Thursday, November 6th, 2003 02:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

In the course of human history, events sometimes transpire that are so momentous, so all-encompassing in scope and ponderous in implication that we are compelled to report them immediately and render them up into the reservoir of hipster consciousness that sustains us all-- even when there is precious little information to convey. This, comrades, is one of those moments.

According to Boards of Canada's Music70.com website-- not their official website, which, in lieu of information, features a weird union between the point-and-click excitement of Myst and the charmingly low-key execution of a Newgrounds.com game (without all the hyper-offensive suicide bombing /school shooting /donkey punch Britney Spears stuff)-- these most felicitous blenders of post-rock drama and IDM glitchery will release their first new studio album since Geogaddi in 2004.

That's pretty much the long and short of it, folks. There is no extant title or tracklist, and no indication of whether the album will be released by Warp (who make no mention of the album on their official site), no intriguing innuendo regarding bold new stylistic directions. For all we know, the Boards might be recording a two-step garage record this time around, with a limited-edition first pressing packaged in the hand-stitched, die-cut skin of white neo-liberals.

This "story," if a one-sentence announcement followed by a cryptic remark about leap years (we'll get to that presently) can be rightly construed as such, was quickly picked up by electronic music resource We Are the Music Makers. WATMM claims that a UK source has informed them that several press releases have pegged the album for a February debut. This supposition is strengthened by the observation on Music70 site that states, sans context, that 2004 is a leap year. Further wild conjecture has led to WATMM's consensus opinion that Boards of Canada are planning to release the album on February 29th, the leap day. Of course, this is impure speculation; Boards of Canada might just as well be reminding us that we have an extra day to pay the rent in February. I'll suggest a working title: Red Herring. Keep checking back as we sort through these and other varicolored fish, in our quest for more concrete information.

In more tenable news (also courtesy of Music70.com), the Boards have collaborated with Mush Records /Big Dada /Anticon associates cLOUDDEAD on an "ultra-psychedelic" alternate version of cLOUDDEAD's upcoming single "Dead Dogs Two." The original version of the single will be on cLOUDDEAD's next album, Ten, which will be released in January of the looming leap year. The Boards of Canada remix will appear on the "Dead Dogs Two" twelve-inch, out January 27th on Mush in the U.S., a day earlier on Big Dada in the UK.