Boards Of Canada: Geogaddi (Vinyl 3xLP)

An album as highly anticipated as this (four years in the making) is always going to come under intense scrutiny. Geogaddi doesn't necessarily break any new ground for Boards, but succeeds in bringing together more of the BOC magic that's reached so deeply into our collective psyche's since Music Has The Right... was first released in 1998. The blueprint is similar, with short interludes scattered across and in between the 'full tracks', starting with the opening 60 seconds of 'Ready Lets Go' - a distant wildlife documentary soundtrack to your dreams in glorious childhood technicolour. First track proper - 'Music Is Math' features spoken fragments, a vocoded refrain, simple and deeply evocative melodies and the trademark treated percussion. '1969' is another spine-tingler, ever so slightly out-of-tune and drenched in sweetness.

But Geogaddi also offers up some new developments - 'Gyroscope', for example, features an uncharacteristic tribal rotation of drums put through the BOC filtration system, sounding like a lost tape unearthed and carefully restored, retaining the mark of nostalgia that directs Boards tracks so instantly to that part of the brain reserved for its earliest memories, but doing it via a new route. 'The Devil Is In The Details' also follows new turns, bringing to mind Autechre's 'Overand': subliminal use of rustling found sounds over a single delayed synth progression.

2013 remastered reissue.

1. Ready Let's Go
2. Music Is Math
3. Beware the Friendly Stranger
4. Gyroscope
5. Dandelion
6. Sunshine Recorder
7. In the Annexe
8. Julie and Candy
9. The Smallest Weird Number
10. 1969
11. Energy Warning
12. The Beach at Redpoint
13. Opening the Mouth
14. Alpha and Omega
15. I Saw Drones
16. The Devil Is In the Details
17. A Is to B As B Is to C
18. Over the Horizon Radar
19. Dawn Chorus
20. Diving Station
21. You Could Feel the Sky
22. Corsair
23. Magic Window