Album Review: Boards Of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

After three vastly influential turn-of-the-millennium albums followed by eight years of silence in the Scottish wilderness, the fourth Boards Of Canada full-length marks a colder, more dystopian yet no less compelling direction for the reclusive electronic Scottish masters of deeply textured soundscapes. It's a little darker, a bit more paranoid and very, very good.

Heralding a 'brave new world' theme from the outset with an intro jingle straight from a Starship Troopers recruitment drive, first single Reach For The Dead's shimmering washy synths and distorted fluttery beats induce you into a hypnagogic state that doesn't relent throughout the full hour on show here. Cold Earth brings to mind some of Geogaddi's stronger more liquid moments, Sick Times' rolling beat is interspersed expertly with blurbs and beeps like lost transmissions from space, Palace Posy's fantastically bouncy tense background offers a hint of uplifting chord progression before delving back into the gorgeously muddy plod and the final third of the album, with tunes such as New Seeds and Come To Dust, points to a bright future ahead for the duo filled with organic subtlety and more adventurous percussive elements.

While comprising identifiable connections with their past work, this is still very much a relevant and inspiring album of its time, predicting via intensely textured passages of music the cold sterile future that awaits, but also how humanity can break through the genetically modified shield via kaleidoscopic bursts of light and invention. It's a stunning addition to their famed canon that rewards multiple listens, albeit not straying too far from the template they helped to create. But when the template is this great, who cares?