Wednesday, November 9
Boards of Canada, The Campfire Headphase
I know I said I wasn't going to write more reviews for a while, but I got Boards of Canada's latest, The Campfire Headphase, and I have to say something about it. I thought their previous work, Geogaddi, was a lot of fun to listen to...for about a week. Then it bored me. That wasn't the case with Music Has the Right to Children, which, although it does now seem slightly dated (the beats sound a bit too circa 1998), is still a fixture on my ipod and something I still hearken back to when I'm in a certain mood (read: when I'm sleepy and want to think at the same time).
I think the difference between Geogaddi and Music Has the Right to Children is a bit like the difference between Richard Rodriguez's El Mariachi and Desperado. They're both basically the same movie, but El Mariachi was made for about $50 and Desperado was made for millions. The differences in story and characters were negligible, but El Mariachi was rough and unpolished and (therefore) lots of fun while Desperado was expensive and glossy and (therefore) boring. Yes, that's it: the more money you throw at something, the more the money becomes the point of the work. Do something on a shoestring budget and you can sometimes (not always) achieve something truly unique because you (as an artist) are forced to economize and come up with new and unique ways to create a work of art (like the way Rodriguez used a shopping cart for tracking shots).
I don't know if Boards of Canada were working on a shoestring budget for their first work, but I'm willing to guess that they had new equipment for Geogaddi--and that equipment ended up being the point of Geogaddi. The music was basically the same, but it was more clever, more about the twiddling effects and fun little asides than about creating memorable melodies and striking evocative moods. It was dull.
So now there's The Campfire Headphase, and I think it owes much more to Music Has the Right to Children than to Geogaddi, if only because it sounds rougher, more unpolished, and more atmospherics than its predecessor. There's a decided thematic link to the sounds and memories of childhood, just as on the earlier works, and in that respect the work is a bit repetitive. But repetition is not really a huge problem--heck, most artists only create one or two unique ideas and then continually refine and revise those ideas in all subsequent works (I'm looking at you, Bruce Springsteen). B of C are just learning from past mistakes, focusing on what they do best, and churning out new works that play on and improve upon what they've done before. It's a fun work, and I encourage all of you to check it out.
