The OST. The official soundtrack. This is the official soundtrack to the world. I won’t say another word. Have a listen. But first, make sure you’ve had some exercise, fed and talked to your family, done a good deed, gone to work (if you’re still working) and talked to your family again. Then listen.
New Dawn
From out of nowhere a small simple message on a music forum reads “I bought a new synth. Here is a track inspired by Boards of Canada.” I found this message the same day Igloo published my first article—Will there be another Boards of Canada release?
The YouTube link opens and then starts “Circa 1984.” I am so blown away with what I’m hearing that a touch of schizophrenia tells me that this is actually the new Boards of Canada record. I tell myself that they’ve released a secret project randomly, as a new puzzle to solve. Just like last time with Tomorrow’s Harvest (Warp, 2013). I recall a message that someone posted online: “What if their new album has been uploaded to Soundcloud for ages and everyone is just ignoring it?” Something like that could happen and it wouldn’t be the first time an artistic statement like that has occurred. I think Cliff Richard did it. Anyhow—my paranoid state dissipates when I engage in conversation with the writer of this material.
I believe the time of survival for independent labels hit critical point as we hit 2000. Maybe the millennium bug we were all promised actually occurred somehow. Not from within our electronic gadgets blowing up and planes falling out of the sky, but of how technology would infiltrate into our lives, changing the way we shopped at the very least. Certainly changing our psychology We all caught the bug of online retail.
I remember a time of rumour when every artist on Rephlex Records was Aphex Twin. Once again, a fantastic label that could not survive. I shouldn’t dwell on it though and neither should you. Things change—there are reasons to celebrate. Physical copies are less strain on the environment, and let’s face it, after ten or fifteen years, most CD’s end up in landfills. Vinyl however, that does retain it’s collective value, strangely tapes do too and both are enjoying a revival. Perhaps it is because both mediums capture the listener and require some effort on their part to engage in the listening process. It should be an experience. You should feel a connection and come away changed from having heard what you’ve heard.
Technology can bring us back from the brink. But we must start adapting it with less emphasis on profit and more emphasis on social responsibility and health.
If this music was available as a vinyl record, I would not hesitate to order it. In my humble and honest opinion, for this not to be on a major label truly does show the state of things. Perhaps we’ve relied on the internet too much? Perhaps it infiltrated the very fabric of human society to a point where it is just too intrusive and too much for us to handle. For advertising and entertainment it’s great. For communication with one another, perfect. One thing that the internet has not been good for is our mental health. Evidence shows just how addictive this thing is. Gambling sites recruit psychologists to adapt ways of striking right to the risk/reward system. It’s a crazy world—is it us, or both?
Technology can bring us back from the brink. But we must start adapting it with less emphasis on profit and more emphasis on social responsibility and health. We stand glued to our screens and forget the surrounding beauty of one another, social media has made us antisocial as whole families stare into the electronic superhighway. I say all this as a complete hypocrite, having spent all day and yesterday glued to the screen, but this is what I am getting at. It’s just a problem for some people and it seems there is no way out, especially when we’re all locked up indoors.
The OST. The official soundtrack. This is the official soundtrack to the world. I won’t say another word. Have a listen. But first, make sure you’ve had some exercise, fed and talked to your family, done a good deed, gone to work (if you’re still working) and talked to your family again. Then listen.
This was a music review.
The OST is available on Bandcamp.
