Boards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of the brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin, formed initially as a group in 1986 before becoming a duo in the 1990s. Signing first to Skam followed by Warp Records in the 1990s, the duo received recognition following the release of their debut album Music Has the Right to Children on Warp in 1998. They followed with the critically acclaimed albums Geogaddi (2002), The Campfire Headphase (2005) and Tomorrow's Harvest (2013).
The duo's work, largely influenced by outdated media and electronic music from the 1970s, incorporates vintage synthesiser tones, samples, analog equipment, and hip hop-inspired beats. It has been described by critics as exploring themes related to nostalgia, as well as childhood memory, science, environmental concerns and esoteric subjects. In 2012, Fact described them as "one of the best-known and best-loved electronic acts of the last two decades."
History
Early years (1986–1994) Brothers Michael Sandison (born 1 June 1970) and Marcus Eoin (born Marcus Eoin Sandison, 21 July 1971) were brought up in Cullen, Moray, on the northeast coast of Scotland. From 1979 to 1980, they lived in Calgary, Canada, while their father, who worked in construction, took part in the project to build the Saddledome. The brothers attended the University of Edinburgh, where Michael studied music and Marcus studied artificial intelligence. Marcus dropped out before completing his degree. The duo did not reveal that they are brothers until a 2005 interview with Pitchfork, as they wanted to avoid comparisons with another electronic sibling duo, Orbital.
Growing up in a musical family, the brothers first played instruments at a young age. They experimented with recording techniques from around the age of 10, using tape machines to layer cut-up samples of found sounds over compositions of their own. In their teens they participated in a number of amateur bands. However, it was not until 1986 when Marcus was invited to join Mike's band that Boards of Canada was born. The band's name was inspired by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), the government agency whose award winning documentary films and animation they had watched as children.
Their first known release was Catalog 3, in 1987 on cassette tape, on the brothers' own label, Music70, while Boards of Canada was still a band (it was later re-pressed in 1997 on CD on the same label). By 1989, the band had been reduced to Mike and Marcus, and they released Acid Memories in the same year. Both albums have only been heard by the band's friends and family, except for a 24-second excerpt of "Duffy", released on the EHX website in the late 1990s. Acid Memories is the only early album the brothers have mentioned in interviews. Later, in the early 1990s, the band had a number of collaborations and the band put on small shows among the Hexagon Sun collective, along with the releases of albums Play By Numbers and Hooper Bay, both in 1994, which, similarly to Acid Memories, were only released to friends and family and had sub-1 minute excerpts of two songs ("Wouldn't You Like To Be Free" from Play By Numbers and "Circle" from Hooper Bay) released from both albums on the EHX website.
Music Has the Right to Children (1995–2002) In 1995, Boards of Canada made their first Hexagon Sun studio release, the EP Twoism. Like earlier Music70 releases, it was produced in a self-financed limited run and was privately distributed, primarily to friends and labels. Unlike previous releases, however, a small number of copies were also released to the public through a mailing list. Though not a widespread commercial release, it was considered of sufficient quality and worth to be subsequently re-pressed in 2002.
The band made another release in 1996, titled Boc Maxima; it was a semi-private release that was notable for being a full-length album, and was the precursor to Music Has the Right to Children, with which it shares many tracks.
Boards of Canada's first commercial release occurred after attracting the attention of Autechre's Sean Booth, of the English label Skam Records, one of many people who were sent a demo EP. Skam issued what was considered Boards of Canada's first "findable" work, Hi Scores, in 1996.
The debut studio album, Music Has the Right to Children, was released in April 1998. The album consists of longer tracks mixed with song vignettes. It also includes one of the duo's most popular songs, "Roygbiv". Music Has the Right to Children received widespread acclaim upon release. It featured at No. 35 on Pitchfork's "Top 100 Albums of the 1990s" list. It was ranked No. 91 in Mojo's 100 Modern Classics list.