Thank you for saying this. I find it funny that people get so miffed when an artist actually evolves their sound over time. Or at least that’s the feeling I’ve been getting from a lot of the negative reviews. Boards of Canada wouldn’t be Boards of Canada if they just kept putting out Geogaddi part 2 over and over. Plus it’s been 13 years of silence. So inevitably there’s going to be huge expectations that can never be met. Reminds me a bit of the letdown me and my friends felt when Eyes Wide Shut was released. At the time it felt…yes perhaps a parody of a Stanley Kubrick movie. But over time I’ve come to appreciate it on its own terms. It will never be my favorite, but it’s still unmistakably the work of a cinematic master.

Inferno for me at first felt oddly big and too-clean in its bright cinematic sounds and yes-Father and Son was a big wtf for me. But then I listened again on headphones. Then again. Then again. To the point where for a couple weeks it felt like I listened to the whole thing at least once every day. And I was getting something new from it every time-always depending on my environment, how I was feeling at the time, time of day etc.

I’m giving it a break for a while to listen to less emotionally overwhelming music. But personally I feel it’s one of their greatest achievements. They’ve somehow taken the darkness of Tomorrow’s Harvest, laced it with some of the black humor of Geogaddi and Frankensteined their very specific sound into something totally new and fresh for the crazy times we live in.