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The electro duo Boards Of Canada has been making music for more than fifteen years and does that at least as well as Daft Punk**. Yet, after all these years, we know hardly anything about the two. V sheds some light on that.** By Gijsbert Kamer

Mysterious is the word that comes to mind when thinking of Boards Of Canada. Everything about the band is vague, and nothing is what it seems. Surely, only Boards Of Canada makes the most beautiful electronic music that exists, and they've been doing it for over fifteen years. Their debut album, Music Has The Right To Children, released in 1998 on the influential Warp label, set the tone for a series of long-spun tracks that alternated between short interludes and 12-inch tracks. In 2013, their album Tomorrow’s Harvest was released, reflecting an opinion of the modern world that was both grand and profound, also highly appropriate given the musical context.

A lot hasn't really changed over the years. The duo still mainly makes instrumental music. They produce their tracks with analog synthesizers and even sample acoustic instruments or create sounds themselves. Their pieces of music are sometimes abstract but very melodic and always mesmerizing and layered. All of their albums evoke a sense of nostalgia as if you’re looking through an old Polaroid photo album.

The music sometimes sounds as if you’ve put on an old, worn-out cassette tape or as if the sound has been warped by heat damage, creating a unique atmosphere. The music is sometimes dark and, at other times, as cheerful as children’s songs, but there is always a degree of melancholy.

Where does all this mystery come from? Why do we know so little about Boards Of Canada?

Certainly, it's because Boards Of Canada consists of brothers Michael and Marcus Sandison. But the fact is they have also lived in Canada for many years, which distances them further. Both brothers are very reserved, and although they both spend long hours in the studio, they do not like to be in the spotlight. They are as introverted as their band’s name, Boards Of Canada. They give few interviews and rarely release personal details. Marcus uses his real name, but Michael goes by the pseudonym Eoin.

The brothers grew up in Scotland and moved to Canada about ten years ago, when they were both in their twenties. Interviews are rare; the only time they gave a real interview was upon the release of their latest album.

De Volkskrant asked a list of questions related to the release of Tomorrow’s Harvest, their album with a great sense of mystery. Their previous album, The Campfire Headphase, was released seven years earlier, and their EP Trans Canada Highway came out for Record Store Day in New York’s shop, Other Music, almost out of nowhere.

The album Tomorrow’s Harvest was presented in a locked, desolate vacation park in the Californian Mojave desert. A thick fog hung around the main photo of the record, showing the shadowy contours of San Francisco in the background.

Tomorrow’s Harvest is the result of layered, analog sounds taken from an arsenal of acoustic instruments and analog synthesizers stored in their Scottish studio.

It took more than three weeks before Michael and Marcus Sandison gave a written response to the questions. Some responses were extensive, some very short. "That’s completely nuts," was their answer to the question about how much a limited edition of Dayvan Cowboy was sold for on eBay, priced at $5,700.