Listen to ‘Tape 05’, the first new Boards of Canada song in 13 years
Elite ambient musicians Boards of Canada have shared their first new song in 13 years, titled ‘Tape 05’.
The Scottish electronic duo unceremoniously uploaded the new track to their YouTube page after a poster campaign was spotted on walls around central London, New York, California, and Shibuya, Japan’s Liquidroom venue.
Additionally, last month the band mailed fans VHS tapes, which included their signature hexagonal logo; as per Consequence, the tapes contained audio from an ad for a Christian Bible school magazine that was discontinued in 1991.
The new track, ‘Tape 05’, has not yet been acknowledged by the band, but is as emotionally evocative as fans have come to expect from their dizzying discography.
Their label, Warp, has shared it on their social accounts, but the song has yet to hit streaming services, and the uploaded video file on YouTube has no press release or notes attached.
Boards of Canada last released a full-length project in 2013; Tomorrow’s Harvest followed up eight years of silence following 2005’s The Campfire Headphase.
The air of mystery around the current project is typical for the duo. In 2005, they gave an extremely rare interview with The Guardian to combat spiralling fan theories that their music was satanic.
“People were understanding things from our music that we didn’t put in there,” Michael Sandison told Pitchfork in 2005, “[They] were saying there was an evil undercurrent to everything. And we are not like that at all.”
The band, formed by Sandison and Marcus Eoin, triumphantly became a defining act for Warp Records during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
On ‘Tape 05’, the brothers explore the same downtempo rhythm and vintage textures that earned them a cult following in the past; if the reaction to their mysterious marketing scheme is anything to go by, Boards of Canada are set to enjoy an even bigger fan base 13 years on.
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