Geogaddi by Boards of Canada (WarpCD101)

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Boards of Canada/'Geogaddi' (cd/2lp)
Warp-Music 70/Zomba
Sometimes it just isn't what you'd expect it is. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. More or less, 'Geogaddi' fails to meet those expectations. Even if the only valuable reason for this is not 'Geogaddi' itself but their candy-coated classic 'Music Has The Right To Children'. I mean, ask your dollies or your yellow bear and they'll confirm still preferring that album to fill the bedroom while you're out. Of course 'Geogaddi' is about the same kind of psychoacoustics as that magnum opus, but there's a slight darker and moodier touch throughout somehow. It's that strange and frightening undercurrent and a clear rhythmic development as well illustrating the production's grown more mature for sure. Some tracks even seem to be developed as musical palindromes with lots of reversed samples ('Beware The Friendly Stranger', 'Sunshine Recorder') or got a tongue-in-cheeky humour caught in subliminal messages like an empty track 23 completing a 66' 6"" album or the repeated referring to 1969 (a milestone year in that subculture of psychedelica). Of course there's numerous other elements somehow persisting on most of the BoC material, like the odd children singing, or references to the unconsciousness (like 'The Devil Is In The Details' explicitly does). Major (yet minor) drawback of the album is that such a lot of productions are too much like interludes, with 'Opening The Mouth' or 'Over The Horizon Radar' not drawing more than mere miniature sketches. As if Sandison and Eoin are understating their Art themselves. ****