Bleep

The second EP from everyone’s favourite bunker-dwelling brothers was - unbelievably - an even tighter mix than their first, with the title track adding a sizzling digital beat to eerie pads; Turquoise Hexagon Sun plucking at wobbling keyboards and shuffling drum programs, and June 9th foretelling the date of their 2013 comeback - some 17 years before it happened. Culminating in the Porcelain-like cuteness of Everything You Do Is A Balloon, this record is a must-own. This year, Skam took the audio materials from the original and gave them the full remastering treatment. The EP’s fusion of gargantuan beats and hauntingly mantra-like melodies still sounds just as fresh and remarkable today as it did back in 1996. Hi Scores stands tall as one of the duo’s finest chapters. The idiosyncrasies that make Boards of Canada so important to so many fans are purified on this EP and the bumper reissue is the perfect reintroduction to their ominous universe. The remastering brings the subtleties of their guttering sound to the fore. From the call-to-arms beat of June 9th to the multi-layered brilliance of the titular track, this reissue came out on top in 2014 for successfully cementing the viewpoint that Boards of Canada are on of contemporary electronic music’s most beguiling and enduring forces.