After over a decade of silence, Boards Of Canada confirm new album

(Image credit: Warp)

One of Britain’s most reclusive electronica outfits have announced their first album in 13 years will be released at the end of May.

Boards Of Canada, aka Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin, haven’t released any new music since 2013’s Tomorrow’s Harvest. But a new 18-track record, Inferno, is now set to land on May 29.

The duo, who were brought up and still live – as far as we know – in rural Scotland, have hardly ever given interviews and rarely play live. Their best-known album is still their debut, Music Has The Right To Children, which became an unexpected crossover hit in the late 1990s. Since then, they have released just a further three full-length records, interspersed with the occasional remix and EP.

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Long-time fans will know that the duo have a habit of teasing their albums in a cryptic style, and for Inferno they seem to have surpassed themselves. In recent weeks, various fans have received VHS video tapes (yes, how quaintly 20th-century!) with Boards Of Canada iconography emblazoned on them. Those that still have video players have reported that the footage contained therein was a few minutes of degraded analogue visuals and layered voice fragments with some very Boards Of Canada-style music.

Fans started a-speculating and according to one Reddit page, it seems the footage includes audio samples from an advert for a Christian Bible school magazine that dates from 1991. Again, all very Boards Of Canada.

Next came posters that featured artwork similar to that of Music Has The Right To Children – degraded family photographs from the 1970s with the faces blurred out - were spotted in London, New York and Shibuya in Japan.

Then last week came a new track that was uploaded to their Youtube Channel. The video for Tape 5 features the same sort of degraded footage that was on the teaser VHS. However, with the tracklisting for Inferno confirmed today, it seems Tape 5 is separate from the album.

All good fun, of course. And yes, Inferno is released on May 29 through Warp Records.