Turquoise Hexagon Sun
May 13, 2010 Uncategorized
I’m listening to Boards of Canada’s album, “Music Has the Right to Children,” today at work. It’s definitely in my top ten favourite albums, and has been ever since I got it. Probably my top five.
Here’s the weird thing — This is the first time I’ve ever listened to it.
Okay, not the first time I’ve heard any of it, but it’s probably the most prime victim of modern-age listening methods in my collection. When I first got it, I think I’d gotten several albums at the same time and I clicked through the tracks quickly and picked a few obvious ones that I loved — Triangles and Rhombuses, ROYGBIV, Pete Standing Alone, Open the Light. Some of those are some of my prime examples of, to me, musically perfect songs. I took those songs and put them in playlists. Over time, the number I’d include in my current playlist waxed and waned, but it was usually some subset of those. I’d hear the other tracks here and there when I had my whole collection on shuffle, but even with the sad state of ripping, there’s a lot of music in there, so I’d hear them very far apart.
I’ve never once in all this time listened to the entire album from beginning to end in track order.
So I decided to do so now, and I’m a hundred times more in love with it than I ever was. Listened to in order and complete, it’s so much *more* than the tracks are individually. I know it’s weird that I’ve never done this before, and these “revelations” are exactly what I’d expect from the experience, but still, sometimes something just brings it home that much more.
Also weird is that while I love the Bibio cover of “Kaini Industries,” by Boards of Canada and had always meant to seek out the original to compare them, it turns out that that track is on this album.
I never did spend my April budget for music, as was my New Year’s Resolution, and I also haven’t spent May’s. I’m conflicted about spending right now because I just bought a pile of graphic novels, then an iPad, and I’m pretty much tapped out. But I think whenever I get caught up, I’m going to pick up the remaining BoC full-length releases and take the time to get to know all of them a little better.