Category: Boards of Canada

Earlier this year, Boards of Canada unexpectedly released their fifth album Inferno, a case of an influential artist demonstrating that their style remains eminently relatable in 2026 a.d. To close out the year, the group has dipped into its archives, re-releasing the 1996 EP Hi Scores. There’s plenty to savor here, especially for longtime BOC listeners, but there’s also something compelling about being able to hear the group’s roots in such close temporal proximity to their current venture.

In our particulate-dense media environment, a decade-plus silence takes on the weight of a gesture in its own right—an invitation to focus, to stay awhile. Structurally, Inferno is less interested in the tension-release of deep raving than in the discursive backroads of a philosophical sci-fi novel.

The Campfire Headphase is a “trip” record rather than a “psychedelic folk” record. Not quite the ”Ultimate Trip” of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey or the fuzzed out freakouts associated with the cemetery scene in Easy Rider, but the journey of a single person sitting by a fire and seeing where their thoughts lead them under some outside influence. The listener follows along, easing “Into the Rainbow Vein” and skimming along various observations, memories, and eventual realizations before coming out the other side with only a gradually-fading “Farewell Fire” left.