Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Relistened to this absolute classic last week, and quickly realised it had never lost its sense of immersion and dread. To describe it as a psychedelic electronic album would be right, but it’s not the kind of psychadelia you hope for. Despite brief moments of reprieve, the record flushes you in to a swirling cacophony of sinister loops, electroacoustic drums, and nonsensical (or sensical?) spoken word cuts sourced from god knows where. At its most haunting moments, you feel like you’re listening to something you shouldn’t be; a hair-raising emotion I can only imagine would’ve been amplified ten-fold at the two pre-launch listening sessions that took place in churches - yikes. Sometimes its the ambient pieces that are the creepiest, like Opening the Mouth’s quite literal title that sounds like you’ve accidentally woken halfway through your wisdom tooth removal surgery. Sometimes its the longer-form pieces that freeze you in its sleep paralysis, like The Devil Is In The Details’ screaming synth echoes, carefully-placed percussive centipedes stomping over the song, and a broken spoken word sample that is undecipherable, and I’m sure as fuck not trying to decipher it. Thank god there are moments where you leap out of this twisted funhouse, like In The Annexe’s wafting nostalgia or Alpha and Omega’s groovy expedition, but these moments don’t last for long. I know the Boards brothers were already elusive up to this point, but this album definitely didn’t do them any favours moving forward. Geogaddi is a spine-chilling but deeply evocative experience; one you keep coming back to for repeated listens, even though you’re not sure why you want to experience it.

KEY TRACK: Dawn Chorus - actually one of the more instrumental hiphop-tinged tracks here, that huuuuge sweeping synth underpinned by steady drums lets you bask in that psychadelia in a moment you can handle, just. Those really strange but intentionally-musical childlike vocal samples always get stuck in my head after every play of this record.