Boards Of Canada

Tomorrow's Harvest

(Warp)

Electronica duos have long held dear the idea of anonymity. Explaining the reasons behind Daft Punk's publicity-shy early days, Thomas Bangalter talked about "shifting the paradigm of the star system and the cult of personality". And while it's facile to call BOC the Caledonian Daft Punk, Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin share that belief in operating outside the circle of light. Factor in a musical lineage which draws on British psychedelia, experimental sonics and 1990s rave/traveller culture, and you have a potent brew, but follow the pair down their latest rabbit hole and you find little has changed since BOC's 1998 debut. This fourth studio album is less beat-driven, perhaps, but from opener Gemini, which comes on like a radio broadcast from another time, to the ominous drone of closer Semena Mertvykh, it's a druid's fix of detuned analogue synths, snatches of half-audible dialogue, hissing, buzzing and throbbing. New variations, then, on the same old enigma.

Barry Didcock