It might not be getting the blockbuster attention as the much-hyped marketing campaign for Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories or Kanye West’s new album Yeezus, but electronic luminaries Boards of Canada have been crafting an innovative marketing trail for their own latest studio album.
News of the Scottish duo’s fourth studio effort, their first in nearly a decade, first arrived via a mysterious set of 12” records being discovered by enterprising fans on Record Store Day in April this year, the first of which went on to become the highest-selling Record Store Day release for an eye-watering $5,700 online.
The appearance of the unannounced vinyl releases sent budding cryptologists on a wild goose chase of hidden codes and secret video messages that eventually unravelled the reveal that the follow-up to 2005’s The Campfire Headphase was completed and ready for launch.
The Warp Records stars, brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin, latest is called Tomorrow‘s Harvest and is due June 7, and to help promote the album Boards of Canada have done a Kanye of their own, reports SPIN, projecting a mysterious video onto a building in Tokyo (just as Mr. West did his new single, ‘New Slaves’, in 66 locations around the globe).Tomorrow‘s Harvest is due June 7 and to help promote the album Boards of Canada have done a Kanye of their own…
Residents of Tokyo’s Shibuya district were treated to a projection onto a giant LED screen affixed to a building at the iconic Shibuya crossing, fuzzy fan footage soon turned up online of the event, (barely) showing abstract images of empty landscapes and structures set to a soundtrack of brand new music from Boards of Canada’s latest album.
Following the Tokyo premiere, today, the Scottish duo have revealed that the video is in fact the official lead single to Tomorrow’s Harvest, entitled ‘Reach For The Dead’, which was premiered by Zan Lowe on UK’s BBC Radio 1 overnight while the video clip, directed by Los Angelean Neil Krug surfaced on the web.
‘Reach For The Dead’ tethers yawning, dramatic synths against an insistent kick drum before giving away to an understated but essential mix of electrical pattering and deft melodic phrasing. It’s ambient, but not entirely soothing – thrilling, but not intense, and nothing short of gorgeous.
It’s sure to send Boards of Canada fans into a spin, featuring their characteristically slowly-drawn, textural beauty but with a slightly eerier twist to the nostalgic revelry fans may expect from the group who gave us landmark albums like 2002’s Geogaddi and the deathless 1998 debut Music Has The Right To Children.
The Friday 7th June release of Tomorrow’s Harvest, through Warp/Inertia, can’t come soon enough. Check out the artwork and tracklist below.
Tracklisting:
1. “Gemini” 2:56
2. “Reach for the Dead” 4:47
3. “White Cyclosa” 3:13
4. “Jacquard Causeway” 6:35
5. “Telepath” 1:32
6. “Cold Earth” 3:42
7. “Transmisiones Ferox” 2:18
8. “Sick Times” 4:16
9. “Collapse” 2:49
10. “Palace Posy” 4:05
11. “Split Your Infinities” 4:28
12. “Uritual” 1:59
13. “Nothing is Real” 3:52
14. “Sundown” 2:16
15. “New Seeds” 5:39
16. “Come to Dust” 4:07
17. “Semena Mertvykh” 3:30
