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Scottish electro duo Boards of Canada are masters of
cryptic electronica. Forget xxyyxx and the Illuminati, these guys are the real
deal. Hell, the vocal sampling off their 2002 track “1969” is part of a speech
by David Koresh (nutjob cult leader of the Branch Davidians) when played
backwards. Creepy? Shit yes. Meaningful? Probably not. Boards of Canada just
seem to enjoy mind-fucking their hardcore fanbase. It’s no surprise that that
Tomorrow’s Harvest, their latest album, was unveiled through the weirdest, most
elaborate – and perhaps greatest – viral advertising campaign ever.
It started on April 20th, Record Store Day (or
4/20 – take your pick). One lucky New Yorker stumbled upon an obscure find in
the Other Music record store: a previously unheard of brand new Boards of
Canada EP. The 12” cover featured a 36-digit-key, ------/------/------/xxxxxx/------/------.
Thankfully for us (and Boards of Canada’s entire marketing campaign), the
fortunate individual uploaded pictures of the cover to Reddit, sending the
electronica world into overdrive. A video recording of the vinyl soon made its
way onto YouTube too; around 20 seconds of ambient noise punctured only by an
eerie robotic voice reciting the numbers, “9-3-6-5-5-7”. It started a worldwide
Willy Wonka-esc easter hunt to the other five codes, in vain hope of making
sense of this mysterious key.
It gets stranger. On April 22nd, user
AtlantaFugiens’s kaleidoscopic video to the 2002 track “Julie & Candy”, on
Boards of Canada’s official YouTube fan playlist, received an altercation: at
the 4:20 mark, an annotated 36-digit-key appeared following the message “ONE
GOT FAT”. Boards of Canada promptly made this their favourite video, and user
hellinterface (former moniker of Boards of Canada) provided a link to a video
in the comments, which in turn provided a link to another video. The same ambient
noise as on the vinyl echoed in the background of this as the robotic voice
announced a second set of numbers, “7-1-7-2-2-8”, with a flash of
------/------/xxxxxx/------/------/------ as the video concluded. The third
code, and second golden ticket, had been found.
Tickets three and four were soon to follow. On April 23rd,
Zane Lowe’s evening BBC Radio One show broadcast a song titled
“------/------/------/------/------/xxxxxx”, more ambient noise and a robotic
voice announcing another code, “5-1-9-2-2-5”. At pretty much the same time,
NPR’s “All Songs Considered” podcast revealed another code, “6-9-9-7-4-2”. Initially
this code wasn’t given a placing, but an Adult Swim commercial a few days later
repeated these digits with a final flash of xxxxxx/------/------/------/------/------,
unveiling them as the first group.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll find this hard to
follow. But hold on! Now it gets fucking ridiculous. On April 26th,
a user of Boards of Canada’s unofficial fansite Twoism.org noticed a subtle
addition of static to the website’s banner. When the banner .gif file was
opened in a text editor, it revealed links to two Soundcloud tracks, both titled
“∑”, or ‘summation’. Played together, the fifth code, “6-2-8-3-1-5”, was
revealed. Further manipulation of the banner file uncovered the placing of the
code, as the second group. Even crazier, when the Soundcloud tracks were opened
in a text editor, the word “cosecha” appears frequently. The word is Spanish
for harvest. The level of elaboration achieved by the duo is insane.
The sixth and final code, “8-1-3-3-8-6”, was discovered
by an unknown user in the source coding of the header of boardsofcanada.com. Boardsofcanada.com
now directs to cosecha-transmisiones.com, where users can enter the
36-digit-key in full and access a song video, along with the option pre-order
the new album.
What
a mission.
Hardcore
fans have conjured numerous theories in regards to the various sets of numbers,
from global coordinates to the passcode to a one-time pad number station. My
reasoning? I don’t think there are any reasons. Boards of Canada enjoy making music
with ambiguous meanings; you can really read into the journey in any way you
want. In whatever way you interpret it, however, one thing’s for certain: it’s
been a hell of a ride.
I
just really hope the album is equally bamboozling.
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