Boards of Canada

Tuesday 7 September 2010

Boards of Canada: everything you do is a balloon


(click on link to watch vi


I first came across Boards of Canada back in the mid-nineties with the release of their album Music Has The Rights To Children which was co-released via record labels Warp Skam and Boards of Canada's own label Music70 at the time the album was was unlike anything I'd heard before. I searched the internet and was astonished to read that Boards of Canada (brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin) had a pretty decent back catalogue of releases which dated back to 1987.

I eventually managed to get my hands on a copy of the Boards of Canada EP Hi Scores, which was released on the small independent Manchester label, Skam. This is one of my favourite EPs of all time and contains six equally diverse tracks. One stand out track is the sublime Everything You Do Is A Balloon. The first thing that stood out to me is the bizarre title, but after listening to the track the song title peculiarities seem to drift away! When I listen to this track it evokes memories of my first years at Elbury Mount Junior School, all our class sat in the dinner room watching the children's TV show Picture Box, which featured films by The National Film Board Of Canada.


I was looking at a recent picture of my two nieces Charlotte and Georgina, in which Charlotte is holding a balloon, and it indirectly inspired me to produce my own video of Everything you do is a balloon, featuring images of Boards of Canada, mixed with various pictures of my sisters Susan, Dawn and Tina, accompanied by pics of myself, Charlotte and Georgina and cameos of other family members. I think the video captures the nostalgia of my family pictures, and everything you do is a balloon is the perfect accompaniment to these images.