Just wondering, do you have synesthesia?

i have no idea to be honest, i just had a hunch that you might? sorry, i'm being weird. something about your reviews and the way you described BOC once was probably why. i think i have it to some degree but it's not the stereotypical "hearing colors" thing necessarily, it's hard to describe and is more like an intermingling and intensification of different senses like taste and sight. idk

yeah it's not as clear cut as the definition always and probably a lot of people have certain aspects of it i think. i kind of feel like boc makes music for people who are sort of wired like that, in a way. or at least have some kind of synaesthesia themselves maybe.

as for tomorrow's harvest, i still think it's great though the initial excitement has worn off i guess. i think it's less easy to listen to than their other stuff just because it's so bleak, and also that it's the album of theirs that most needs to be listened to as a whole and not cherrypicking songs. it's like a worn old vinyl ost to some epic but cheap late 70s or 80s scifi/dystopian horror film -- complete with incomplete tracks, brief segues and interludes, and tracks that fade out before you expect or want them to.

so i do love it but when i listen to boc lately or usually i tend to put on one of the old tunes records or boc maxima or random 35 track tape. they're messier, esp random 35, but also really intimate and special in a way the later releases aren't. but of their big LPs my favorites are def geogaddi and campfire headphase. it's too bad how underrated the latter is, it's really a beautiful record that's less simple than it may seem. i love music has the right too but i dont listen to the whole thing that much, i don't think it flows as an album as well as the others and i also think it kiiind of tapers off in quality a bit after aquaris (except for happy cylcling). anyway, i'm rambling. offer me your boc thoughts, o fellow boc fan

that's interesting, i think i know what you mean.. the album is much more of a theoretical construct than their other works, it's very clear what it is trying to say or that it IS trying to say something, kind of a concept album... whereas the others are a good deal more opaque and open to interpretation. i do think this sullies it just a bit but it's also so successful at the aesthetic it's aiming for that its hard to complain too much.

i feel like all of their albums are quite different from one another though, so i may be misinterpreting you but i never had any problems with them not pushing boundaries any more. it seems like all their albums after MHTRTC got chastised for being either too much like that album/just the same old same old, or too different. like a lose/lose thing. which is silly. but i think they all have very different moods and aesthetics and concepts, while still being obviously BOC albums. the best way i like to put it is that they're the equivalent of kubrick, where every film is its own unique self contained universe that nevertheless bears strong similarities with the other works (also their perfectionism and reclusiveness adds to that comparison i suppose).

i guess i like the melancholy of campfire, for one -- if MHTRTC is childhood and geogaddi adolescence then campfire is gradual aging into adulthood and looking back on the past memories, or something. it's also very versatile sonically, you go from peacock tail to oscar see thru red eye to hey saturday sun to dayvan cowboy to farewell fire... it's great. i guess it's less obviously nailed down to one particular concept as the other albums but the way i see it, as i read them describe it i think, is as a kind of 70s road trip film, exploring the american west. but it can be so many other things. it's a bit porous and vague in that way, i suppose, and its lack of sharp edges understandably makes people find it dull or lacking teh character and creepiness of their other albums. i just find it beautiful, though... i guess i can't put it any better than that. it's like waking up in the morning on a summer weekend and the sun just shining thru the windows and everything just being... right.

i actually find that MHTRTC feels less cohesive than the other LPs, just a bit, but yeah. it does have that special sound to it though, on the best tracks... colorful and playful and soft and bubbly. as a whole just doesn't quite attach to me with the same emotional force as geogaddi/campfire/old tunes/etc though.

yeah i get what you mean about TCH and shallowness, i guess it's hard to describe but over time it just subtly very gradually shifted on me, grew on me. i used to just think it was okay, but by now it's so ingrained in my head that it's a part of my musical canon, for better or worse (mostly better tho).

i always see music in the color of the album covers too. usually anyway. but sometimes it feels really apt like the artists got it right -- boc is like this, i mean geogaddi is this warm pulsating orange sun, it's dark but it's somehow just... like a flaming hot sphere, like the orange of a late afternoon sun or the orange of autumn. and music has the right isnt terribly colorful now that i think of it, it's that turqouise shade, that album is more about shapes than colors to me anyway. it's soft around the edges, definitely, like learning geometry in school, whereas tomorrows harvest is hard edged, clear, jagged, the beats are less hazy/dreamy and more robotic.

gah writing about music truly is like dancing about arcitechture, what a mess i have made here, but yeah. i quite like that sped-up version! what release or boot is that song from again? is that just from the all tomorrow's parties show from like 2001 right? or is there a studio rec of it available? man, i know i'm not alone in saying id kill to be able to actually hear the first few boc releases, the ones nobody outside the band and their friends have actually heard, like acid memories or hooper bay i think. the early stuff is so fascinating because it feels the most otherworldly and also the most intimate, like i was saying before i guess. i mean songs like forest moon and finity just have a kind of mysterious atmosphere to them that's not quite there on their more polished tracks.

ok also i think my beef with tomorrows harvest is that the album cover is decent but i think the photo used on the back (with the orange sunset/sunrise over the mountain i think) is waaaay better. idk.

i guess BOC just are perfectionists and don't feel all these tracks in their vault are fit to be released until they've completely fine-tuned them. it's understandable, tho at the same time it sounds like an unintentional taunt, like muahaha we'll never share with you this incredible music...

i don't know if i've listened to much by BOC copycats, to be honest. i'm not nearly as knowledgeable about electronic music of all sorts as i wish i were. off the top of my head, i suppose a band like black moth super rainbow is a definite BOC-esque group, same thing with tobacco, i do like the former and maybe a few tracks of the latter iirc, but they're more of a novelty than a flat out great artist. i dunno, who would you class as boc copycat types? i feel like they've had a huge influence and i've heard a lot of things that seem influenced by them, but i suppose a lot of those songs tend to be actually pretty good/great b/c the influence isn't overwhelming to the point of copy-catting.

hello! i dont have much to say here. i just wanted to drop in and say that i really enjoy your reviews whenever i stumble across them. c:

awwwwww man. all of our reviews got "unpublished by mod." all those rules. suuuuuuuuuuuck. now we write in secret