Music has the right to children

I wrote this on my facebook, but I liked it too much just to have it there.

Today’s record: Music Has the Right to Children by Boards Of Canada (1998)

Just look at that damn cover art. I don’t feel like I need to say anything when you see that, but I’ll try (though I am tired). Has any album ever had a cover that conveys so succinctly what it’s all about?

I got this back in 2000, when I was new to electronic music. I was so new, in fact that when I went to the Warp Records site to look it up, I felt like I shouldn’t be there! I felt like a spy in the house of love. But I persevered and I got this. (I also got UF Orb, but the tale of me playing that while learning to fly in Mario 64 will have to wait).

This was a good intro to what was then called “electronica” (is it still?!), as it wasn’t really clubby music, despite what The Face said about it replacing Moby’s Play as the post-club 4am chillout album du jour. I liked how BoC themselves described it – music for lying down in a field on a sunny day. Beach Boys for a parallel reality.

I won’t bang on about hauntology, but there is something about that sense of nostalgia for a past that’s not necessarily yours; of the warm synth tones and fat hip hop beats being ever so slightly effed-with so the incredible beauty of the music sits alongside a sense of uneasiness. I just remember listening to it one night and feeling like I was going into space.