Boards of Canada

Tucked away in a their mysterious Hexagon Sun studio in the rural Pentland Hills of Scotland, brothers Marcus Eoin and Michael Sandison led a reclusive collective of electronic artists in making some of the most inventive dance music of the late 1990s. The duo grew up in Edinburgh playing in local bands and recording samples with tape decks, before their groups fell apart and the duo were left to create their own ambient experiments. Named after their obsession with nature documentaries made by the National Film Board of Canada, they released cassette albums Twoism (1995) and Boc Maima (1996) on a limited basis, but it was Music Has the Right to Children (1998) that became a cult classic, filled with analogue synths, retro robotics and cryptic occultist references. Championed by legendary Radio 1 DJ John Peel, their love of 1980s sci-fi film soundtracks and short mood-changing snippets continued on Geogaddi (2002), as they helped shape the reputation of avant garde label Warp Records. As the band maintained a very low media profile, rarely giving interviews or performing, their mythical reputation grew and helped fourth studio album Tomorrow's Harvest (2013) become their most successful, reaching Number 7 in the UK charts and Number 13 in America. Next years were devoted to remixes of the Nevermen supergroup and the reissue of their Peel Sessions EP in 2019.