Corsair — Boards of Canada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CZHS52l-4Nw

This song unnerves me. I’m always amazed at how much emotion Boards of Canada can bring from lyric-devoid synth-scapes like this, but I’m doubly surprised at how I can get an entirely different sensation from this song than I do from, say, (Kid for Today). I think it comes down to less apparent aspects of the music – the dynamics, the volume, the tone. There’s a constant swell-and-shrink to this track, coming off a smooth BoC-signature synthesizer, but something about the “peak” feels constricting, claustrophobic. Like a sunny day that’s just a little too bright, or a smile that’s just a little too wide – pleasing at first, but you shortly realize that something’s not right.

Kaini Industries — Boards of Canada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm388S1889s

This song seems to have taken a page out of Borges' book: rather than construct an elaborate story with characters, plots, dialogue, themes and symbolism, he would write only the plot outlines, and then a literary criticism by someone who had read the full story; the brilliance would shine through, but without the trappings of literary constructions. Similarly, this song is just the bare riff, a simple, perfect melody with no need for introduction or denouement, unadorned. It's uniquely musical, no need for timbre or lyrics or meaning — there's no authorial intent to derive, no mood to be extracted, just a mathematical series of rhythms and harmonies that sound good together, for some definition and value of 'good'.