There’s no such thing as an album that’s a perfect 10 – but there those that are one notch below. The 9’s is an occasional series which explores some of those records.
Released: 2026
About
Written by a magicked Simon Reynolds, the notes which accompanied Inferno briefly mention the idea of surface noise, a concept also expounded by the legendary DJ John Peel. Each was a reference to the same basic idea but in different contexts, that of friction causing decay and blur to physical media, a process that makes filters through which odd and unexpected things are seen and heard. This of course was the liminal space the Sandison brothers had owned in electronic music since the release nearly thirty years previously of Music Has The Right To Children, a record which faithfully captured the analogue, now dream like era of grainy innocence before the creeping damnation of the internet took root.
Why a 9?
Preceded by the sublime, incanted Prophecy at 1420 Mhz – whose last 60 seconds melted into a euphoric state of bliss – Inferno immediately turned bleaker and apocryphal. Cradled by mathematical symbolism, it traversed the dark interior of religion on Naraka, the bloodlessly narrated The Word Becomes Flesh and the strange but addictive Father And Son. More analogue than it’s unforgiving predecessor Tomorrow’s Harvest, a dabbling with shoegaze perfumed Into The Magic Land and Deep Time echoed the neo-classical tapestries of Dead Can Dance, whilst closer I Saw Through Platonia’s brief span was loaded with hidden auditory cues and transcendental meaning. Whether this was Boards of Canada’s best album or their worst, even after half a lifetime in the shadows it reaffirmed that the duo were still adept manipulators of feelings through sound.
Why Is It Important?
It’s in one sense easy to answer that question by simply pointing to Inferno‘s existence, the elapsing of thirteen years like waiting for signals from deep space, an age even for artists who’d long passed into a state eclipsing cult status. Given the brother’s silence, the audience were left to infer its meaning, although the breadcrumb trail of sampled menace made their beliefs overground for almost the first time. Where it’s critics were perhaps right lay in a familiar musical aesthetic lacking progression, but a gripping narrative flow led down in to circle after circle, giving the seventy minute running time a need for undivided attention. Even if – as seems very possible – this is the last Boards of Canada album, Inferno fits into a body of work which for acolytes remains in a peaceful, gnostic stasis, a space of weird serenity that observes but rigidly quarantines itself from the world’s deepening mania.
You Should Listen To
Prophecy at 1420Mhz , Father And Son, The World Becomes Flesh, All Reason Departs, Naraka, You Retreat In Time And Space
The Voice Of Unreason 