I sometimes like to reverse the source sample, record, then reverse the recording again to get even more smeared transient responses (?) and such everywhere.
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Now you are ready to feed a drum machine into that vocoder 
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As a kid who grew up in rural Canada with no access to cable/satellite, most of my childhood television was NFBOC produced shows broadcasted on the CBC (the only channel that we could reliably tune in). This vid was a serious dose of double nostalgia for both my 80’s TV experience, and late 90’s early 00’s musical taste. What a trip!
There are a few commercials that are stitched into that vid that I can remember vividly. The power of marketing is strong
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Been a big fan of BoC since the Scam days.
Followed this thread whilst on a week’s family hols in Lulworth Cove, Dorset and compiled a compilation playlist whilst stranded whaling it on the stoney old beach.
Forgot how geological they sound.
Funnily enough, a Canadian ( Oh, the irony!) Geology student approached me to ask “wtf this music is? It sounds like it lives here!”
Listened again to Tomorrow’s Harvest yesterday on the beach and fell back in love with it.
Today, we are back and in ‘Shire and listening to it again in bed, after a very stressy, traffic and possibly menopausal ruined 6 hour (normally 2 ¹/² ) journey back, it’s got it’s blummin’ dark bits, but sooo good.
Gotta love BoC, a ridiculously cool dog, stunning landscape, quality weed and Snapseed.
P.S. it was unfortunately WAAAaaay to hot for the dog to even walk at 7am (he has major allergies and shit) but he had an amazing time laying about in very silly positions. Convinced Granmumma he was laying on a “BOARD OF CANADA”
She’s 80, BUT MY MUM, so she went with it…
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Visited Lulworth Cove today and walked over to Durdle Door, definitely too hot for dogs, barely ok for humans.
Music for landscapes for sure
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Damn, I’ve not been to Durdle Door since I was about the same age as my youngest son. Grew up in Yorkshire but with one set of grandparents just outside Truro so every year a chunk of our school holidays were spent in Cornwall and Devon. My wife and I took my youngest 3 to just around the corner from Bude and Tintagel a fortnight ago.
Still stunning.
Still inspiring.
Still with a hefty chunk of its population that likes to refer to me and my ilk as emmets 
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Ha! Grew up in Falmouth (near Truro). Live in Devon now, but get out and about around Cornwall often as family still live there.
Walked from Bostcastle to Tintagle last week.
Yeah that emmet nonsense!? Hardly anyone is local anymore.
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Ha - Tall Ships territory!
My grandparents lived in Tresilian, which isn’t far from Truro. It has a creek, which I absolutely loved growing up. My grandfather would make up stories about things that went on there - creatures who inhabited the place - which always fitted in with the real natural things I saw there: the heron that lived in one of the pools; the wild rhubharb that towered away over my head as a child.
My sister was married in Boscastle several years ago and my kids and I have always loved Tintagel. In many ways, walking seems like a much more appropriate way of getting between the two places than using the roads! I love how everyone kind of leans into the Arthurian mythology. There’s a sort of “can’t prove it isn’t real so therefore it is” element to it all, which is pretty apt for a thread about BoC!
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Know Tresillian well. Beautiful location at top of the river.
Many, many moons ago as teenager (‘87/‘88), had an opportunity to visit Robin Wood in Ladock (just up the road from Tresillian) to learn about EMS. Lovely guy, showed me around his studio plus vintage VCS3/Synthi A and all because I wrote to him and expressed an interest in the company/instruments (couldn’t believe it was just up the road from me). True gent!
Back on topic: the mythology of the outlying Celtic regions of the British Isles definitely feed directly into the BoC sound and many other musicians/artists. There’s a lot of heritage to dig into…
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That’s absolutely fantastic! I had no idea EMS was so close! Admittedly, during the time I spent my summers in Tresillian, Synthis and VCS3s weren’t high on my list of priorities, but I won’t be too hard on my younger self about that.
I was listening to Jim Jupp (who records as The Belbury Poly, on Ghost Box) on the Uncanny Landscapes podcast the other day and his exploration of Celtic mythology on his latest release, The Gone Away, was really interesting to hear. I’m never sure where (or whether) BoC fit in the broader school of hauntology. There’s no obvious psycheogeographical element to their work, per se, but then there’s no cast-iron necessity for that if a work is considered hauntology. (I’m not hung-up on sub- or micro-genre titles, I’m just currently writing up a thesis which involves a discussion of hauntology)
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I grew up in Shortlanesend, just north of Truro. Had and amazing year at Falmouth School of Art before escaping Kernow for Liverpool, then London, then Manchester. I miss the coastline.
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Love Ghost Box/Belbury Poly. Thanks for reminding me to look back into them, last foray was New Ways Out. There is a similar analog/wonkiness to BoC.
Hauntology is an interesting sub genre, it’s more an idea of a memory rather than the reality I suppose?
Reminds me of childhood attending Obby 'Oss, Furry Dance, odd events on village greens with maypoles and strange outfits. Adults doing unusual things, kids running amok and no one questioning any of it. All very Wickerman!
Your up coming thesis sounds fascinating. Is it for wider consumption eventually or just academic?
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Awesome. Didn’t realise there was this much West Country influence on this forum.
When did you attend Falmouth School of Art? What course?
Yeah, that’s it entirely - nostalgia for nostalgia itself. It’s not about how things actually were, but for how you misremembered them or for futures that were promised but never actually came to pass. There seems to be a divide between those who are more into the wyrd angle (Belbury Poly’s use of fusing early electronics with folk leanings that conjure a kind of family-friendly folk-horror sensibility) and those who are more focused on a 50s visions of what now would look like.
Simon Reynolds, credited with co-opting Derrida’s term and applying to music, also came up with eldritchtronica (in the same article) which is an absolute beauty of a genre name!
Hopefully the thesis will be published in some form. It has a 20 minute documentary with it, too, which I’ll publish on Vimeo or something too, as long as I’m permitted to. My final submission date is the 12th of next month (which also happens to be the date my youngest daughter gets her GCSE results and also my birthday) so I should have something I can share in some form shortly afterwards.
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Hope it all goes to plan on the 12th.
Will be interested in taking a look/listen/read when finished if possible. Give me a shout/dm!
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Yes please!
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I was there in 92/93, doing my art foundation. When not at college, a few of us would knock about with Luke Vibert and Jeremy Simmonds. They were working on their album Weirs at the time. Luke used to DJ at the art school night on Wednesdays at Club International.
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Ah OK. We must have met, as I also used to be mates with Luke/Jeremy around that time.
I graduated FSAD in ‘90 and left Cornwall for London in ‘93/‘94. Lost touch with pretty much everyone from the Cornwall crew shortly after…
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Small world! We must have crossed paths. I’ve lost touch with everyone but a few friends from that era too. The lure of a world outside of Cornwall was too great. Plus it was around a decade before social media so it was still possible to escape your past.
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