Trans Canada Highway

2006’s Trans Canada Highway is a crucial EP which explicitly referenced Boards of Canada’s Kraftwerk connection once more, serving to reconnect that link in the wake of 2005’s guitar-led The Campfire Headphase.

If 2002’s Geogaddi seemed to reinterpret the nuclear dread of Kraftwerk’s Radioactivity, then Trans Canada Highway connected with the open road optimism of Trans Europe Express, led by the summery Davyan Cowboy, where flanged guitars and earthy hip-hop beats promise to roll on forever until the sunrise.

Skyliner pushes together BoC’s familiar elements into a mixture which is taut and propulsive, rather than introspective. The track’s synths swell in and out imparting a momentum that has more in common with house music than tripping hip-hop, while layers of rippling pitched percussion recall Talking Heads at their finest.

Heard From the Telephone Line is a classic pensive ambient cut from the duo, but feels shot through with a wide-eyed hope which on other records is either absent or subverted, while Under The Coke Sign equally emphasises a sense of an expansive motorway landscape in all its wonder.

It is the concise focus of the EP which further makes it a unique release within Boards of Canada’s output, creating a sense of endless travel not through mere depiction but by offering the listener sharp glimpses of distinct moments, untempered by the more sinister subject matter which dominates much of their work.