Music Has the Right to Children (1998)

Music Has the Right to Children is the debut studio album by Scottish electronic music duo Boards of Canada, released on 20 April 1998 in the United Kingdom by Warp and Skam Records and in the United States by Matador. The album was produced at Hexagon Sun, the duo's personal recording studio in Pentland Hills, and continued their distinctive style of electronica, featuring vintage synthesisers, degraded analogue production, found sounds and samples, and hip-hop-inspired rhythms that had been featured on their first two EPs Twoism (1995) and Hi Scores (1996).

The album received widespread acclaim upon its release, and has since been acknowledged as a landmark work in electronic music, going on to inspire a variety of subsequent artists. It has been included on various best-ever lists by publications such as Pitchfork and Mojo.

Background

The members of Boards of Canada, brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin, had been creating music together as early as 1981, layering synths over cassette recordings of shortwave radio. Throughout the 1990s, the band were members of the Hexagon Sun artistic collective based in Pentland Hills, Scotland, and released self-produced cassettes produced in small quantities and given to friends and family members. According to Eoin, around 1987 or 1988, they started experimenting with tape demos they later destroyed. He called it the "seed of the project".

In 1996, the band completed their first wide release, the Hi Scores EP, and began sending it out for record labels to hear. Sean Booth of Autechre heard the EP, and suggested that the band get in touch with Skam Records, whose first release had been Booth's Lego Feet album in 1991. Skam released Hi Scores, and invited the band to produce a full-length follow-up. At the same time, the band established a relationship with Warp Records, who also wished to release an album by the band. As a compromise, the album would eventually be jointly released by both labels.

Recording and production

The album was recorded in the duo's studio in Pentland Hills, which had been described as a "bunker" by various media publications. The duo described this as "just an exaggeration on the part of the record label" in an interview around the time of the album's release.

The album features the duo utilizing samplers, intentionally detuned vintage synthesizers, drum machines and reel to reel tape recorders. It also incorporates a wide variety of samples, including several from the children's television program Sesame Street in tracks such as "The Color of the Fire" and "Aquarius". The track "Happy Cycling" samples the sound of the red-legged seriema from Vangelis' score for the 1976 documentary La Fête sauvage.

During the production of the track "Rue the Whirl", the studio's window was left open, and the sound of birds was accidentally recorded into the track. The duo decided that the track was enhanced by the natural sounds, and left them in. "Smokes Quantity" first appeared on Twoism in 1995.

In interviews, the band has identified Devo, Wendy Carlos, DAF, TV and film soundtracks, Jeff Wayne, Julian Cope, My Bloody Valentine, 1980s pop music, and Seefeel as influences of the album's sound. According to Eoin, the band was uninterested in the styles of electronic music that were popular at the time of the album's creation, and that creating dance music was not a priority for them.

According to the band, the songs' titles contain "cryptic references that the listener might understand or might not," many of them personal to the band. For example, the album's title is a reference to the duo's "intention to affect the audience using sound". "Pete Standing Alone" shares its name with the main character of the documentary Circle of the Sun (1960) directed by Colin Low and released by the National Film Board of Canada.

Music and lyrics

Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine stated that aesthetically, Music Has the Right to Children is "nestled somewhere in between the warm hues of 1970s flocked wallpaper and the sleek electronic sheen of the future lies." The track "The Color of the Fire" has been described as a "minimalist composition," drawing comparisons to the works of Brian Eno. The track contains a looped sample of a child's voice, which has been described as "disfigured [...] to form a creepy, somewhat detached, one-sided conversation." Jesse Dorris of Pitchfork said: "Boards of Canada coaxed breaks into motion as if excavating ancient rock formations while high on their own supply of hairy psych-rock samples (even Hair itself). It's nostalgic but not dissociative: The album's most idiosyncratic aspect are the wobbling voices that gurgle, 'I love you...' or 'There are a lot of different me's...' mostly summoned from 1970s North American public television, that ancient medium of collective meaning-making."

Artwork and packaging

The album cover is a modified version of a family photo taken at Banff Springs in Alberta, Canada.