Finally, Boards of Canada are back.
With the album Inferno, which arrived in full at the stroke of midnight via Warp Records, the Scottish electronic duo brings to an end a 13-year drought. Only the most optimistic of fans had new BoC music marked on their calendars for 2026, and yet here we are. Inferno arrives as Europe swelters through a heatwave, as the world burns.
As previously reported here, the 18-track double set plays to 70 minutes, and leads with the previously-released cuts “Introit” and “Prophecy At 1420 MHz.”
Inferno just might be Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin’s most experimental work since 2002’s Geogaddi, With multiple listens, and only when the raw excitement and thrill of a new BoC album is reset to simmer, the collection very much sounds like the work of Boards of Canada. It’s expansive, at times joyful, and exotic, at others post-apocalyptic. If you’ve looking for a disco-house mix, walk on.
Standouts include “You Retreat In Time And Space,” which captures the ambience of an ancient British cathedral; “Arena Americanada,” a familiar, inquisitive number; and the inviting “Age of Capricorn,” whose mysterious and marvelous sampled voice will have fans clambering down the rabbit hole.
On “Father And Son,” BoC explores the cult in what is perhaps their most dialogue-driven work, a back-and-forth of samples, sewn into a quilt of electronica.
Inferno is the followup to 2013’s Tomorrow’s Harvest, a collection that peaked at No. 7 in the United Kingdom, for their first top 10 entry, and at No. 13 on the Billboard 200, their first appearance on the all-genres U.S. albums chart.
A comeback of sorts came in 2019 with “XYZ,” a previously-unreleased tune from their Peel Session of July 1998, which appeared on a new Warp Records 30th anniversary package, WXAXRXP Sessions.
Boards of Canada’s Sandison and Eoin are siblings, a universe-building pair that is both enigmatic, secretive and adored by connoisseurs of minimal electronic music. They rarely perform, almost never speak with the press. Don’t expect that to change anytime soon.
Inferno will be available on special edition limited red translucent 2xLP vinyl in triple-gatefold sleeve with a 16-page booklet, along with standard black 2xLP vinyl, as well as CD and digital formats. Visit boardsofcanada.com and Warp.net for more.
Stream Inferno below.
