Friday, Inferno, the first Boards of Canada album in 13 years, came out. I drove to the theatre to see Repo! The Genetic Opera listening to it.
Saturday, I woke up and had a 1:30 PM screening of Kane Parson's Backrooms. I drove to the theatre listening to something else, planning to make my next engagement with Inferno more than just a thirteen-minute dalliance within which I could not fully grasp the entire eighteen-track sequence. Since first being introduced to The Backrooms by good friends circa January 2024, I'd struggled to pinpoint what, exactly, the show reminded me of. While rewatching it last weekend, I realized The Backrooms reminds me of a visual translation of Boards of Canada's music. There's the glitchy, fuzzy, analog technology represented in both, as well as that haunting liminal space, of transition, of between.
When my screening of Backrooms ended, I was shocked to hear "The World Becomes Flesh" from Inferno as the score for the film's end-credit crawl. Not only did that cement my anecdotal theory that Parson (née Pixels) was influenced by BoC's music, but the group held the release date of their first album in thirteen years to coincide with the release of the film.
Wow. Analog ghost worlds, baby. Analog ghost worlds...
Watch:
Most everything I have to say about this is above. Well, except of course that I really dug the adaptation to the big screen.
Previous YouTuber-to-Director endeavors like Iron Lung and Skinamarink made me a bit nervous, but holy cow, Parsons delivered something that the others, in my opinion, did not.
He turned what is essentially a tone-piece into a cinematic motion picture. One of the best examples of what I'm talking about is character development. I think this was what I was most worried about, but he nailed it. Clarke and Mary are both fantastic characters, and it made Backrooms a much better film than I think anyone expected. This is an unparalleled success, and I can't wait to see where Parsons goes from here.
Playlist:
Boy Harsher - Careful
Napalm Death - Resentment Is Always Seismic (A Final Throw of Throes)
Boards of Canada - Inferno
Silent -Modern Hate
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mother's Milk
Boards of Canada - In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country EP
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Eldritch Lace Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• King of Pentacles
• Ace of Swords
• Three of Wands
Earthly matters may dictate much of my life and keep my brain running in the circles of coping with the world, but it only takes a moment of perfect mental clarity (read: vacuity) to kickstart a new adventure free from the confines of the daily 'grind.'
