A few years ago, the IG account bocpages began posting about hints that Boards of Canada were preparing to release their first record since 2013's Tomorrow's Harvest. I didn't get my hopes up, but I've been trying to keep my eyes peeled for more news. Slowly this faded from my radar, and my hopes went silent until last week when brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin dropped the eerie "Tape 05." No word on a date or pre-order yet, but my eyes are not straying far until they appear.
I am a huge fan of Tomorrow's Harvest. I know a number of old-school BOC fans who didn't like the 2013 album, but for me, well, it's my favorite in their catalog. That's not an embellishment or an easy choice because all their music is fantastic, but Harvest feels the most like an '80s horror score, and for that, it wears the crown.
Watch:
RZA's debut film One Spoon of Chocolate played at Beyond Chicago a few weeks back, but it conflicted with other plans, so now I'm anxiously waiting for this to roll out in theatres. I'm assuming that the "Quentin Tarantino Presents" banner pretty much ensures that it will.
I expect this flick to be every bit as bombastic as one would expect from RZA.
As teenagers and then young adults, we spent a lot of time up to no good, hanging out in the Cook County Forest Preserves. When we were just out of High School, we found something incredible in the woods surrounding the Cal Sag canal. I'm not going to say exactly where this was, and it doesn't really matter anymore, as you'll read in a moment. But out there in the middle of the woods, away from even a noticeable path, we discovered a place colloquially known as Stonehenge. This place consisted of a circular clearing with a flagstone floor and a slightly raised dais in a half-circle upon which sat flagstone thrones.
Walk:
Two Wednesdays ago, Mr. Brown and I got to hang out with a very old friend. This was the first time the three of us had been together in the same room since the late 90s. When you're fifty and you hang out with your old friends, funny things happen. Mortality comes up, but also, the past. You just can't get away from it. None of us have ever been the kind of guys to sit around reliving our "glory days" because, honestly, the glory days are still happening in my book. Still, there were good times and some pretty crazy adventures, and it comes up. A reminder of who we were to better appreciate who we are, I guess. Or something like that. One of the things that came up from the past is a place I haven't seen or really even thought much about in the last thirty years, except, I dreamt about it recently, so it was fresh on my mind.
Thrones. Exactly zero BS here. Some enterprising stoners before us had built this place as a communal space, a liminal gathering spot of the locals cool enough to be let in on the secret.
Unfortunately, Stonehenge is gone. Long gone. Destroyed, I stood in the center of that dias and saw nothing but piles of rubble. My guess is the Forest Preserve patrol destroyed it to dissuade folks from hanging out in the middle of the woods at night.
Regardless, the fact that the three of us sought it out, actually did the trek and problem-solved our way into this now nearly unreachable place, well, it made for something special. So I guess it didn't really matter what shape Stonehenge was in, after all. It was more about the shape we were in as decades-long friends who could have just as easily sat in a bar or around a tv. Instead, we chased a dream.
Playlist:
Steeve Moore - VFW OST
Blackbraid - Celestial Womb EP
Flying Lotus - 1983
Massive Attack & Tom Waits - Boots on the Ground (single)
Fozy Shazaan - Dark Blue Night
A SOMBER FUNERAL - Since You Left These Shores
Nine Inch Noize
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
White Noise - White Noise 90s Minutes
Anthrax - Spreading the Disease
Megadeth - So far, So Good... So What?
Pestilence - Consuming Impulse
Flying Lotus - Yasuke
Gylt - I Will Commit A Holy Crime Random: Tandem
Gylt - In 1,000 Agonies, I Exist
Drug Church - Prude
Melvins & Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death March
Anthrax - Persistence of Time
Deftones - Diamond Eyes
• Five of Cups
• XIII: Death
Completing a long-running goal leads to emotional disruption, which in turn leads to a complete overhaul in what is deemed important. Disrupt success and learn from it, rethink goals and grow into something new.
Another on-the-nose writing prompt. I have to stop looking at what I'm working on as being the thing I think that it is and allow it to become the thing it is meant to be.
