The Pop Corporation

Mass surveillance, new age spiritualism grifters, populist politics, a thoroughly unsensible media landscape, quack medicine pushed by sexists, conspiracy, Q Anon, artificial intelligence, the threat of nuclear war, drone strikes, fash technology, bots, robots chasing wild boars through urban areas – we live in weird, unsettling times.

So it feels right that Boards of Canada should choose 2026 to return with the first musical seance since 2013’s ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’.

And yet, all this horrendous weirdness isn’t what had people holding their breath for the hope and despair found in BoC music – it was their complete absence.

In a landscape where artists have 360 deals which effectively require them to be omnipotent so fans can create a parasocial relationship with them, at whatever cost to everyone’s wellbeing, Boards of Canada just simply evaporated into thin air.

Over a decade without so much as a peep, and you found yourself wondering if they were doing okay. Had they retired? Were they alright for money? Were they sat on a sofa somewhere doing a sudoku together, and living off the sales of their previous albums? Did they not need much money, in some imagined wilderness home powered by solar panels? Were they swearing other artists to secrecy while producing under a name we don’t know about?

No word, no access, no willingness to play the popstar game, no money from live dates to keep the ship afloat, no interviews, no photos, no updates. It had been quiet for so long, that anyone with even a passing interest in them had to hatch their own narratives, and keep playing the albums they’d given us already.

You know how people lean-in closer to those that speak quietly? Boards of Canada had barely murmured, and scores of people were still leaning in, just in case.

Everything got turned upside down when a small group of fans started to receive some fuzzy, impenetrable VHS cassettes with little more than a formation of hexagons shaped like a sun on the label. Like a fungus spreading through soil, fans started to hope they were indeed back – and when posters started appearing around the world, sure enough, it was confirmed that something was happening.

After over a decade of silence, save for some lowkey remixes and a radio transmission, it was revealed that we were getting ‘Inferno’, and by the time the opening tracks were shared from it, things were reaching a fevered state, with some fans speculating that they felt like they’d been in some kind of benevolent cult themselves this entire time.

From the opening moments, it was clear that BoC were pushing their sound forward, while somehow managing to call back on previous albums.

With ‘Prochecy At 1420 MHz’, the half-dream wooziness of ‘Music Has The Right To Children’, the diabolical beats of ‘Geogaddi’, the guitars of ‘The Campfire Headphase’, and the nuclear winter throb of ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’, all shot through a new lens. BoC have always traded in some kind of netherworld between cosy familiarity and something alien, and here, using their trademark sound they have allowed us to revel in what they’re so brilliant at doing, however, this is no exercise in treading old group – they’ve beefed up what they do and thanks to it being a while, you’re instantly reminded how scintillating it is to hear new material from Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin.

The fact is, there’s no-one quite like BoC and while others have had a good go at filling the void in their absence, there’s no real replacement. They’re the only people who can make psychedelic music like this, which is why there’s such an outpouring of love and adoration when they grace us with their presence. They are a band that builds their own universe for which there’s no alternative – like Kraftwerk before them, or Lee Scratch Perry, The Beatles, Pentangle, The Cramps, Underground Resistance, Joni Mitchell, Outkast, Missy Elliott – there’s simply no-one who can inhabit the same musical landscape like they can, and fill the void in their absence.

You wonder if there was a sense of pressure on the brothers between releases? You’d hope not, because clearly, Boards of Canada only release music when they feel it is ready, and it takes as long as it takes for them to write it, or dig it out of the ground, or however it emerges.

The reason that people get so worked up about the music, is because it is so hugely affecting to listen to. Their use of fringe religion, warm synths and tape fuzz gets right into your bones and the mystery that envelopes them only makes you want to get even closer to it. Who else can we look to in these bizarre times? BoC might not make complete sense of our surroundings, but at least they’ve the decency to provide the soundtrack for the weirdness of our world. From regional news, old public service broadcasts, to the strangeness and beauty of nature, to spies listening in on number stations, to ailing planets, hopefulness and unsettling dread, Boards of Canada manage to knit all these things together to make beautiful and brutal music.

‘Inferno’ is carrying on the good work, and playing the album sometimes feel like someone’s secretly drawn a chalk pentagram around your bed while you slept, and given that the listening parties that preceded the release were in crematoriums and places of worship, the duo aren’t ever afraid to give you the eebie-jeebies while letting passages of music hang elegantly like clouds above your head all the while.

So onto the music itself – this new version of BoC is heavier – the drums hit harder in places and where the instrumentation is lighter, there’s a tonal heaviness to counteract the kick drums. The pair started off an analogue electronic dealers, and of course, that is still massively present – but gradually over the years, they became more proggy and incorporated elements of post rock – this is more present in section of ‘Inferno’.

Of course, there’s still some of that familiar sound in this album, but the handbrake is off now, and it’s almost a raw nerve ending being ravaged in certain sections. There’s violence and anger as well as the cosmic gorgeousness. You don’t have a track named after the Buddhist realm of all suffering (‘Nakara’) and not have some venom to unleash.

Religions both all-conquering and fringe are under scrutiny, and the big ideas that trouble mankind are approached from all angles – comfort, joy, irritation, the feeling of being had, blood, guts, slavish compliance, and evil – it’s all in there, and listeners will notice the details, the sarcasm, the joy, the need feel safe, and everything else across this massive, massive album.

They’ve touched on many of these feelings before, but here, it almost feels like they’re not willing to mask the source material like they once did. It feels more pointed – like the nightmares and dreams have appeared to you while you’re wide awake, rather than half remembered.

Boards of Canada have always felt like a lifeline for whatever ails you, and ‘Inferno’ is pushing them forwards, sideways, backwards and upwards all at the same time, and reminding you that there really isn’t anyone else around who fills the void when they are in retreat.

Italian horror soundtracks, public information videos, weird sermons, witchy shit, tapes dug out of the soil, kosmiche musik, Library music, glitchy programming, and all that good stuff is put through the BoC mangle, and all of a sudden, the 13 years they went missing just evaporate and you realise your mouth has been left wide open the whole time.

Here, in 2026, they show us man’s ugliness and downright weirdness – in ‘Age of Capricorn’, someone tells us “I’m a sinner… you bore my sin… you shed your blood for me… to cleanse me”, and it’s heavy as all hell – however, yet with all the bleakness, there’s still time for the record to remind us of the staggering beauty in things. For the hellmouth beats and sticky unease, there’s bubbling synths, mellotron, and ornamentations that glide effortlessly through the air like whisps of incense.

There’s a lot to take on, and further listenings are going to reveal even more no doubt, but the prevailing sense is one thing – jesus, it’s good to have them back.

They’ve managed to merge all over their previous albums into one, and yet push it forward into new territory. Dark, elegant, vicious, and ultimately, human.