Boards of Canada

Warp Records

How do a couple of lads from Northern Scotland come to identify so closely with Canada that they feel compelled to name their band after the Great White North? It's all in the sound.

Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin practically grew up making music, as they were already cutting demos by their mid-teens. Sandison spent some time in Alberta during his youth, apparently offering him the chance to discover the educational films of the National Film Board of Canada -- a rite of passage for any public school-educated young Canadian. The wobbly, distorted soundtracks to these films stoked some creative inspiration, so the duo named their band Boards of Canada as a tribute to the sonic influence of those films.