Boards of Canada - In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country

In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country is Boards of Canada's 2000 Warp EP, four tracks caught between fond memory and faint unease.

Brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin released it two years after their landmark debut, Music Has the Right to Children, and the EP bridges that record and the darker Geogaddi that followed. It refines the Scottish duo's signature sound: warped analog synths, hazy tape textures and hip-hop-inflected beats that feel like half-remembered childhood television.

"Kid for Today" and "Amo Bishop Roden" trade in soft, wobbling chords and slow, unhurried rhythms, the kind of music that seems to drift in from another room. The title track adds a pastoral glow, and "Zoetrope" closes the set with looping motifs that suit its name, flickering and turning back on themselves until the needle lifts.

Short enough to play in one sitting and deep enough to reward endless repeats, it is a cult favorite in the duo's catalog and a perfect entry point for anyone curious about their strange, sun-faded world.

This is music for long drives and late nights, where nostalgia and something slightly sinister sit side by side, and it sounds especially warm and enveloping on vinyl, best heard start to finish.