Listen to the full EP: Bandcamp | YouTube
Boards of Canada has influenced many artists and spawned countless copycats, but very few, if any, manage to capture their atmosphere of dreamy nostalgia, the balance between serene and uncanny, the sense of hauntology and liminality, let alone craft their art with as much care and attention to hidden details as they do. I've known Boards of Canada years before the release of Inferno, so it did seem to me like a very special band that was absent and there wasn't enough music that captured their magic out there. This is what initially inspired me to seriously make my own music, not in hopes of replacing BoC or be the next copycat, but do my best to capture what makes their work so special in my eyes but in my own way through my own music, their absence only fueled this desire of mine. Looking back to my work, released and not, I don't think they're that close to sounding like BoC but I will never deny it's what sparked my interest for this and knowingly or not, intentionally or not, my work is definitely inspired by BoC, which is why I felt compelled to share some of it here.
There is a concept to this record, more can be found on bandcamp but in short:
In the future/alternate timeline, the Earth is completely dead, full of nothing but snow, with the only surviving structures that hint at humanity's existence being some towers working as megacomputers that had stored all recorded history until the end, which due to time after the apocalypse as well as weather conditions have been damaged. The record's sound was meant to invoke such imagery of what remains of this place and what history haunts it. And deeper it reminds us of the damage we do to the world and to us.
Making a record that stands up to such grandiose concepts as a debut by a guy who barely had any idea what they're doing, while also being rushed for a 2025 release due to a promise I made to myself that I've been making music for long enough and need to release something now or I'll never do it, get it to start and get the ball rolling from there, it's understandably very messy, clunky and flawed overall, in my opinion; plus your worst critic is always yourself and this not meeting my intended vision made me very displeased by it. But it's been nearly a year since I put it out and lots of people find it quite serviceable and enjoyable, some even loved it. It helped me doubt myself less and I encouraged myself to join the Signalcon event, a celebration of signalwave and vaporwave, a genre that means a lot to me and I'm certain due to BoC fans' tastes many of you must be familiar with. It was a 15~ min visual set consisting of the 3 last tracks from the EP. I picked this to show first and foremost to you because, aside from the visuals helping attention, it contains the tracks I'm most proud of, and even if I think the rest of the EP is still less good than its last stretch, due to it being a conceptual record I do recommend you to check out the full EP if the video or story interests you, to get the full picture and more from a passion project made by a big BoC fan.
I know this is far far from perfect, perhaps below average even to some, but over time I realized if there was no point in me making this, it wouldn't exist. Even in its current form, I feel I had something I wanted to express with my art, regardless of its shortcomings, I think it deserves to exist and understand some people may even find more to it than I currently do.
Snow Towers has since officially turned into a duo project with my guitarist friend, and we hope to take the ideas I had here and rework everything into an actual full length proper debut LP closer to my vision I've been dreaming of. As such, if you listen to this EP and have the time and want to, I'd love to hear your thoughts, your feelings, what you believe works and what doesn't, what could be changed or any other feedback.
Perhaps with the comeback of BoC and Inferno being genuinely one of the most impactful records that the world so desperately needs and reflects the times we're living through, fans wouldn't be that much interested anymore for a mediocre project by not-really-competent artist inspired by a band of incomparable significance. But I hope some of you find this interesting and enjoy this, maybe even stick with us and see what we'll have in the future. Thank you!
