Tucked away in a their mysterious Hexagon Sun studio in the rural Pentland Hills of Scotland, brothers Marcus Eoin and Michael Sandison led a reclusive collective of electronic artists in making some of the most inventive dance music of the late 1990s. The duo grew up in Edinburgh playing in local bands and recording samples with tape decks, before their groups fell apart and the duo were left to create their own ambient experiments. Named after their obsession with nature documentaries made by the National Film Board of Canada, they released cassette albums Twoism (1995) and Boc Maima (1996) on a limited basis, but it was Music Has the Right to Children (1998) that became a cult classic, filled with analogue synths, retro robotics and cryptic occultist references. Championed by legendary Radio 1 DJ John Peel, their love of 1980s sci-fi film soundtracks and short mood-changing snippets continued on Geogaddi (2002), as they helped shape the reputation of avant garde label Warp Records. As the band maintained a very low media profile, rarely giving interviews or performing, their mythical reputation grew and helped fourth studio album Tomorrow's Harvest (2013) become their most successful, reaching number 7 in the UK charts and number 13 in the United States. After that, Boards of Canada stayed largely silent, with their only major new appearance coming in 2021 through a remix of Nevermen’s "Treat Em Right", following their earlier work on the same project. Their long absence ended in 2026 with a cryptic rollout involving teaser material, "Tape 05" and the opening tracks "Introit" and "Prophecy at 1420 MHz", before the release of Inferno on Warp Records in May. Issued as their first studio album since Tomorrow’s Harvest, the 18-track project was also accompanied by a continuous-mix edition and a series of international premiere events called the Inferno Sessions.
