Welp, looks like we've discovered another mysterious Buffalo-based gem. Moon Tribe has recently chosen to share a 2 track EP via Bandcamp, showcasing the anonymous producer's brand of psychadelic chill-wave. The kind of earthy, tribal, down-tempo music that will sit well with fans of earlier electronic renegades Boards of Canada. In "Eludare," steady stadium claps harness a carefully orchestrated soup of buzzing reverberations through subtle chord progressions, slightly teetering into shoe-gaze territory. "Fata Morgana," with its combination of a lush arpeggiated synth pattern paired with higher, echoing accents and hollow snare-tombs, almost evokes imagery parallel to those in a nature documentary. It's sparse ending almost comes across like a cliffhanger, gently suggesting that the mysterious producer has more in store for the future. But for now, you can check out the debut of Moon Tribe by clicking here.

It is tempting, when reviewing Tomorrow’s Harvest, the latest from Boards of Canada, to begin comparing them to Daft Punk if only because the two modern hallmark electronic acts suddenly returned after having been absent for so long. However, because they occupy such different ends of the spectrum and because their aims are so vastly and obviously different, any direct comparison promptly ends after discussing their canny manipulation of modern hype mechanics. That said, I found the decidedly weirder publicity campaign more appealing and relevant to our always paranoid moment. This is an apt point to make about Tomorrow’s Harvest in general, Boards of Canada are deeply in conversation with a world outside of musical history (unlike Daft Punk's exercise in pop navel gazing), and, because of this engagement, the album opens onto a tense, desolate, environmentally destroyed and paranoid space.

The record begins with a horn flourish reminiscent of the opening to an old movie or educational documentary. This is, of course, in line with the aesthetic the duo has cultivated throughout their career, excavating half remembered associations alongside nostalgia for movies and documentaries you might catch on a particularly dreary Saturday afternoon. Yet, since there is no direct media artifact to tie these sounds to, you are left with the haunted feeling of nostalgia lacking referent. Boards of Canada evoke specters with no real origin, ghosts who were never alive in the first place.

Where Boards of Canada possessed an additional element of lightness (a gentler touch, something more bright and optimistic) in the past, Tomorrrow’s Harvest is much darker project. This is a bleak album with a constant paranoid tension, never resulting in any form of catharsis. There are brief flashes of this optimism, specifically on "Nothing is Real," but they seem present only to point to their impossibility. For the most part, these tracks feel sparse and quiet, a tension pervading them throughout. Boards of Canada channels Godspeed! You Black Emperor within this atmosphere, but lacking in the collective’s climactic release. Tomorrow’s Harvest remains at a constant level, never boiling over into something larger.

Spatial metaphors seem especially apt for this record; Tomorrow’s Harvest is open, calling to mind a sort of vast emptiness. It was appropriate (and deliberate) for the band’s early publicity campaign to make use of desert images; this album generates a desolate area, one marked only by scant signs of life. Those signs of life are most evident in the garbled vocal samples that pop up from time to time, and which are always especially jarring. There is no way to make any sense of these vocal clips; they are jumbled messages with no discernible point of origin and nothing to actually tell us. We are lost in the desert with only a vague sense of someone or something watching us.

Tomorrow’s Harvest does something rare in that talking about it and what it seems to be attempting requires a discussion less in terms of what particular songs do musically and more about a larger theme. I could actually write and research quite deeply into the processes the Scottish brothers used to create these songs (degraded tape samples, live instrumentation warped to something unrecognizable, etc). Surely, BoC superfans have much to dig into with this record solely on a technical level. Still, it is first important to cite that this is a coherent whole which cannot be separated into individual songs. And in that vein, this is a solid album that doesn’t really falter in putting forward its worldview.  It is a strong return fitting for a historical moment where political and environmental catastrophes leave one feeling slightly out in a desert with a vague, neverending, sense of unease.

Grade: A 

After what seemed like a creepier (secret codes and mysterious videos) version of Daft Punk's lead up to the announcement of a new album, Boards of Canada released a new single today. "Reach for the Dead" opens ominously, with ambient noise giving way to a building melody that finally hits during the last third of the track. Obviously the legendary artists know what they are doing and the song easily evokes the open empty deserts used in promotional stills and footage for the upcoming album. That record, Tomorrow's Harvest, is set to be released on June 11 in the US.

Space Cubs is the one woman moniker of Suzanne Bonifacio, a rising electronic music artist now based in Buffalo. Bonifacio is formerly a member of Chromakid, a trio who notably opened up for Twin Shadow in 2010, though they have since dismantled, each of the previous members are still actively pursuing musical endeavors.

Bonifacio first began working on the solo content that would become Space Cubs during her early years of college but it was not until her move to Brooklyn that the project would be officially conceived of. During her time there, she worked on the material in a cramped apartment in between running around the city and taking on multiple jobs. The end product of such labor turned out to be  glistening combinations of vocals and synths that draw inspiration from names such as Bjork, Boards of Canada, Junior Boys, and Aphex Twin. And luckily for us, she moved back to Buffalo last April to grace the local music scene with her presence-

Since the wake of her arrival in Buffalo, she has played at a variety of venues including The Bend, The Vault, and Mohawk Place, accompanying locally established electronic acts such as Jeff Repeater, Love Scenes, and Ay Fast. Attending a Space Cubs set proves itself to be quite an all encompassing experience that leans neither towards the kick thumping end of the electronic music spectrum nor the territory of hazy sound-scapes. The aggregate mood of her tracks flutter somewhere right in between, pronouncing itself with distinct vocal melodies that serve as the skeleton of the instrumentals while giving them something like a roof. To understand what I'm talking about, you're going to have to catch her yourself. We'll help you out by keeping you updated on opportunities to see her but in the mean time, check out her facebook page and soundcloud.