“Tape 05” by Boards of Canada

Thirteen(!) years have passed since Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin, aka Boards of Canada, last graced us with new music. (That’d be 2013’s Tomorrow’s Harvest.) But earlier this month, several individuals received mysterious VHS tapes stamped with the band’s iconography that contained “degraded analogue visuals, shortwave-style audio, and layered voice fragments.” Boards of Canada’s hauntological sound practically begs for analysis, and fans immediately began theorizing about the band’s return. Warp Records encouraged said speculation with some enigmatic billboard imagery.

All of which brings us to “Tape 05,” which the duo posted on their YouTube channel yesterday. Put simply, it’s everything you could want from a Boards of Canada song, starting with the murky analog textures that feel like radio broadcasts emanating from a parallel universe. As the song unfolds, it grows increasingly ominous, its sounds matched by the video’s strange and occasionally discomfiting imagery. In its final moments, though, some light seems to pierce the gloom as plucked strings emerge from the darkness to join with the song’s arcane swells.

There’s been no official word yet concerning an actual album or EP release, but hopefully, “Tape 05” is a sign of much more to come from Messrs. Sandison and Eoin, and soon.