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Boards of Canada Fans Embark on Epic Desert Journey in ‘Semena Mertvykh’ Video

boards of canada fans discover desert listening party

Considering all the complex code-hacking and Kanye West-like projections leading up to the announcement of Boards of Canada’s first release in eight years, it’s safe to say anticipation has been high for Tomorrow’s Harvest. So high, in fact, that on May 27 around 100 fans drove to the abandoned Lake Dolores Waterpark in middle-of-nowhere desert town Newberry Springs, California, after discovering and decoding a map and message hidden within a tweet from the band. Clueless as to what lay ahead, some of these zealots traveled up to 15 hours to the mysterious location, more than 100 miles outside of Los Angeles.

What they discovered out there in the dry heat of the Mojave Desert was the first-ever listening party for Tomorrow’s Harvest, which SPIN streamed a week later and then hastily reviewed. What the rest of us got immediately was a USTREAM video. But in a new clip released today, artist Neil Krug delivers a more poetic documentation of the event. Set to the soothing sounds of the album’s closing track, “Semena Mertvykh,” the clip is flush with sunburnt Hipstamatic flourish, making for a scene that, fashion choices aside, could’ve been piped in from the exact same location 40 years ago.