Boards of Canada's Early Limited-Release Albums (Late 1980s-Mid 1990s)

Boards of Canada, an electronic band from Scotland, are well known for their unique style of music as well as their backlog of rare and highly sought after 'early albums' that were made with limited presses and distributed mainly among friends and family. A few of these releases were eventually made public online such as Boc Maxima and Old Tunes Volumes 1 and 2 but the rest of their previous work has yet to be heard.

Catalog 3 (1987)
Catalog 3 is earliest known release by the band according to their old [http:// http://web.archive.org/web/20010619002459/http://www.boardsofcanada.com/discog_catalog3.html website]  though the title could imply that might have been two prior releases. It's listed as having 8 tracks, mainly lengthy tracks of "rather uneventful ambient electronica ." Though it was repressed in CD format, it still hasn't been heard outside of the bands friends and family.

Acid Memories (1989)
Acid Memories is the bands second known release and is regarded as "[http:// http://www.scaruffi.com/vol6/boardsof.html#boc less imposing]" than their previous album. There is some controversy regarding cassette's artwork which feature's the band's name. According to the band, they hadn't officially called themselves "Boards of Canada" until 1994.

Other than a short 20 second snippet of the track "Duffy " the album hasn't been heard by the public.



Closes Vol. 1 (1992)
Closes Vol. 1 is the third album by the band but was released under the name b.o.c. It also hasn't been heard outside of family or friends and no known samples exist.

Play by Numbers
Play by Numbers is the fourth known release by the band and has been described as having a more strumming shoegaze sound similar to My Bloody Valentine. A 50 second except of the track "Wouldn't You Like To Be Free?" is the only legitimate sample from the album.



Hooper Bay (1994)
Hooper Bay is the fifth known release and is also the first to use their trademark samples of children's voices. Like many of the previous albums, many purported fakes have been passed around the internet through peer to peer sites and often have mislabled tracks by the band múm or are tracks from either Old Tunes. The only legitimate sample is a 30 second snippet from Circle (which was posted on the EHX website  in the early 90s).