Recording information: Hexagon Sun.

Photographers: Marcus Eoin; Michael Sandison.

Geogaddi, the most anticipated sophomore full-length from an IDM act since Aphex Twin's SAW 2 in 1994, certainly looks and feels similar to the 1998 Boards of Canada debut, Music Has the Right to Children. The package design includes artful, bleached-out photos of children playing, while the lengthy track listing balances short vignettes with longer tracks. Fans will be delighted to hear that the music also reveals no great departure from one of the most immediately recognizable sounds in electronica; a pair of Scottish cottage producers apparently whiling away the hours creating music, Boards of Canada specialize in evocative, mournful, sample-laden downtempo music often sounding as though produced on malfunctioning equipment excavated from the ruins of an early-'70s computer lab. Geogaddi has a bit less in the way of melodics (the prime factor why Music Has the Right to Children was an immediate classic) and, as a result, sounds slightly less like trip-hop for fairy tales and more like the slightly experimental, but definitely produced, electronic music it is. Still, Boards of Canada surely haven't lost their touch for creating spectral machine music: "1969" is particularly lovely, with starburst synthesizer lines and disembodied vocoders trilling the chorus (the samples apparently originate from a David Koresh follower). For "Sunshine Recorder," a very fitting vocal sample -- lifted from a documentary concerning a species of dandelion found by sub-aquatic robots on the ocean floor (and yes, that is Leslie Nielsen narrating) -- prefaces the melancholy synth, vocal cut-ups, and glacier-speed basslines. It's clear Boards of Canada labored long to create Geogaddi, since only a tremendous amount of work can produce music that flows so naturally and unobtrusively that it never sounds produced. ~ John Bush

For their sophomore long-player, reclusive Scots Boards of Canada depart slightly from the rainy-day psyche-tronica of their much-lauded 1998 release, MUSIC HAS THE RIGHT TO CHILDREN. Here the emphasis is as much on beats as atmosphere, but the duo's undeniable genius for conjuring up a sweet nostalgia for futures past still pervades. On "Dandelion," a voice that sounds an awful lot like actor Leslie Nielsen discusses underwater volcanoes in a sample from an old educational film, making what follows seem like the soundtrack to a pleasant science-class nap.

Tracks alternate between short experiments in abstract ambience and longer, more loop-centric conceptualizing. Like the glowing orange fractal on the cover, sounds coalesce into beautiful patterns with geometric precision, and there's lots of numerical symbolism for math fans to ponder in GEODADDI's 66:06 minutes. While BoC's first album seemed ensconced in the security of a cozy kindergarten, GEOGADDI captures something of the terrors of leaving that world for the blinding sunshine of first grade, with track names like "Beware the Friendly Stranger" "A Is to B as B Is to C," and "Music Is Math." While not as immediately lulling as one might imagine, GEOGADDI has an inherent magic that kicks in with a vengeance after it's had time to soak into listeners' heads.