Boards of Canada are back: Tape 05 and the Return of the Hexagon Sun
- h-music8
- Apr 19
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 23
Thirteen years. No interviews. No explanations. Just a three-minute track uploaded on Youtube, like a transmission from another dimension.
On April 16th, 2026, Boards of Canada, the elusive Scottish duo of Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin, broke their silence with Tape 05, their first new music since Tomorrow's Harvest (2013). Released via Warp Records with no press release, no album announcement, no context of any kind, it arrived exactly the way you'd expect from the duo: on their own terms, and on their own timeline.
The Campaign: Static, VHS, and Hexagons in the Wild
The return didn't come out of nowhere, or rather, it did, but cryptically. Earlier this month, mysterious unmarked VHS tapes began appearing at random homes, reportedly distributed via Ochre, a music logistics platform closely associated with Warp Records. The cassettes featured degraded analogue visuals, shortwave-style audio, and fragmented, layered voices.
Posters bearing the iconic Hexagon Sun symbol then appeared across cities including London, New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo, with Warp sharing images of the campaign via social media. The internet, predictably, lost its mind.
The Track: Harp, Atmosphere, and a Tidal Wave of Emotion
Tape 05 is an ambient piece whose main melody comes from a harp, with subtle shoegazey textures layered beneath it. At just over three minutes, it's understated at first, and then it isn't.
The track really illuminates itself close to the two-minute mark, where the clouds part and warm, hopeful chords begin to ring out.
Resident Advisor put it well in their review: the ambient track crescendoes with a lead melody that evokes Tomorrow's Harvest at its most widescreen and melodramatic, like a memory struggling to cohere. A harp refrain rises so cathartic it's hard not to be knocked over by the tidal wave of emotion. (RA)
It is, in short, unmistakably them.
What Comes Next?
Warp and Boards of Canada have made no official confirmation that a new album is on the way. That's entirely in keeping with how the duo operate, silence as communication, mystery as method.
But if Tape 05 is a signal, it's a strong one. After 13 years, the Hexagon Sun is glowing again. We're listening.
Boards of Canada — Tape 05 — out now on Warp Records. Stream it on YouTube
Update: Boards of Canada have since announced their album Inferno — read our follow-up here.
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