As someone who *hated* the BoC album for the first six months I owned it
(citing pretty much the same reasons you dislike Bola), I can see where
you're coming from, but strongly disagree.
Bola is good stuff. It took me about ten listens to really get hooked on
it, but once I did, it didn't come out of my walkman for weeks. It's
simple, repetitive, and relatively unchallenging. It's also warm, groovy,
and catchy as all get-out. It's not the kind of thing I'd put on if I
wanted to hear interesting sounds or cutting-edge sonic innovation; it's
just a great chill-out disc. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with
that; had this album come out four years ago, it'd be on everyone's list
of venerated hall-of-fame must-haves. And, indeed, I have no doubt that
much of the material is rather old, seeing as how "Forcasa 3" originally
came out in 95...still, that doesn't make it any less valid. It's evident
to me that a lot of care, thought, and attention to detail went into every
second of the thing.
I used to despise BoC because it sounded to me like somebody farting
around with their equipment for the first time after having heard some
Autechre beats and watching Sesame Street; it took literally months of
listening for me to realize there was a lot more than that going on
(though hearing "Hi Scores" really helped change my opinion of them; I'd
love to get that whole EP on CDR someday). Actually, right now, I'm
facing a similar situation with Jega. Picked up _Spectrum_ last week and
I'm waiting for it to grow on me. But I'm not holding my breath.
Blah. What was my point again?