growing up in a musical family, brothers mike and marcus eoin began playing instruments at a young age. they experimented with recording uses at around the age of 10, using tape machines to layer cut-up samples of found sounds over compositions of their own. in their teens they went in a number of amateur bands; however, it was not until 1986 when marcus was invited to mike's band that boards of canada was born. by 1989, the band had gone down just to sandison and eoin. in the early 1990s, a number of collaborations took place and the band put on small shows among the "hexagon sun" collective.