[6][2] The album received widespread acclaim upon its release, and has since been acknowledged as a landmark work in electronic music,[7] going on to inspire a variety of subsequent artists.

The members of Boards of Canada, brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin, had been creating music together as early as 1981, layering synths over cassette recordings of shortwave radio.

It also incorporates a wide variety of samples, including several from the children's television program Sesame Street in tracks such as "The Color of the Fire" and "Aquarius".

[10] In interviews, the band has identified Devo, Wendy Carlos, DAF, TV and film soundtracks, Jeff Wayne, Julian Cope, My Bloody Valentine, 1980s pop music, and Seefeel as influences of the album's sound.

[11] "Pete Standing Alone" shares its name with the main character of the documentary Circle of the Sun (1960) directed by Colin Low and released by the National Film Board of Canada.

[12] "Happy Cycling" was mistakenly left off 500 copies of the initial North American release of the album despite the artwork indicating that the song was included.

Fact called it "an adult meditation on childhood, concerned with play, naïveté and nostalgia, all tinted with rosy pastoralism," but "also devilishly subtle, intricate and emotionally mature.

Fact magazine identified Lone, Gold Panda, Lapalux, Tim Hecker, Leyland Kirby, Bibio, Four Tet, and Ulrich Schnauss as musicians directly influenced by the album, calling it not "just a classic album or many people's personal favourite," but also "an artifact in its own lifetime, a present-day relic that recalls an innocent time in more ways than one.