The first time I listened to B.O.A.T.S., I had to double-check it was made by the same Clockwork that appeared on Hot Creations. Then I checked again. And again. Even now I'm not convinced. The Italian duo's ghoulish "It's You Again" might have been one of the more individual releases to come from the Foss/Jones-instigated pandemic of 2011 and '12, but it wasn't in any way a signifier of what was to come: B.O.A.T.S, in all its dark and dubby dreamscape glory, is a totally different proposition, from a totally different place.

Save for one collaborative EP on Dumb Unit, we've heard nothing from the Italian duo since their debut. This album more than makes up for that. It's so focussed and fully formed you'd be surprised if Francesco Leali and Federico Maccherone had left their studio at all in the last year. From rumbling dub to post-apocalyptic ambiance, dark pop to rampaging techno, B.O.A.T.S. freely explores the parameters of a full-length in ways that recall Trentemoller's 2006 opus, The Last Resort.

This often bleak but never hostile ride would be a fine soundtrack in the right club, but it also makes for a powerful experience in headphones. "Running Searching" is both cavernous and intimate, not least because of its clean and laid-bare vocals. Much of the album is muffled or veiled, as if coming through a wall or up through the ground. "False Matters" best exemplifies this, with fierce and buried kicks that sound like a distant subterranean pulse.

Whether you're drifting like flotsam in the percussion on "Prisms," drowning under the grainy dub chords of "Hidden Spectator" or coming down with the innocent lullaby melodies of "Lost Keys" (featuring Tale Of Us), you always feel cocooned in a pillow-y womb of sound. B.O.A.T.S., we're told, stands for Based On A True Story. Come the end, that satisfying feeling of having just experienced something, of having been somewhere, is very real indeed.

Published /
Tue / 7 May 2013Words /
Kristan J Caryl
Resident Advisor

Having played through all four versions of "Disco Gnome" with pleasure a few times, it was odd to encounter that muzzy male R&B vocal hook—"We came here to party / Join together, everybody, let's celebrate (party goin' on) / It's a holiday (there's a party goin' on)" —in an earlier context, on "Holiday" by Naughty by Nature, from (yep) 19 Naughty 9. Somehow, that yearning vocal works a lot better summing up latter-day house hedonism than it did getting the block hot for some fading rap stars.

Italian-New York duo Holmar Filipsson and Greg Oreck—Thugfucker—clearly buffed the original version of "Disco Gnome" to a shine; the track is high gloss, shimmering lounge keyboards, the works, but it's merely warm and inviting when the vocal comes in and turns up the heat. Tomboy's remix is muscular late disco—big, simple bass, trance-like synths, drum-machine fills—with a couple slow-mo breakdown-buildups and the hook at low-level heat throughout.

The version by Italy's Tale of Us (Karm and Matteo Milleri) is spare, tough, no-nonsense house. When the filtered vocal refrain comes in over a big, sharp kick drum and menacing, clattering percussion, it's my favorite way of hearing it here. Finally, Argenis Brito brushes the hook sample past the usual gummy guitar flecks, bounding 4/4 pound and agreeably crackpot air.

Words /
Michaelangelo MatosPublished /
Mon, 22 Nov 2010
Resident Advisor