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The Boats, "Ballads of the Research Department"
Craig Tattersall and Andrew Hargreaves are The Boats, a UK duo that have an exceptional ability to mix abstract electronics, shoegaze drones, and jazz-influenced acoustic drumming into a singular work that sounds like no one else. The small symphonies and genre hopping on here are simply brilliant and unique.
On the four 10+ minute ballads that make up this album, the duo is joined by cellist Danny Norbury, which is often the one sonic constant throughout.While piano, guitar, and drums are used on almost every track, they’re often so heavily treated or modified that they bear little resemblance to their source.
What makes this all the more impressive is that The Boats mostly avoid complex DSP plug-ins and other studio processing tricks and instead use more physical strategies:well worn analog tape gives a beautiful sonic haze that the most complex MAX/MSP patch would have problems modeling.The analog cloud that covers the entire album is one of its greatest assets.
Opener "The Ballad for Achievement" begins with fuzzed out waves of sound, ebbing and flowing atop obscured melodies, resulting in a warm, inviting dissonance.Eventually the melodies break through heavy vinyl surface noise and transform into rich cello and piano passages, bringing in bells and drums in the later moments.
The cello and piano duets form the foundation of "The Ballad for the Girl on the Moon," augmented with some subtle electronics that come and go, but eventually yield for drums.In the second half, the drums and melody goes from organic to synthetic, stripped away and replaced with Casio-like synth tones and brittle drum programming.
"The Ballad of Failure" differs in its inclusion of vocals, and when combined with the guitar and percussion (initially insinuated rhythms, then actual drums) starts to resemble an extremely abstract ambient take on shoegaze.The gauzy sounds and weather-worn surface convey a clear warmth throughout, even when the more conventional moments take a backseat to electro-acoustic experimentations midway through.
Album closer, "The Ballad of Indecision," also features vocals, this time female and Japanese by Cuushe, and thus rather different from the male voice of Chris Stewart from before.Her delicate, frail vocals are accompanied by electronic sounds at first, which evolve into an organic, cello-led passage that eventually transforms again.With the addition of microscopic electronic beats, it goes back into electronica realms.
This is the first I have heard from The Boats, and I came away feeling quite impressed.The way they shape fuzzy, textural abstractions into actual songs is wonderful, bouncing from convention to experimentation with nary a hesitation.I have heard many an album that has fascinating noises and tactile textures, but few manage to use them in actual songs, which is what I found so superlative about this record.
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