Following on from our catch up with Boston, we found out he had been busy with things outside of the drum & bass world. This was one of the reasons we haven’t heard any new material from him in just over a year, but that’s about to change as he is back and raring to unleash new music.
Now you may be surprised that his comeback release is
1. Not the musically and vibey affair that he is known for and 2…. It’s on Dispatch Limited.
This 4 tracker EP is brimming with Boston’s signature sound, even though it sits in the harder scale of drum & bass.
Periphery starts off with a melodic guitar riff and a dreamy intro, but don’t let that fool you – this tune switches up into a haunting deep and dirty head-nodder. The snares are thick, the kicks sit really well in the mix and the bass plays off these elements nicely; it reminds me of those early Konflict tunes.
Next up is ‘The Rain’. This is a pure dance floor tune. Like ‘Periphery’, the drums are thick and weighty, accompanied by minimal but essential rides and hats. The bass is what you would expect in a track like this: deep and chunky. Add some filtered stabs and sfx and you have a tune that evokes feelings of a futuristic Sci-Fi film: Bladerunner 2049 would go well here.
Title track ‘After Dark’ has the ‘Boston’ DNA weaved and stamped all over it. Musical elements such as guitar and saxophone stabs are sprinkled all over this tune with what sounds like a Rhodes riff give this tune a mellow edge, though still not crossing into ‘liquid’ territory.
Lastly we have ‘Static’ which is co-produced by Silo. I have to say the drum groove in this tune is very infectious; I found myself swaying with the beat while composing this write up. On the face of it, it seems a very sparse tune; drums, bass and atmospherics – but they all come together to make a tune that is grooving and heavy.
Boston shows his versatility as a producer with this release on Dispatch LTD, and he has shown he can be a dab hand at making drum & bass at the harder end of the scale.
Let’s hope there’s more where this came from.
You can grab a copy of Boston’s ‘After Dark’ EP on Dispatch from here!
