- Italoboyz have a formula. And in music—like math—each time you plug a different number in, you're going to get an entirely different result. Take the two sides of the duo's latest for Mothership: "Bla Bla Bla" takes advantage of the formula, while "Skandito" falls victim. It's a fine line, of course, but in listening to their previous work you can easily hear how it works—and irritates.
"Bla Bla Bla," like "Viktor Casanova" and "Bahia" before it, takes fascinating source material—a fiercely enunciated foreign language that gets trippier and trippier, light psychedelic guitar nonsense—and puts an unyielding beat underneath. As Italoboyz rarely do much with their rhythms, the key to happiness here is all in what goes on underneath and the expert arrangement allows for plenty of smiles, bass drops and weirdness to creep in as it gradually increases in intensity.
"Skandito" relies more firmly on the beat to do some of the work and, as a result, fails to ignite in the same way. Blame it on the unimaginative bassline, or the lack of wildness in the source material, but when you hear the clarinet enter into things at the six-minute mark, it isn't as a weird and wonderful new element, but instead as cheap gimmick—a fall back plan in case of emergency. It's clear that Itaoboyz' formula still has legs based on "Bla Bla Bla," but it's just as obvious via "Skandito" that self-parody should be a major concern.
Tracklist A Bla Bla Bla
B Skandito