Hailing from Moscow, Stoned Boys are a duo creating some really amazing dance music that conjures up comparisons to Pictureplane and Teengirl Fantasy through to the more esoteric and dark Witch House sound. Rocking a selection of synths, pedals, samplers, symbols and other assorted dance ephemera the duo build multi-instrumental dance tracks that can be both upbeat dream-pop trance classics and cold wave synth masterpieces at the same time. I don’t think I’ve liked a dance band this much since discovering Holy Fuck and though quite removed from them Stoned Boys do have a similar lo-fi psychedelic rave aesthetic to their music.

They have also remixed “War” by Burzum, if that doesn’t lift them into some kind of whole new level of awesome, then I don’t know what does. To take a black metal thrash classic like that and manage to not totally destroy it when it’s transformed into an 8-bit electro floor killer is all kinds of cool and brings to mind a kind of Black Strobe aesthetic.

With hyper colour visuals straight out of the noise core, 8-bit world and a DIY video that has the feel of a gloomy glo-fi band Stoned Boys are seemingly a bit all over the place, but it’s this mix of influences and aesthetics that seems to make them work. The overall psychedelia of the sound molds this is into a cohesive body of work, though I don’t mean that in a psi-trance kind of way or indeed a progy Floyd sort of way, rather it’s got that modern spacey chillwave psychedelia to it that is all about 2010.

What is also great for a band that seems to have only formed this year is the amount of content out there, numerous tracks, a video and lots of footage of their live performances which don’t disappoint and really show up a lot of other artist working in a similar way. There is usually nothing as boring as watching someone deliver a laptop set so these guys go the other way entirely with a whole range of things to play with. This includes some great looking old keyboards and a really creative and energetic live performance.

Burzum – War (Stoned Boys Remix) by Stoned-Boys

Stoned Boys – Outside by Stoned-Boys

Seven tracks are available to download from their Soundcloud profile and a four track EP called Little Victory which is available as a free download. The EP has some of those same Soundcloud tracks with much better mastering which really bring out the a meatier side to the songs, definitely worth getting. Stoned Boys have also just joined the rather impressive roster of Disaro, so I’m sure you can expect a limited edition CD-R release from them in the near future.

- Fokkawolfe