BOSBY “The Essential Bosbeats Collection” (Gay Hippie Vampire)

 

Ugh, the stolen laptop. That’s the worst, right? Especially for a musician who keeps all their files on it and doesn’t have any other form of backup. That’s what happened to Bosby, and of course we’re talking about the pre-ubiquitous-cloud days of 2013-ish, so everything was in one place, and one place only. I think there’s a special circle of hell reserved for those who steal from poor artists – laptops, gear, merch, whatever. It absolutely makes me cringe inside.
 
Bosby did not bounce back from the loss, dropping all intentions to make the kind of music found on The Essential Bosbeats Collection again. The tracks that appear hereon are unfinished versions of what was on the laptop. Still, lucky for Bosby, and I’m not just saying this to be nice, Bosbeats contains quite a few melted-circuit lo-fi electro burners. Often coming off like early instrumental Black Moth Super Rainbow paired with a lo-fi Octopus Project (wait, I think that happened), Bosby weaves hooks and earworms through and around junky hip-hop settings, tripping over patch cords and synth presets and magically inducing happy accidents.
 
Equal parts chilled soundtrack and busy mixtape, Bosbeats sounds both relaxed and composed while maintaining an open mind depending on where a track is headed. It’s a shame that Bosby lost his computer, but we’re still lucky to have this little nugget to look back on and wonder about what could have been. And while this is available as a download on Bosby’s Bandcamp, I have in my hand an actual cassette tape from Gay Hippie Vampire, which may or may not have been actually released as such. Still, it exists – and therefore it counts on this site!
 
https://isbosby.bandcamp.com/releases
 
https://gayhippievampire.bandcamp.com
 
--Ryan