Review

NUG

BonGBoaT

West Mineral • 2024

After their joint début with the excellent »Napping Under God«, PVAS and Florian TM Zeisig have teamed up again as NUG to record another session. »BonGBoaT« is also the result of a session in which the two were still very much in the boat with their thoughts, which they skippered through the Bavarian idyll, presumably staring into the blue with red eyes. »BonGBoaT« is very different from its predecessor, the ambient jungle euphoria of which was only hinted at, but eventually pulled back into a extremely smoky side room. On »BonGBoaT« nobody even makes the effort to get up. It starts like an Actress album, the filtered drums still suggesting that it could get heavy—but it doesn’t. Instead, we get dub, bubbles, dolphins in conversation, hallucinogenic streaks on the surface of the water. The humidity rises, exotic eyes shimmer in the Bavarian Forest. By the middle of the album you are knee-deep in the sky, the jungle has spread out around the slowly rocking boat. In the end, the feverishness is missing for a comparison with »Hipnotik Tradisi«, Black Merlin’s musical processing of his jungle trip; »BonGBoaT« is more like the »Deadline Paranoia« trilogy, only a bit more immobile. Despite the many mosquitoes.