Exclusive: Get Your Italo-Giallo Funk On With Confrontational’s Boys Cover Featuring Tobias Bernstrup

Jonathan Barkan |

May 29, 2017

The days are getting longer, the temperature is rising, and there’s a skip in my step whenever I go outside. Yup, it’s about to be summer! For those of you who aren’t exactly thrilled about the impending hot months, we’ve got something that we think will put a smile on your face!

We’ve teamed up with Italian synthwave badass Confrontational to bring you his awesome cover of Sabrina’s “Boys (Summertime Love)”, which features Swedish artist/musician Tobias Bernstrup on vocals. The track will be a free download on the darkwave compilation Sparkles in the Dark Vol. IV, which comes out today!

Confrontational tells Dread Central:

Growing up in Italy around the 80’s, two very Italian things got especially hardwired in my brain: giallo slashers and the italo-disco sound. It was in the air, by all means unavoidable.The Sabrina Salerno smash hit Boys was receiving heavy rotation in the summer of 1987 on every local radio. The power of that starting funk riff has stayed with me throughout the decades in an almost subliminal way, as much as that catchy synth line and chorus. Sabrina appeared on Lamberto Bava’s Delirium that same year – and it was actually the first slasher movie I can remember seeing, ever. That track and movie somehow merged seamlessly in my imagination – I was transfixed at 5 years old!

Throughout the sessions for A Dance of Shadows in 2015 I would daydream about crafting a remix for Sabrina that I could infuse with a giallo vibe – bringing those same “fun & sun” lyrics to a whole different setting. During those same days I also came across Tobias Bernstrup’s Killing Spree from 2005 (probably the first retrowave album ever?), and I was mesmerized – it’s a hugely influential work for me. So both Sabrina and Tobias informed part of the writing process, and that’s how the song Flat/Line was born… yet all the while, the remix idea persisted.

Fast forward to 2017: I am beyond honored that Tobias Bernstrup is now slated to feature on a brand new song on the upcoming, third CONFRONTATIONAL album. As I pitched the project I also wanted to try and pursue that old idea, so I went ahead and sent him my rework of the Sabrina classic. His response was enthusiastic and wildly inspirational, and the final result is quite simply the hardest hitting track I’ve ever produced so far. A love letter to the sounds and visions that shaped my upbringing, punctuated by the chilling signature Bernstrup vocals intertwined with my own. I can’t thank Tobias enough for making this dream come true!

I’m also very grateful to Maurizio Rizzo at Dark Italia for the incredible patience and support, and of course Pol at Branca Studio for once again creating the perfect visuals to accompany this new chase into the darkness. Start the summer right, play this loud and pass it around – we’ll be seeing you on the dance floor…