While attending separate universities, they got into electronic music, with Ricketts particularly taken by cutting-edge London club nights such as FWD>> and DMZ. Once they finished their studies, they worked as a duo with new inspirations. As Cloud Boat, they made their debut in 2011 on the reactivated R&S label; the Lions on the Beach 10" offered a hybrid of downcast dubstep and melancholy folk, somewhere between Burial and Hood. Their lone recorded activity in 2012 was a lurching, ambient remix of My Panda Shall Fly and Benjamin Jackson's "Data-Module." In 2013, they re-appeared with the 10" Wanderlust, as well as the album Book of Hours, for R&S' Apollo subsidiary.

By mid-2014 they had prepared a second full-length with the help of Andy Savours, a producer with a history of assisting the Horrors, My Bloody Valentine, and Sigur Rós, three guitar acts for which Clarke and Ricketts had a lot of admiration. Released in July 2014, Model of You, contained a brighter-toned set of material than their comparatively dark debut. ~ Andy Kellman