It’s hard to put on your finger on exactly what makes the Dunlop, Indiana-based musician Roberto so dang likable. Perhaps it’s his carefree and breezy music that is so unpredictable yet melodic and charming that its looseness and casual attitude holds no pretense or affectation. Perhaps it’s his electronic cut & paste style of indie pop that recalls Digital Ash In a Digital Urn-eraBright Eyes or Beck’s first two albums. If you ask Roberto, he probably doesn’t know either. His songwriting isn’t calculated or pre-thought out… it just flows out of him.
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Such is the case for his debut single “Dorrigo” that mashes Island rhythms, handclaps, with a chunky and thumpy bassline that begs for some crowded bump and grind on a beer-stained carpet. The track carries an infectious melody that forces butt wiggles and instant duckface… it’s that catchy.
It’s quite obvious then that this song wasn’t written and rewritten by a team of songwriters, but in fact, something that just… popped out. “In the most factual sense, I wrote this song because I ended up with the chance to record in a nice studio and didn’t know when the opportunity would come again, so I just kind said whatever came to my mind,” he laughs, admitting it was pretty much an automatic reflex. “The better question is ‘Why did this song come out of me?’”
The buoyant rhythms and airy melodies were appropriately a outcropping of an honest emotion… You know, the ol’ cupid-arrow thing. “This song came out of me because I had just felt love for this first time,” he says nostalgically. “I can’t say I fell in or discovered anything new, but I felt the damn thing and those are the kinds of things I want to write about.”
While the tortured artist trope populates the indie rock landscape, Roberto ain’t having any of that. Like a spunky, funky stream-of-consciousness version of Ezra Koenig, his music resembles high school notebook graffiti set to music and not really anything too deep and dense. And that’s ok.
“I grew up skipping classes and I carried an acoustic guitar everywhere, writing songs in a deep intimate way,” he confesses, belying that initial suspicion,“but I’ve experienced so many different approaches, especially when I came to LA where a lot of people thrive off of co-writes or writing as they produce to beats.” Exploring these different styles afforded him a myriad of directions to take his music, but ultimately, the innate “just let it flow” method won out.
“My favorite way to write songs though is still when I pick up my guitar in the middle of the day,” he admits. “Without thinking, I just sit and enter a flow state for a few hours. But these days, I also gather hundreds of ideas and mix match in those sessions. Songwriting is starting to feel more like a collage these days, which I really enjoy, because I can feel myself getting stronger and better.”
The homegrown roughness to his songwriting and recording really lends itself well to his music. It also marks Roberto as an exciting and curious voice in overly serious world. “Dorrigo” follows that “don’t worry where it’s going… just go with the flow” mentality.
Roberto agrees.
“I didn’t overthink this song,” he concludes, “so I hope people can do the same and just enjoy the rawness and vulnerability of it… in all its indie pop glory.”
