BOYO is the moniker of up-and-coming multi-instrumentalist Robert Tilden (they/them), who’s inspiration draws from funk-inspired dance-worthy hits to melancholic indie jams. Tilden has released a series of albums, EPs and singles in varying styles and moods in a production that is uniquely BOYO. Their songs draw from sentimental chord progressions, ghostly, childlike vocals and warped production. Tilden started his music career at the angsty age of 16, initially creating music under the name Bobby T. and the Slackers. Tilden has since shifted from their early garage-rock sound to more of a psych-pop influence with dreamy vocals and production.
Tilden released not one but two new albums in 2020. Their first release this year, Where Have All My Friends Gone? turned the heads of note-worthy publications from NPR Music, FLOOD Magazine, LA Record and more. The album is inspired by Tilden’s health scare from 2017, which resulted in a diagnosis and then treatment for an acute form of frontal lobe epilepsy. Tilden found solace in their bedroom, turning to the works of songwriters like Bradford Cox (Deerhunter/Atlas Sound) and Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse with their ability to turn bleak moments into beautiful ones, inspiring the songwriting and production of the album released via the Park The Van label. “Since making this record I’ve reconnected with a lot of people and I’ve come to realize that my friends are all right here. In the end it wasn’t my friends who were gone—it was me, to some degree. Maybe that’s a dark takeaway, but when you look around and wonder where everyone is it’s easy to point elsewhere and place blame on other things. But sometimes you’re on your own island, and I needed to make this record to get off that island,” Tilden shares via the Park The Van label page.
Where Have All My Friends Gone? opens with the driving “Dogma,” a fuzzed-out guitar jam. The video features creepy childlike and religious imagery and offers a glimpse of what it’s like to have to protect your identity. Watch the video here:
“Backseat Driver” features a Ween-ispired pitch warp with steady, pulsing drumming and strumming. “That song is basically about someone in your life telling you how to live,” Tilden says about the song. “It could be a metaphor for medication as well, and for people who didn’t understand what I was going through insisting on telling me how to behave.” Watch the video here:
“Since making this record I’ve reconnected with a lot of people and I’ve come to realize that my friends are all right here. In the end it wasn’t my friends who were gone—it was me, to some degree. Maybe that’s a dark takeaway, but when you look around and wonder where everyone is it’s easy to point elsewhere and place blame on other things. But sometimes you’re on your own island, and I needed to make this record to get off that island.”
Their December 2020 release Along Together in Los Angeles is a 12-track follow-up that showcases Tilden’s lighter side with more funky, whimsical sound. The album cites inspirations from the “back-and-forth piano and guitar stylings of John and Yoko’s Plastic Ono Band and the playful, compressed production of hip-hop luminary Madlib.”
Take a listen to the dreamy, upbeat track, “Ghost Noise:”
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