This one goes out to all the androids out there. Long Beach native Anthony Pedroza began alt-rock four-piece Fellow Robot with a plan—namely, their trilogy of concept albums called The Robot’s Guide to Music. The first volume came out last summer and the second is due in April. The new edition will include the new single “Don’t Deny Me,” which you can hear below.
The three records are meant to teach the first wave of sentient, sensitive robots what human music was like. Give the concept a moment of thought and consider what kind of music you would include; compare that to what might be representative of human sounds from across the globe. Fellow Robot document their own perspective for the project. Their brand of folk rock is supplemented with noisy solos and outros, where space left in the instrumentation is used to weave in the band’s own folklore.
If “Don’t Deny Me” is any indication, the next record will document disappointment. The single glints with melancholy typically found in songs of heartbreak, but the message is as ambiguous as the listener would like to make it. On one hand, it takes courage to “tear it all apart,” and the gesture should be applauded even if the future is shaky. On the other hand, reverting back to life before technology is rightly terrifying and shows the grip that an invisible fist of connectivity has over most of humanity. Pedroza describes what the track means to him below.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”#FF78FF” class=”fistclass” size=”15″]”It really bugs me that some people think they know who I am based on what I may or may not post on social media. ‘Don’t Deny Me’ examines the inhuman desire to be loved or liked through our devices and shows how these black mirrors really keep us apart. When the satellites are destroyed and you have no way of pinging your friends, what on Earth are you going to do?”[/perfectpullquote]
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