Rambling into noise.

Multi-instrumentalist, producer and visual artist Rob de Boer has released his debut album, Man to You. It’s soulful, graceful and earthy, and explores themes around manhood and Rob’s personal experiences and perspectives on relationships, adulthood and self. I spoke with Rob about the journey creating his debut record, the driving forces behind it, and how this project came together.

“Man to You has been a long time in the works,” Rob tells me. “It’s a collection of deeply personal songs, that are all quite autobiographical…It centres around stories of both romantic and platonic relationships, but also navigating what it means to be an adult, and questions around manhood and identity. It’s a collection of my own stories from the last few years, and seeing how I’ve changed, and things have changed around me as time has passed.”

For Rob, one of the biggest challenges in creating a full-length album was focussing all his energy into creating a cohesive piece of work. To tackle this, he limited himself to both a certain set of stories and sonic themes and ideas. “The parameters I set when I decided to make this project was that all the songs had to be informed by my own experiences,” he tells me. “I’m a multi-instrumentalist and I work as a visual artist in in photography and film. I struggle to do just one project at a time…I’m involved with some other music projects because I love all kinds of music.”

“I find it can be restrictive to just do one thing, so I have found outlets to do different things, he continues. “I play drums in an indie/nu-jazz band called Papa Romeo, and I produce some more electronic stuff for a project called FRANK ZING. I was very busy with those projects, particularly after COVID, and my own had gone on the back burner in that period of time, whilst I was collaborating and playing a lot more with others.”

“I did reach a point at the start of 2022, where I suddenly felt a bit directionless with my own music and unsure of what steps to take next. I had just released an EP, but it had been awkward timing because the world was in lockdown, and I couldn’t tour the songs. I was like, ‘OK, I’ve been busy playing lots of music but I don’t know what the direction should be for my own stuff.’ Then a friend who works in music told me he thought it was time to make an album. A little conversation over a cup of coffee one morning led to me putting three years of my life into every single detail of this thing. It gave me so much direction and purpose.”

This being Rob’s first album, it wasn’t plain sailing, and he navigated plenty of unknowns and first times, whilst putting together a piece of work he wanted to feel complete and personally reflective. “I did struggle when [my friend] said ‘go make an album.’ I was like –‘how do you even do that? Do you need to go off and build a whole body of work from scratch?’ He helped me realise you could find ways to unite existing material you had. I looked at some songs that I’d already written at that point, that hadn’t been released, and they were again my own stories, and quite personal. I decided that they will have to be the consistent factors; it had to be about my own experiences with others. That kind of started it.”

“I’d also been navigating quite a big personal moment in terms of some self-discovery and explorations around my own identity leading up to that point, so I felt like there was a lot that I hadn’t said. Suddenly, there was a reason to start writing more.”

From there, Man to You began to take shape. Rob wrote, played on, and sang across all 11 songs on the album, with support from some incredible people around him.

“I tend to compose, write and arrange all the songs myself,” he explains. “I’m very lucky to know some amazing musicians, friends and collaborators in Ireland, where a lot of the project was put together. We recorded a lot of the album in the studio and then a lot of it came together at home, in my bedroom and in different parts of Ireland, in a more DIY setup.”

The album has a soulful sound, and is incredibly consistent, coherent, and well produced throughout. It captures a warm, folky and jazzy essence, and illustrates Rob’s stories through wonderful writing and storytelling.

“The majority of the songs were written that year, 2022,” he tells me, “but some of the other songs go back as far as 2017. It was a bit of a mix of much newer stuff and some slightly older material. I felt like I used the instrumentation and the players to bridge that time that had passed between them to give them a consistent feeling and sound.”

Listening to the record, it’s hard to disagree. From the opening guitar chucks of If You Wanna, to the fading vocal harmonies at the very end of Shine on Me, it is tinged with a hazy nostalgia throughout, and a beautifully expressive intimacy.

As a filmmaker and visual artist, another priority for Rob was maximising this element of the album, alongside the music. “I wanted to elevate the whole project by putting as much consideration into the visual world as the music,” he explains. “That added a lot of time to the completion of the project. Not all the songs really lent themselves initially to interesting visual ideas, so the ones that did I said ‘OK, they should be singles’.”

“Autumn Haze came out first and was released mostly because it was seasonal. I also thought it was quite a different sound from a lot of the stuff on the album; it’s a bit more funky and upbeat, and it’s the more ‘poppy’ side of my songwriting, if you can call it that. I felt like it would be a cool one to return to the scene with.”

“The next two felt more representative of the sound of the album. Our Own Way was the one that came out second, accompanied by a dance video, which I learned choreography for, under the direction of my friend Douglas Redden – who directed the video with me.”

“I felt like that was very representative of the project as a whole, both in terms of the sonics and the visual world – and the warm, hazy, jazzy feeling that I was trying to get across sonically.”

“That bridged the gap between Autumn Haze and Man to You, which came as the third single. Man to You is the title track; it had the most to say in terms of the narrative and my own experiences reckoning my identity and exploring my sexuality.”

“When Man to You was released, I wasn’t prepared for how vulnerable I would feel,” Rob tells me “I felt like I’d really laid myself bare. It revealed things to others that I had never said until that point, including people close to me. That was difficult and unexpected. I’d never experienced anything like that before through art i’d made or shared. It led to some really interesting conversations with friends and loved ones. The rest of the songs are all personal, but Man To You was saying something that had, until that point, been quite a private part of my life.”

Overall, the singles undoubtedly do a perfect job in conveying both the sonic and storytelling priorities of the album. “I feel like it was a mixture of trying to get a lot of storytelling across and to give the right kind of flavours and impressions of the sounds that people could expect from the album. The last single, Moon and the Stars, also has a video that’s in the works; that’s going to be a lovely thing to come.”

A key theme you’ll hear when you explore Rob de Boer’s music, both sonically and lyrically, is references to dancing. From the very first lyric – we can go dancing, babe, if you wanna – and consistently throughout the record, such as in Autumn Haze – dancing by your side – and Our Own Way – So grab a friend yeah, dance again yeah, you gotta groove while it’s in you.

Odes, nods and an adoration to dancing permeate this album.

“I love dance as a medium,” Rob tells me. “I’ve always loved to dance, but I’ve never trained in it. Thinking about it now, experiences around dancing were a big part of the stories that turned into songs on the album. I’ve directed other music videos that incorporated dance, but have always wanted to push myself to be in the dancing role. When I heard the recording of Our Own Way, it had this movement and bounce to it, and I could just immediately visualise this New York, smoky dance aesthetic. I reached out to my friend Doug and he supported the idea enough to make it a reality.”

From there, Rob focussed his immediate efforts into creating the project’s first music video.“I spent a few weeks learning the choreography with him and putting the time in at home in my parents’ garden,” Rob tells me with a laugh. “It was ambitious but really rewarding seeing that all come together and definitely a highlight of the whole project, getting to work alongside professional dancers and seeing the whole thing come to life.

Musically, reference points for this project are broad, with many differing contributions which have, in some way, shaped the sounds and styles you hear on Man To You.

“Drumming is my main instrument, and anything percussively heavy always grabs me,” he explains. “In terms of inspirations, that’s the kind of stuff I’m really drawn to. Beyond that, artists like Bill Withers, Oscar Jerome, Puma Blue, Sault and Cleo Sol…productions that sounds quite ‘natural’.

Another influence which isn’t necessarily immediately obvious listening to Man To You, but perhaps linked to Rob’s affinity for strong percussive and rhythmic elements, is electronic music.

“It’s a big part of what I like,” Rob tells me. “A lot of my friends DJ but I’m always on the dance floor side rather than on the decks – I love a good dance! I’ve tried to unite the songwriting and the electronic music influences. I put a song out called Costa before, which is a raucous Latin live band, in a house vibe. That was where the two spilled over more…strangely, I think I just have different outputs. I produce a lot of beats at home that don’t turn into songs, but the way the songs in the album mostly started would have been from guitar or piano, in a more intimate way.”

“When I play with other projects, maybe those influences spill more into the way I play, perform or write; this one seems to be more led by the songs and the other instruments.”

“Between drumming and electronic influences, even vocally, I always want to convey a rhythm. I recognise now, seeing them together, that there are quite a few ballads and atmospheric songs on there, and a couple of  them I played drums on.”

Another reason for wanting to avoid the electronic elements, was, similarly to being restrictive with stories, to help Rob maintain a solid theme throughout the 11 tracks.

“I think it’s helpful to limit yourself when there’s so many choices both for songwriting and making music,” he explains. “I think that was what helped me structure this… the instrumentation largely was organic. Rather than things being overly produced or electronic, I wanted things to be played by real people in the room together. That was a very conscious decision. I wanted things to feel like it could have been recorded at any point in time and so there are some little extra electronic bits on a few of the songs, but I think that warm, analogue, tactile thing of people playing their instruments together in the room – that was a big part of the feeling.”

Whilst this may be Rob’s first album, he’s already looking forward to what’s to come in his career. “The next project I’d like to try and do on tape somehow,” he tells me. “In terms of limitations, I can get stuck in the details of things. You have to sign off on decisions quicker, when you use tape, supposedly, so that would probably save time.”

“I romanticise old gear and instruments,” he continues. “People who have worked with tape as a medium always say it just has this special something and I think it’s comparable to shooting on film – there is an intangible kind of magic to it. That intrigues me for sure. There’s a few different paths that I could go down. I’m definitely looking forward to writing music again, because so much time has gone into the logistical and administrative side of finishing an album and releasing it; getting back into a creative headspace at some point will be nice.”

“I’m also thinking it could be nice to keep it a bit more produced next time, and do more of it on my own. I love involving lots of people, but logistically that can be difficult, and I have just moved to London and I’m going to be more restricted in my setup there over the next while.”

“I think I need to go and play these songs for people and I’m excited to bring some new energy into those performances and find moments to extend in songs or new ways of playing them.”

Rob has recently enjoyed a special launch event in Dublin, his home city, and is planning a big show in London in June, to launch the album over there. “It’s not a traditional music venue and that’s always something that interests me as well – creating new experiences for people and novel ways to experience my music. We did another launch and screening night in Dublin back in February in a yoga studio, where we completely transformed the space and set it all up beautifully. This will be something similar. I get a lot of satisfaction dressing a room for a gig the way I want. I always try to create something that feels fitting to the music, You can do so much with a space and I really think that affects how the performance is received by an audience as well.”

Listen to Man to You now, across all major streaming platforms, or order a vinyl from his Bandcamp, and be sure to catch Rob de Boer’s special London album release show, on June 20^th at the Roasting Shed.