It may not be necessary to know brothers Nico and Esteban Munoz by name, considering both artists are now gathering steam under the monikers they received under no-longer-remembered circumstances as children. The former, boy pablo, has already made a splash in indie-pop spheres, while the latter—who’s long collaborated with the boy pablo project as a writer, producer, and drummer—is stepping out on his own today as bob junior with his debut dual single.
Yet instead of enlisting the help of his younger brother, “baby, i do” and the more seasonally appropriate “ikwydls” (or “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” for the non-millennial horror heads) bring in the assistance and distinctive sounds of contemporary psych-pop figureheads Paul Cherry and “the legend” Dent May, respectively. “I met him at his beautiful studio, The Honeymoon Suite in LA, for a session I booked with someone else,” Munoz recalls of the latter collaborator. “We hung out for like one hour, and both of us were like, ‘Yeah, we need to have a session together.’ Couple of weeks later we met and made this tune that I friggin’ love. Dent had the title in mind (lowkey tribute to the old movie), and we wrapped it up as a sad, heartbreaking love story.”
As for “baby, i do,” the Bergen-by-way-of-Chilean artist shares that the Cherry collaboration began with a chance eBay encounter. “I was laying on the beach in Koh Samui, scrolling on the Norwegian eBay and I saw this beautiful, old, eye-melting electric organ. Bid on it, got it, and a friend of mine picked it up (since I was in Thailand). First thing I did when I got back home was to install it in my studio and make this song. Texted Paul and asked if he wanted to sing on it, and his reply was, ‘So killer—sounds like Paul McCartney meets Vengaboys.’”
While both tracks exhibit the influence of their respective collaborator, the clear throughline that is bob junior’s pastel synth-pop palette is hard to overlook. Check out the songs here, or listen below.
