Robert Zehnder is a Brooklyn-based songwriter who combines the bedroom pop aesthetic with art rock, electronic and shoegaze sensibilities, bringing to life an emotionally open and often strange sound. Last year saw the release of two records, the lo-fi pop/electro-adjacent Battery Park and Liquid Candy Energy Maxed, which paired off-kilter drone with alternative rock. An endlessly surprising set of tracks that never quite betrayed where they were heading next.
Soon, Zehnder plans to release Fiber, a collection of songs exploring “isolation, heartbreak, escapism, and inadequacy.” The record’s lead single ‘Butcher Block’ focuses on the latter in particular. Its repeated refrain of “I was not the sharpest one” serves a conceptualisation of feelings of ineptitude, confronting the sense that one does not match or live up to societal standards.
Speaking to this doubt, the song is hushed and hesitant at first, sitting more firmly in the bedroom pop bracket than previous Robert Zehnder releases. But as it progresses and the vocals take on a deadpan air, the track takes off in its back half, mixing shoegaze heft with a dark rock energy of which Crazy Horse or Magnolia Electric Co. would be proud.
On top of the heights, yeah
with everyone one, yeah
I wasn’t playing dumb, yeah
in the weirdest lightI wasn’t the sharpest one