roco

Living in Music City, we gain an appreciation for the talented musicians here everyday. However, the sheer volume of music can sometimes be overwhelming and repetitive, and something totally out of left field generally grabs our attention, for better or worse. Enter Nashville based trio roco, who we found on the better end of the aforementioned scale, and are set to release their debut album, Pidgin Tongue, on May 17.

The definition of a pidgin or pidgin language is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups that do not have a language in common; typically, a mixture of simplified languages or a simplified primary language with other languages’ elements included. This is important, because, when roco began, the three members, Ashly Badgett, Joey Kirby, and Colin Pauley, were coming from fairly contrasting musical worlds (prog rock, singer-songwriter, pop), and were struggling to find a voice for a musical project. They had to create a sort of musical pidgin language to forge the direction of the band.

The result, based on the single “e. silver” below, is a quirky bit of cabaret pop that really works musically. The band tells us, “Inspiration for our record Pidgin Tongue comes from quirky film scores and sounds that create an environment and help tell a story. During the writing process, we’d have peculiar noises pop into our heads and we didn’t always know how to convey those thoughts to one another. So, over time, we formed our own pidgin tongue which allowed us to communicate our thoughts and create a fluent sound.”

Head below to watch the awesomely done video by Scott Harper for the single “e. silver,” which was made using a lot of miniatures and some cool stop motion animation. It works perfectly with the quirky first single from roco’s upcoming debut.

rocomusic.com - No Country For New Nashville

They say there's a lot of value in first impressions, and Roco (née Bashly) isn't one to waste an opportunity like that. Their debut single "e. silver" dropped last month, and the beginning of May saw the release of a colorfully twee video to accompany the colorfully twee song. The stop-and-start nature of the stop motion video, which looks like a set piece from Fantastic Mr. Fox, nicely compliments the minimal baroque pop of "e. silver."

It looks like we'll be getting some more from Roco once Pidgin Tongue debuts on May 17, so now's your last chance to be ahead of the curve on a band everybody should be talking about. If that's not enough to convince you to give the video a watch, stick around after it's done to see YouTube's auto-play feature launch into some real out-there conspiracy videos about silver and the Illuminati, for whatever reason. -Austin Phy - The Deli Magazine

Based out of Nashville, indie-rock group roco just put out a new track today, “bloody hands”, from their upcoming album. Frankly, it’s a stunning one — traversing from quaint fragmented guitar trickles into a deliciously twangy hook, where the sweeping vocals of Ashly Badgett provide a spine-tingling series of reprisals that give way to additional brass adornments that lead the powerful one-minute instrumental closing. The track’s various stages – from quaint verses to devastating hook and chaotically beautiful conclusion – show a band with a beautiful knack for expansively infectious songwriting. - Obscure Sound

1. “e. silver” – Roco. Noises, riffs, rhythms, and vocals collide in atypical ways, creating an exciting, “what will happen next?” environment. Sort of like The Avalanches, or weird trip-hop, or a Beck fever dream, or none of the above. - Independent Clauses