Fig & Mint

With a history like this, and a name like that, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson can be no stranger to expectation. Released July 1 on Say Hey Records, his self-titled EP is the long-anticipated debut from a pained youngster who has lingered in a part-vagabond, part-hustler haze for the past 10 years. In the year 2000, Miles was thrown into the bowels of New York from the comfort of the Oregon countryside. With nothing but music and juvenile indiscretions on his mind, Miles, on full scholarship at NYU, tested the limits of his talent through rampant alcohol and drug use. By the time he turned 21, he was ready to stop drinking, he says, because he had already done way too much of that and everything else.* Lucky for us, too much is relative for Mr. Robinson. Opening his album with the morbidly self-indulging funeral song, "Buriedfed," the four-named troubadour from Oregon jokingly reflects on his adolescent escapades in serving up a theme for the album. The leading lyric, This is my last song about myself, about my friends / Found something else to sing, introduces  Robinson's signature sarcasm on an album in which Robinson acts primarily as the passionate ferrier of nostalgia. The joke revealed at track 2, which relies on the debt-wrangled emotions of a lost soul tortured by self-deflating prospects of success. Not sure that I want to stay alive / it's so expensive / it's cheap to die scowls Robinson in "The Debtor," a track he says was written in that purgatory between college and homelessness, when he was forced to sneak into NYU studios after dropping out. Yet, this time was only transitional. Now, Robinson is able to smile when he reflects, which can often come off as smug or fake on stage - a tribute to the fact that he still doesn't take himself too seriously. Robinson understands all the bad cliches that come with writing this type of music. In "Who's Laughing," Robinson jokes, tell me if you've heard this one before when pushing around the emotional weight of a romance strained by personal neglect and self-healing justification.

The musical and biographical contrast is startling - A young man most influenced by '90s grunge rock sounds more like a new millennium Bob Dylan. Like Dylan, Robinson can attribute his rootsy-ness to the persistent loneliness of introspective ramblings. The bi-racial, bi-coastal songwriter invites us to his emotional island through stories of dependent desolation. The beer and cigarettes are symptoms of his outlet and origin. Lost in his merry-go-round of improprieties, Robinson celebrates his years of isolation through a grateful reminiscence. "My Good Luck," a Bud-infused anthem, may sound most like a Gold Ryan Adams, but Robinson won't let you forget where he is coming from. "I'm definitely a '90s kid, and I'm from the Pacific Northwest. I never really gave up the alt rock thing—I came to New York wearing Doc Martens and flannel in 2000."* And he still wears them. I wanted to be written over!, Robinson screams on track 7, a feeling most children growing up with the influences of Nirvana, NIN, and Pearl Jam can certainly understand. A time when pain and pressure were cool, even celebrated. Pushed, pulled, and played loud, self-hate was the paramour of the mid-nineties and Robinson was no stranger to its seduction. Even in what had to be one of the best times of his life - being on tour with friend and producer Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear - Robinson penned "Mountineer'd," a song that would have you believe that its the swan song of his fabled break up with his fiancee. Fortunately, that's not the case. As noted in the Paper Thin Walls interview, this entire album was penned pre-break up. His soon-to-be released second album, Summer of Fear, captures the effectual discharge of the relationship's sudden demise.*

But let us not forget that Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson's talent extends beyond storytelling. The musical accoutrement of acoustic guitar and piano produced with a lo-fi sound begs the beggar's feeling of grimy homeless regret. While Robinson's vocal talents, like Dylan's as well, leave something to be desired, TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone, along with Chris Taylor, helped re-dub different versions of Robinson's vocal on several tracks to give them the emotional impact of a church chorus. In "Above the Sun," Robinson creates the Southern Sunday church service of a delta bluesman, pasting heaven-reaching voices on a zealous infusion of stand-up bass over ambient extensions of prolonged organ chords. Yet, beyond the religious excursion in "Above the Sun," you won't find too many detours of sound in this album. Based in the celebration of juvenile reflection, Robinson consistently melds songs of drugs, alcohol, and typical 25-year-old malaise. In an interview with NPR's Conor McKay, Robinson countered, "I've drank a lot of whiskey and I've done a lot of drugs, but I think that is the least interesting and certainly the least unique thing about me and my music."** He may be right; but for now, that's all we have to go on. In Robinson's first album, he steadily relies on his adolescent cycle of indiscretion and regret.  But it is his commitment to sound and feeling that ensures that Summer of Fear will be a more grown-up endeavor.  If the current album is the "closest to honest thing [Robinson] could make,"** when looking back at the last 10 years, Let us hope our next romp through the life of Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson proves just as entertaining.

This winters been like no other before / staring down at the sky from up here on the floor. - Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, from "Boneindian"

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* More Use For A Name - Paper Thin Walls

** Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - National Public Radio

The FADER COVER - Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson

The Daytrotter Sessions - MBAR (four previously unreleased recordings)

Delicious Scopitone - Buriedfed Video (be sure to check out Sigur Ros Gobbledigook video as well)

Myspace

Say Hey Records