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Photo:  J.Martin

After the longest outage in Facebook's history, which also brought down Instagram and Whatsapp, it's difficult to say if we're at the brink of a technological apocalypse or if the robots have already won. Whatever your take, electronic duo RBTS WIN, certainly seem to be winning with their latest single  "Gold Beamer." Soaked in a nostalgic, wistful air and carried by an undercurrent of silky smooth electronic production, the single, which is premiering here today, is a feast for the senses.

We had the honor of not just premiering “Gold Beamer" but sitting down with the duo behind RBTS WIN to take an inside look into their world and new single.

Ones to Watch: Who is RBTS WIN? What are y'all all about?

Cliff: RBTS WIN is Cliff B. Worsham and Javier Bolea. I come from hardcore and metal backgrounds in music and started this band with Javi to fulfill my love for electronic music. The name actually came from the idea that I was moving from more traditional instruments to electronic (the robots won). Javier had been playing electronic music in some form for most of his life and I’ve been lucky enough to learn so much from him along the way. We've never really put ourselves in one genre and by listening to multiple albums you can hear that.

What happens if the robots do win? Are you elevated in their good graces?

Cliff: In a sense, they have already haha! Technology has consumed our everyday lives for the most part. When the robot overlords come, maybe they'll take it easy on us!

You guys have been around a while but your sound seems refreshed. What happened?

Cliff: We always want to stay fresh and push ourselves to do something new. We're both driven by so much music in different genres. On this current stuff, it was kind of my take on pop music - autotune on vocals, etc. I wanted to write pop songs about depression and this is what came out.

Javi: Maybe we're all new people now after the last couple of years? We were apart for most of COVID and just creating music via Dropbox folders. Now that we're able to be in the studio together again it feels extra fresh - although in many ways it feels like we didn't miss a beat. That first day back in the studio we wrote a song for the new record in like three minutes. A really surreal experience. All of sudden being back at it was some dreamlike shit.

What’s "Gold Beamer" about? The vibe feels existential and nostalgic. Is that deliberate?

Cliff: The song arose from the pandemic. The fact that you couldn't really go anywhere or do anything, so you had to find stuff to keep you from going mad. Like driving around for hours with no destination but having good company doing it. The gold beamer was really just a representation of love - all shiny and beautiful.

What inspired the production (the chime melody especially)?

Cliff: Most of our production starts on samplers. We use Akai MPC samplers to be exact. Usually songs begin with a loop whether we create them ourselves or sample from vinyl. "Gold Beamer" started with that Rhodes piano loop and we just built on it from there. You never know where a song is going to go from the initial loop, but this one really shines from that initial sample and synth chime.

What’s next for you? What should people be on the lookout for?

Cliff: Our new record happy_sad.jpg will be out later this year. We’re currently working on another record as well that we're just structuring. The downtime without shows gave us a lot of freedom to sit and write, so we've taken full advantage of that. We have some upcoming shows now and hope to have more next year. We really miss that part of it all.

Javi: Output. Our goal is just constant creative output from here until forever.

Who is inspiring you right now? Who are your Ones to Watch?    

Cliff: I'm into so much stuff! Currently some of my favorites who inspire me are Porches, Orion Sun, Rome Streetz, Dijon, Spaceman Jones and the Motherships, Westside Gunn, Sir, and Angel Du$t.

Javi: I’ve been listening to a lot of old Japanese psych-jazz and trying to go down that transportive rabbit hole. I just can’t quit Steve Lacy. Vegyn. Daniel Lopatin. Lots of hip hop, too. Also, speaking of the robots winning - Spotify has really figured out how to feed me artists with the drum sounds and crackly foley that I love, so I'll let my playlists just go.