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Robby East answers the question before he asks it. With the All Along EP release on Lane 8’s record label This Never Happened, he proclaimed, “Guess I was human all along,” delivering two melodic house tracks, “Human All Along” and “Lifeline”, that lean into his signature chill take on the genre.
The Amsterdam-based artist has been crafting his sound for years now. After signing to This Never Happened in 2022, Robby experienced significant success with tracks like “Toucan” and “Marula.” He hasn’t slowed down since—releasing music consistently and cementing his status as a key player in melodic house.
Both tracks sit at an easy 120 BPM, draped in lush harmonics and uplifting major-key warmth. While “Human All Along” celebrates our resiliency while tracing the tender scars of our lived experiences, “Lifeline” is more desperate, a cry for help when it all becomes too much. LeyeT’s vocals bring an airy impassioned touch, while Jyll’s raw delivery (familiar from Le Youth’s “I Will Leave a Light On”) sharpens the edge of each song respectively. In two heartfelt tunes, Robby captures the complex nature of human emotion, adding to This Never Happened’s growing legacy of relatable connection-focused melodic house.
Those tracks could have stood on their own and been just fine, an empathetic statement on our lives as emotional beings—but with the subsequent release of “Wait, Are You Human?” Robby flips it all on its head. This track is faster, darker, and machine-hearted—a sonic sci-fi thriller of metal and gears. There’s no vocals, nothing to ground you back into the sentimental world of the previous single. Where his June releases wore their hearts on their sleeves, this one stands cold and apathetic.
The juxtaposition feels deliberate, and it works. In pairing the tenderness of “Human All Along” and “Lifeline” with the cold precision of “Wait, Are You Human?” Robby crafts more than just a set of singles—it’s a conversation about what it means to be human. The clash between human warmth and unfeeling machinery sharpens the impact of each track, making their statements more powerful. This unpredictability is attention-grabbing, pulling listeners in and upping the ante for future releases. He builds a narrative while pushing his sound into new territory, embracing the challenge of both asking and answering life’s big questions.
The question now is: What will Robby do next?
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