"Dance Alone" is an album made from the brink of isolation--after a year of touring, Robert Tilden (a.k.a. BOYO) experienced a Grand Mal Seizure before he was supposed to step onstage in Los Angeles a month before his 21st birthday.
Visiting multiple doctors with no formal diagnosis while still having repeated seizures and events; Tilden was prescribed anti-convulsive medication that made him extremely depressed, causing him to constantly stay in and furthering his obsession with home-recording to a slightly unhealthy degree.
"Dance Alone" is the most minimal and honest collection of songs from that period of time and possibly of Tilden's incredibly prolific catalogue.
Some of the lyrics' sardonic quality are masked in the sunny instrumentation: Cutscenes quite literally sounds reminiscent of video-game cutscene music of yore while Tilden muses about "condolences and flower from places you won't go."
The songwriting and production all feel uniform overall but are dynamic song-to-song: some tracks have a Strokes-by-way-of-Alex-G nostalgia with doses of more sonically adventurous bands from the past (My Bloody Valentine) and present (Unknown Mortal Orchestra).
The vocals are more prominent and less hazy/pitch shifted than his previous releases; Tilden cites some songs' soulful, trip-hoppy atmosphere to artists ranging from the warped-soul of Jon Bap, the breezy hooks of Outkast, and the spaced-out out bliss of Spiritualized.
Soon after it was recorded, Tilden was formally diagnosed with epilepsy, became properly medicated, and is living seizure-free--he has been touring happily and healthily ever since."
