Norweigian bedroom pop star Boy Pablo today shares the new single ‘rest up‘ and B-Side ‘people‘ taken off his forthcoming debut album Wachito Rico out October 23 on 777 Music. The tracks premiered over the weekend on Annie Mac’s BBC 1 Radio program. Listen HERE.

While his career took off in 2017 with the viral, outsider-pop anthem ‘Everytime‘, Boy Pablo’s Nicolas Muńoz has since found himself more connected to his art than ever. While Boy Pablo initially started out as a project just for fun, Muńoz, now 21, has since honed a cohesive, creative vision, becoming a fully-fledged force to be reckoned with in the indie-pop space. 

The roll out to his highly anticipated debut album has seen boy pablo rapidly expanding his audience on the back of singles ‘hey girl‘ and ‘honey‘ as well as their serialized music videos telling the tale of Wachito Rico. Wachito is the title character of the album and pablo’s alter ego that has curly hair. The series continues with his new single ‘rest up‘ and b-side ‘People‘, songs about mental health/anxiety, and loneliness/depression respectively. Although the tracks deal with some darker and more serious subject matter they still carry pablo’s signature care-free, upbeat, and super catchy touch. 

On ‘rest up‘, Boy Pablo shares, “This song is one of the most personal songs I’ve written. It’s got a double meaning: on the one side it’s about my experiences dealing with anxiety and mental health issues but at the same time it takes on relationship problems. In both cases, though the song is about how you can get overwhelmed with negative problems that make it difficult to think clearly and focus on the most important things in life. The instrumental was written a few years ago but it all came together as a song when I was in the studio with Esteban and Erik recording Wachito Rico.” 

He continues on about ‘People‘, “I wrote this song 4 or 5 years ago and I’ve thought about releasing it a bunch of times but it never really fit on the EPs. I’m really excited to share this one with everyone because in my eyes it’s one of the best songs I’ve written. It comes from a period in my life where I felt like I had no friends and I was alone all the time. I think most people can relate to feeling like this at some point. Again, Erik and Esteban helped me a lot with this song not to mention the great mix by Matias Tellez.” 

More info on Wachito Rico:
Taking its title from a Chilean expression that translates to a fondness for a “handsome boy”, Pablo’s debut LP is a hybrid conceptual and autobiographical record, tracing the ebbs and flows of the titular character’s love story while threading this narrative through with Pablo’s own experiences as a young man, blurring the identities of Wachito Rico and the real-life Nicolas Muñoz into one curious, indistinguishable whole.

‘rest up / people‘ by Boy Pablo is out now via 777 Music.
Buy/stream it here.

Wachito Rico LP
Out October 23 on 777 Music 
Pre-order here.

TRACKLIST
1. hope she loves me back
2. hey girl 
3. leave me alone! 
4. honey 
5. rest up 
6. te vas // don’t go
7. aleluya 
8. come home 
9. mustache 
10. vamos a la playa 
11. wachito rico 
12. nowadays 
13. i <3 u 

ABOUT BOY PABLO

The artistic project of the 21-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Nicolas Muñoz, Boy Pablo first came to widespread attention with the video for his viral 2017 single ‘Everytime‘, an offbeat, lo-fi video that shone like a hidden diamond in the rough of the internet, featuring Boy Pablo and his band of close-knit friends playing on the shores of their hometown. Following up with his 2018 breakout EP, Soy Pablo, a charming seven-track collection of dazzling, nostalgic bedroom-pop anthems, Boy Pablo established himself as more than an internet poster child. 

Since then, he’s been carefully readying his debut full-length, honing his particular brand of woozily romantic indie-pop, fusing a jangly, retro sound with sun-kissed 60s melodies, subtle shadings that nod to Muñoz’s Latin-American background and his charismatic tongue-in-cheek personality that balances heartache with lightness, ennui with serenity.

‘Hey girl’, the first track previewed from Wachito Rico, introduces audiences to the titular character and his love life, bringing Pablo’s artistic vision into sharper focus than ever, with its filtered guitar chords, backdrop of hand drums and Muñoz’s warm, deep vocals. Bolstered by the jazz-inflected b-side, ‘I just wanna go home’, the double release reintroduces Boy Pablo as having grown up and into his sound. Featuring vocals from Muñoz’s high classmate, Andrea, ‘I just wanna go home’ also speaks to the increasing importance of collaboration in his creative process, opening the Boy Pablo project up from its solo origins.

Of the double single, Boy Pablo shares that both tracks “were made during a time I wrote a lot of music for a song project with a friend of mine, Judah Kubendran. I rearranged the tracks and rewrote the lyrics and melodies, and quickly realized that they were too good not to be released.

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