BOYO is the project of multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Robert Tilden, today he has shared a video for “Skip,” the second single from his forthcoming album Where Have All My Friends Gone?. Originally planned as a May release, the album will now be released on June 26th via Park the Van Records. “This song is about the romantic prospect of ‘skipping town’ with minimal belongings, minimal goodbyes, a good reason but no plans,” explains Tilden. “The Patrick Jewett-directed video is more of an interpersonal journey: a dissatisfied and bored Uber/Lyft driver’s day—and ultimately life—gets brightened by the presence of a child passenger donning a superhero outfit and an adventurous spirit.”

Where Have All My Friends Gone? reflects the sentiments of loss, isolation, and confusion Tilden experienced while a 2017 health scare turned his world upside down. Just as his career was beginning to pick up speed, following a handful of years making self-released tapes, singles, EPs, and a pair of well-received full-lengths (including his 2016 debut LP Control), Tilden began experiencing random, unexplained seizures and spent more than a year under the care of specialists who experimented with different powerful medications for an undiagnosed brain condition, leaving his career—and health—in question.

In 2018, Tilden was finally diagnosed with an acute form of frontal lobe epilepsy, was prescribed the right daily regimen of pills, and has been free of seizures ever since. Slowly, life became less of a daily crisis, but the experience left him alienated by medically-induced, uncontrollable mood shifts. The isolation had taken its toll. Finding himself alone for much of the time, Tilden seized the opportunity to make a record entirely on his own. Working mostly in his bedroom, he found comfort in the work of songwriters like Bradford Cox (Deerhunter/Atlas Sound) and Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse). Fusing those artists’ ability to turn the bleak into beauty with his own newfound focus on songwriting and production, the foundation of Where Have All My Friends Gone? was formed.

Where Have All My Friends Gone? is available for pre-order HERE.