101 Tropical Hits From Cosmic Space. It maybe a mouthful to say, but it's also the new, wildly energetic project from Watermelon Boy, the stage moniker of Melbourne producer Arlo Enemark.
It features 15 tropical hits from cosmic space – a fusion of Moombahton, tropical house and island rhythms, the euphoric sounds the ultimate party sparkler.In keeping with the album's playful personality, the concept for the album's artwork and its title is loosely based on organ record covers from the 1960s and '70s, a collection of hits of the day played on organ that Arlo finds when he's at op-shops. "They're the most kitschy things," he says.
"'101 Tropical Hits From Cosmic Space' sounded a bit like one of those; the cover was based on one of those, then of course I added my own tongue-in-cheek elements to it as well."
It's as imaginative as the unique soundscape, but what's really gripping about Arlo's new release is how he was able to link in with such a plethora of international musicians.
Arlo admits he's never embarked on a string of collaborations to this scale. "A lot of these tracks have come out as singles; essentially these are works from 2020 and 2021," he explains.
"Watermelon Boy did start with mostly instrumentals and chopped vocals, and the fundamental sound [of the album] is built that way, but I wanted to add more vocals, and fell in love with the West African sound, a lot of the stuff that was happening in Afro beats and Afro hip hop.
"I wanted to adopt some of those colours on top of the mix of styles that was already Watermelon Boy."
Having dabbled in those styles, it inspired Arlo to bring musicians from these specific genres onboard. "The Green Baker one was the first," he explains.
"'Kibaye' was the second full vocal track I ever did – 'Nerve' with Paris Wells was the first one; it was the first single of 2020.
"It was a really cool situation; we connected online, Green Baker and myself. We started this track – he's Nigerian-based. I was in Ghana with my partner for New Year's and was posting on Instagram and stuff.
"Green Baker texted me and said 'I'll come meet you!'. He and his friend got on a bus, came across two countries, and we got to hang out! Made a music video, did some photoshoots, so we had proper photos together for when the single came out. That was just a super-cool moment."
These collaborations have certainly dialled up the Watermelon Boy aesthetic, something Arlo almost didn't expect going into the album's creative process, drawing on so many multicultural sources.
"I was certainly looking for sounds that complemented the Watermelon Boy tone," he says. "There were lots of influences I was pulling in with the tuned percussion, the fuzzy synths and the tempo.
"My stuff had always had a tropical sound. Hearing voices and styles of singing that would suit that, it lends itself to those performances anyway.
"When I was reaching out for vocals, I started using a platform called Sound Better. It was a handy one for me because I could approach vocalists with ideas for tracks, but you can also post tracks for vocalists looking for work."
The platform is how Arlo completed his tracks 'See No Other' and 'Boss It Up' with Christian Enjel and Bryan The Mensah respectively.
"Bryan actually was really interesting because I was in Thailand, returning from Ghana, he saw my message and replied. He's also based in Ghana and I said: 'Dude, I was literally just in your town! Shame we didn't get to meet up.' Since then we've done two collaborations and we're working on another one."
Arlo says Sounds Better was a godsend, particularly when finding collaborators at home proved to be somewhat difficult. "I struggled reaching out to vocalists in Melbourne," he admits.
"Maybe [it's] a social barrier created from being so close. I don't know if it's because in doing different sounding music to people here it was a bit hard to grab and to be already identified with the style, I suppose. But in opening to vocalists from all over the world, it was easier to find people that got what I was doing."
'101 Tropical Hits From Cosmic Space' is available.
