Karlo Bromsen opens his solo venture with “Parlin Papito” by grounding domestic intimacy in deliberate lo-fi mechanics. Built directly from sketches by his son, the track pairs built-in Logic tools and raw Mac microphone vocals to transform casual home noise into an intentional artistic boundary. The resulting texture chooses the rough edges of a living room recording over commercial sheen, letting the physical space of its creation dictate the sonic perimeter.
Paternal ambition collides with child play inside the narrative framework. While the vocal line captures an impromptu melody recorded before it could escape, the surrounding arrangement organizes cartoon figures, bees, and absurd figures into a self-contained ecosystem. The recording balance keeps the vocal dry and unpolished, forcing the digital production library elements to wrap around an unedited hum rather than smoothing it out.
Berlin’s offbeat songwriting lineage finds a homebound outlet through this rejection of over-controlled studio technique. By leaving the imperfections untouched, Bromsen lets the track end where the home recording cut off, leaving the listener inside the noise of an unfinished game.
For those who might not know you yet, how would you introduce yourself?
I’m Karlo Bromsen, a Berlin-based songwriter and the voice behind the indietronic act Bromsen, which I run together with my brother in mind Richard Bromsen and our brilliant drummer Bon Schmelke — please have a listen.
My solo material explores a slightly different side of me: the more personal, offbeat and instinctive Karlo side of things. With “Parlin Papito” in particular, I wanted to follow my dadaistic instincts, my love for playful nonsense, and my fascination with the drawings of my son Willi.
If you had to bottle up your sound into just three words, which ones would you choose?
Odd, melancholic, positive.
Which artists , not only music-related, or moments have left the biggest mark on your music?
Probably The Beatles, and John Lennon in particular, Kurt Cobain, Luka Bloom, Beat literature from the late 1950s and early 1960s, and Sergio Leone westerns.
But also my grandfather. He passed on this deeply positive attitude towards life to all of us, and I think that has stayed with me in a very fundamental way. It is probably somewhere in the emotional DNA of the music.
When you hit play on your songs, what kind of feeling takes over?
There is usually a positive energy, but it is often mixed with a certain kind of melancholy. I like that tension. I don’t think joy and sadness are opposites. Very often they sit quite close to each other.
If you could team up with anyone in the world, no limits, who would that dream collaborator be?
In a way, I already have my dream team. It is my family, my Bromsen mates, and all the musician friends and colleagues I have around me — cheers also to the Dachshund family.
Of course there are many artists I admire, but the most important creative energy often comes from the people who are already part of your life.
What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?
Maybe we are heading into another chapter of the crazy Papito world. I really love the character Bumpo, and I have a feeling he might need his own song at some point.
But I also have completely different songs in the pipeline — some of them more like little Beat-novel fragments, with a more poetic and road-worn atmosphere. So I think both sides will continue: the surreal cartoon world and the more introspective songwriting.
Can you walk us through the story or emotion behind “Parlin Papito”? If you can, tell us about the storytelling of the video and the musical approach to it.
It all started with a drawing by my son Willi. I immediately loved it and encouraged him to build a little universe around the character — more figures, more situations, more strange little ideas. I was genuinely fascinated by what he came up with. His character Bumpo, for example, is something I absolutely love. You can find quite a few Bumpo videos on our TikTok channel.
Then I had one of those days where strange ideas just arrive in your head. I recorded this completely absurd melody and “lyric” very quickly, almost like catching a little piece of nonsense before it disappears again. From there, the whole thing kept evolving.
In the end, I produced the track myself in Logic, combining some of its built-in tools with sound effects from production libraries and AI tools, then shaping everything into this playful, slightly chaotic sound world. The vocals were actually recorded directly on my Mac using the built-in microphone, which gives the whole thing this DIY, lo-fi character. That imperfection felt right for the song. It should not sound too polished or over-controlled.
The video also grew quite organically. My son had already created several characters, including the Karlo character, who was loosely inspired by me. At first, we simply put together a series of funny scenes. Only later did the storyline become clearer: Papa Karlo wants to turn Papito into a big music star, while Papito finds all of it interesting but would probably rather spend time playing with his best friend Bumbee.
That tension became the heart of the video for me. There is this fatherly dream of fame, music and big stages — but Papito himself remains this small, sweet, slightly confused character who just follows the adventure in his own gentle way. Underneath all the absurdity, I think there is something very personal about family, imagination and letting a little handmade world grow without trying to control it too much.
