Girl Ultra releases RRRomeo with Chromeo's Dave 1

Mariana de Miguel, who records as Girl Ultra, releases her album RRRomeo on Friday, Oct. 9. The record was produced alongside Dave 1, one half of the duo Chromeo. It arrives as an eight-track collection via Big Dada.

De Miguel and Dave 1 spoke about the project to Billboard at the Del Maguey Single Village Music Series at National Sawdust in Brooklyn on Sept. 29. That conversation took place ten days before the release date. The interview is the most detailed account so far of how the two musicians worked together.

Dave 1 said he first heard De Miguel around 2017 or 2018. She was then emerging from the SoundCloud R&B movement, the loose online scene where singers posted home-recorded tracks directly to the streaming platform SoundCloud. He followed her output from that period onward.

For RRRomeo, he gave her full access to his working materials. That included Pro Tools sessions, the editable studio software files, and stems, the separated vocal, drum, bass and keyboard parts that make up a finished mix. He told Billboard he had never given those files to another artist before. The access let De Miguel rework and build songs from inside his productions rather than simply singing over finished beats.

The album opens with ‘El Groove de Romeo’. It also includes ‘MentirasMentiras’ featuring Buscabulla, the Puerto Rican duo. Another song, ‘Denisse’, centres on a high-school friend leaving behind a youthful relationship.

The tracklist and label were first outlined in July, when Clash reported the album as an eight-track set for Big Dada, the independent label. Big Dada operates within the Ninja Tune group of labels.

What makes this stand out is the working method. Co-production credits are common. Handing over the raw session files is not. For listeners, this means the Chromeo connection is in the structure of the tracks, not just a guest verse or a remix credit.