Alpha Romeo, a collaborative project between Rodrigo Passannanti and Jeremy Jones, explores the intersection of electronic sound, cinematic storytelling, and emotional depth.
The duo’s latest album, Soft Collapse, released on EC Underground, has already caught attention for its immersive textures, genre-blending sound, and reflective narratives – with lead single Return To You featuring a video inspired by the Dredd universe.
909originals spoke with Rodrigo and Jeremy about the project, their creative process, and the ideas that shape their music.
For those unfamiliar with Alpha Romeo, how would you describe the project?
Rodrigo: We think of Alpha Romeo less as a ‘band’ and more as a creative ecosystem. Each release is like a new chapter, a sonic journey that invites listeners to travel inward while imagining futures that don’t yet exist.
How did the collaboration come about? What do both of you bring to the table, creatively?
Rodrigo: The collaboration came about quite organically. Jeremy and I had been aware of each other’s work for a while, both exploring different corners of electronic and ambient music, and there was this unspoken understanding that our sensibilities could merge in an interesting way.
When we finally started exchanging ideas, it felt very natural, like we were continuing a conversation that had already begun somewhere else.
Jeremy: Yeah, it was less a planned collaboration and more an alignment of creative frequencies. Rodrigo has this deep, textural approach to sound design very spatial, immersive, and atmospheric, while I tend to focus more on harmonic movement, emotional pacing, and the narrative flow of a piece. Together, those elements balance each other out.
Alpha Romeo became a space where our individual voices could coexist and form something larger, a kind of sonic architecture built from both intuition and precision.
What themes influenced the album, Soft Collapse, and its title? You’ve described it as a response to the ’emo-technological turbulence of our time’?
Rodrigo: Soft Collapse was born from observing the subtle disintegration of modern life, not the dramatic kind, but the quiet erosion that happens beneath the noise of technology and constant connection.
The title speaks to that tension between fragility and adaptation, how we’re all, in some way, trying to stay human while immersed in digital systems that are reshaping our emotional and sensory realities.
Jeremy: Exactly. The phrase ‘emo-technological turbulence’ came from our conversations about how technology amplifies both connection and disconnection.
There’s this strange emotional weather we all live under now – part awe, part anxiety. Soft Collapse isn’t pessimistic, though. It’s more like a meditation on resilience on finding beauty and meaning in the fragments. The music reflects that duality: lush and expansive one moment, brittle and dissolving the next.
The album blends genres like chillwave, synthwave, downtempo, and ambient in what ways have you blended these styles together to define your sound?
Jeremy: Those genres: chillwave, synthwave, downtempo, ambient, all share a kind of emotional DNA. We never set out to fit within them, but to let their textures and atmospheres inform a larger narrative.
You might hear the nostalgic shimmer of synthwave, but it’s wrapped inside ambient structures or downtempo rhythms that move more like a pulse than a beat. It’s less about blending genres and more about dissolving their boundaries until they feel like a single, breathing environment.
Rodrigo: For us, genre is a palette, not a framework. We approach each piece like sound architecture, layering synthetic tones with organic gestures, manipulating space and silence as much as melody. The chillwave warmth and the ambient stillness coexist with more experimental, cinematic dimensions.
That hybrid creates what we call the Alpha Romeo atmosphere, immersive, emotive, and slightly dislocated from time.
Is there an autobiographical element to the album? Particularly seeing as the first track is titled Born?
Rodrigo: Absolutely, even though Soft Collapse operates on a conceptual and sonic level, there’s an autobiographical undercurrent.
Born, as the opening track, isn’t just about physical birth but about emergence creative, emotional, and existential. It marks a point of renewal after a long period of disconnection. The piece reflects that sense of awakening into a world that feels both familiar and alien, much like the experience of being ‘reborn’ through art.
Jeremy: I’d say every track carries fragments of our personal landscapes, memories, dreams, even disillusionments. While the album doesn’t tell a linear story, it mirrors the inner cycles we both go through as artists: collapse, reflection, reconstruction.
Born sets that tone, it’s both a beginning and a recognition of past selves dissolving. In that sense, Soft Collapse is deeply autobiographical, but filtered through abstraction. It’s our inner dialogue translated into sound.
How did the connection to Dredd shape the identity of the project?
Jeremy: Our connection with Dredd’s video really helped crystallise what Alpha Romeo could be not just musically, but conceptually. We understood from the start that this project wasn’t about chasing trends or fitting into genre boxes. It was about creating a sonic identity that felt cinematic, introspective, and emotionally charged. That kind of creative freedom is rare, and it allowed us to shape Soft Collapse without compromise.
Rodrigo: Dredd’s aesthetic the visual language, the atmosphere, the commitment to authenticity aligned perfectly with ours. There’s a shared sensibility: a fascination with the intersection of futurism and vulnerability, of structure and decay.
The track Pixelated Paradise – our favourite on the album – is particularly cinematic. Do you consciously compose with visual imagery or narrative arcs in mind?
Jeremy: That’s great to hear. Pixelated Paradise was one of the pieces where we leaned heavily into cinematic composition. We tend to write as if we’re scoring a film that doesn’t exist yet. Every texture, chord change, and rhythm carries a sense of place or motion.
For us, music is inherently visual, it creates landscapes in the listener’s mind. With that track, we imagined a kind of digital utopia slowly fracturing under its own perfection, something beautiful but fragile, shimmering at the edge of dissolution.
Rodrigo: Exactly. We both approach sound as a form of image-making. The studio becomes a canvas where light, shadow, and texture are painted through tone. Pixelated Paradise reflects that paradox between synthetic perfection and human imperfection.
What’s next for the Alpha Romeo project?
Rodrigo: Alpha Romeo is an evolving organism. Soft Collapse feels like a statement of intent. From here, we’re exploring new ways to expand the sound world: deeper collaborations, visual extensions, sound design, and immersive media. The project will keep transforming as we do.
Jeremy: We’re also interested in the idea of continuity – not just making another record, but developing a living archive of sound and image that documents where the project travels next. Alpha Romeo will keep moving forward, but always with that same balance between emotion and technology.
Thanks to Rodrigo and Jeremy for talking to us. Alpha Romeo – Soft Collapse is out now on Bandcamp (check it out here) and the album will be released in full on 28 November – you can pre-save it here.
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