Chico Romano is the newly-established umbrella moniker for the bedroom recordings, full band live performances, and songwriting project of New Jersey-based artist Rob Romano. His new EP Vol. 5 continues the trajectory of his “solo” musical pursuits, raising his practice to new heights of complexity in the form of concise omni-pop compositions. The project builds on the bedrock of his band Professor Caveman while narrowing the focus down to Romano himself and a close cadre of players and producers working to vitalize the frontman's ambitious ideas and arrangements outside of a conventional band context. Romano’s work fuses the melodic sophistication and lush aesthetics of 60s soul and R&B with a wide palette of elements culled from the zeitgeist of latinidad. The Dominican-American artist’s music encompasses Latin American and Brazilian touchstones ranging from latin funk to MPB to Tropicália. These traditions filter through his omnivorous approach to arrangement and production, landing somewhere in the center of lo-fi home studio experimentation, jam-friendly psych rock excursions, and multi-layered pop composition.