Dewey Robbins of the Left Joins Credit: Courtesy photo
The Left Joins is the relatively new guise for a not-so-new musician. Orlando’s Dewey Robbins got out of the game in 2002. While it was life that whisked him away, it was death (and plague) that brought him back.“The death of my ex-wife and the pandemic pushed me to finally explode inside,” says Robbins. “All that pent-up artistic denial … and songwriting was the way out of it.”

From that abyss, Robbins quietly emerged in 2022 with solo vehicle The Left Joins. Although his door of collaborators is ever-revolving, the one constant has been Marc Sirdoreus (Marc With a C), and it’s a relationship that goes far beyond this project.

“Marc and I met when we were students at a high school for ‘kids at risk’ in Lake County,” Robbins says. “I was a weird, poor kid on the spectrum without much family. I lived three miles from the nearest kid my age on a farm. I had dropped out of high school because my dad died and nobody knew what to do with people like me back then. Marc was my first friend made for a reason other than geography.”

From there, music bonded them so profoundly that it’s brought them back together as both friends and collaborators a couple decades later. Now in The Left Joins, the songs are by Robbins, but Sirdoreus is a very involved co-producer and guru.

Besides Sirdoreus, The Left Joins’ new album, The Price of Everything, also features palpable contributions on keyboards, synthesizers, piano and drums by Orlando scene mainstay Chris LeBrane (Chris LeBrane’s Campaign, M.A.C.E., Universal Funk Orchestra).

Musically, The Price of Everything is The Left Joins’ richest, most realized work to date. Here, Robbins’ indie rock is draped in plush keys and worlds of atmosphere that paint a shaded underbelly beneath the pleasing melodies and easy movements.
Despite the unhurried air and even occasional humor, there’s an emotional heft that permeates the album. Though not oppressive, it’s ever-present.

There are moments like the funereal “Mourning Dress” that are outright heavy. But the shadows are often more nuanced. Songs like “Artisanal Honey Tasting Menu,”“California Fade” and “328 U.S. 293 (Howey Test)” hover with the kind of beautifully doomed nostalgia that sounds straight out of The Virgin Suicides. It all amounts to an intriguing waltz of melancholy and allure.

The Price of Everything now streams everywhere and sits atop TLU’s Spotify playlist.


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This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2025.

Music columnist.