Dean Roberts (24 March 1975–10 August 2024) was a New Zealand musician and composer who worked with electroacoustic music, minimalism, free improvisation, song cycles and rock. During the mid-1990s he was a member of the trio Thela with Rosy Parlane and Dion Workman, then recorded three albums under the name White Winged Moth, followed by a series of releases under his own name for labels such as Mille Plateaux, Ritornell and Kranky. Along with Martin Brandlmayr and Werner Dafeldecker, Roberts was a member of the trio Autistic Daughters. Roberts died on 10 August 2024, at the age of 49.

In October 2025, the Arcade Orchestra formed at KM28 in Berlin to pay tribute to him. This is the recording of that performance.

Tracklist

Dean Roberts “Kompakt Arcade”
Adrián de Alfonso “Remeje”
Dean Roberts “Bird In The Curtain”
Dean Roberts “Letter To Monday”
Dean Roberts “Not Fire”

The Arcade Orchestra is Adrian Alfonso, Andrea Belfi, Margareth Kammerer, Elisabetta Porcinai, Emanuele Porcinai, Stefano Pilia and Valerio Tricoli.

A statement by the Orchestra reads: “Is there a right way to remember someone? Probably not. Like the filming of a written story, it will necessarily betray the collection of images, sounds, impressions, projections that we created for ourselves. After Dean Roberts’s passing, we felt the need to come together, to commemorate him as a friend and as an artist, to perform his music to celebrate him. Here's the recording of that evening in Berlin. We wish Dean was there. Maybe he was.”

Dean Roberts was interviewed by Jon Dale in The Wire 291. Digital subscribers can read that interview in the digital archive here.