The debut album of rising Japanese electronic music producer Fellsius, released on November 16, 2022.
And, dare I say, at the tail end of 2022, a strong contender for AOTY.
It's been a while since I've had an album just. On repeat. Constantly. The last time an album impressed me so much that I had it on repeat like that, it was with Vylet Pony's can opener's notebook: fish whisperer, which I have already talked about in detail on another writeup. I'm now on my third listen through; the sounds of this album are frankly addicting.
Fellsius made his debut onto the electronic scene in 2018 with his song 30hz on Hybrid Trap. It was among a brand new wave of dubstep at the time that I'm going to lightheartedly call "substep" (don't call it that): minimalist dubstep (going back to the roots of the genre in its original form), but applying what it had already learned with the Skrillex era of 2010–11 and taking all the harsh and abrasive sound out. Dubstep focusing entirely on sub bass. It wasn't his first release (that was 2017's Boss House on TREKKIE TRAX), but 30hz is currently his most popular release. It was what the scene was looking for—something brand new and utterly brain-melting. And it came at just the right time; it propped him up and made his name something to really look at in the years to come.
TREKKIE TRAX began releasing the teaser singles for MONOEYE in 2021, starting with Mist and then later Jom, before putting out a fuller teaser in the Hatch EP, released in October, which held three more tracks that would materialize again on MONOEYE: Hatch, Eddy Current, and l'eau.
MONOEYE begins with Hatch.
If there is one thing that I can say with confidence about Fellsius's sound, it's that it is addictive as well as daring and experimental. Fellsius, like others before him, joins the ranks of those who turn new and unique sounds into something fun and accessible for more people. Hatch starts with big, booming synths mixed with bubbly arpeggios that sound so alien and foreign that there's no word for them. It builds, then becomes an addicting breakbeat, merging dark and abrasive dubstep growls and screeches with futuristic synths and playful percussion that entices you deeper into the world of MONOEYE. Despite its 4-and-a-half minute length, it passes by you so fast that you simply can't leave without having more.
And so begins The Voice. The drums here are loud and booming, ripe with cinematic tension, far removed from the deadly sharp beats of Hatch. Fellsius is a master at deception; this song sounds like it will take a more trap-based direction right at the climax of its build. Right when its climax truly subsides, it pulls the cover off and introduces something almost deadmau5-esque. Airy, hypnotic synths; a deep and squelchy bassline; and an equally dark kick drum that is so delightful to hear through headphones.
With the next track, Machine Pop, you get the feeling that Fellsius isn't playing around anymore, though he still plays a lot with his sounds and composition. Compared with the delightfully upbeat and funky sounds of Hatch and The Voice, Machine Pop becomes downright dystopian with a dark and abrasive break sample driving the track forward up until a minute and a half in, when it smooths out into a simple 4OTF pattern. Listening to this song is like a combination of Night Bass-esque bass house releases with Danger's dystopian, hard-edged synthwave productions. Now you've stepped into the city. You don't know what you're doing, boy, do you? It's here that you realize that Fellsius is not just any one-time dubstep star. This is someone with a lot of talent and an incredible sense of creativity.
Grey immediately assaults you with a huge kick drum as Machine Pop builds and fades. No time to waste; you're in the thick of the action now. A deep house beat drives the track forward, leaning heavily into its club roots with sweeping lasers and sharp bass synth stabs. At this point, when Fellsius takes a dive into classic tropes and production techniques in his music, you still feel amazed at what he can do. It's like you've heard such new and incredible sounds that a return to the norm is almost as tantalizing as the daring and new.
e m a follows; and is the first of two tracks to exceed 5 minutes in length. e m a's introductory synths reverberate into the cosmos before fading away into a mere tone. Loud, obnoxious, and right when it gets too much? Boom. A wall of deep, unexpected sub bass. The water's rising now, friends. This is the mind that created 30hz, I can finally see it in its full range as Fellsius adds a minimal distortion layer and then a bubbly keyboard that prickles at your skin. Fellsius hasn't even played a full drum pattern yet; those walls of bass you hear are propped up by one elongated kick rising out of the water like a creature from the swamp. The snare, when he decides it's necessary to add it, is reverbed and snappy, the only anchor in an endless sea of low-frequency noise that covers your skin like oil. Here is where you notice that Fellsius's strong point is subtlety. This pattern plays for a bit, but all of a sudden the water begins to rise. This whole time you're focused on keeping afloat, you don't notice the wave about to crash on you. Then it hits: a distorted kick drum that pounds in your ear, soon accompanied with chime-like percussion that collides chaotically. Soon, e m a becomes not just a mere experimental dubstep track but a death-defying hard dance/techno/dubstep hybrid that can only barely be comprehended in the scale of what MONOEYE provides. And then it collapses, the chimes ringing randomly and without pattern.
Eddy Current zips to and fro, an electric current passing through wires on their way to destinations unknown. The synths swell, like the moon rising in the sky, before disappearing just as quickly. The sound design is impeccable; another strong point of Fellsius is his sound synthesis skills, turning bubbly synths into dark and tantalizing bass pumps, accompanied here by a baile rhythm and clattering clay percs. In the second half of the song, Fellsius employs a delicious house beat that, seemingly out of nowhere, takes on a rave/techno flavor simply by adding a dark and deep bass overlaid over the kick drum. Eddy Current moves from groovy and funky to driving and destructive in the span of maybe a second. If it weren't for the next track, Jom, this would be one of my favorite songs on the album.
Jom, despite being released as its own single, is in essence the interlude of this album (and the second shortest track at just over 3 minutes). It begins smooth and jazzy, almost like what RYM would call adult standards, before suddenly slowing down tremendously and mutating into a distorted and groovy halftime dubstep song. But don't be fooled. It quickly returns to its original tempo, becoming a frantic drum-and-bass hit—but wait, it slows down again! There's a horn! Now we're back up again? Here on Jom, Fellsius uses the tempo as another instrument, and right at the halfway point, introducing a delightfully addictive bongo loop, he runs hard and fast with it, playing with speed to make Jom feel exceedingly fast and yet slow as a snail all at the same time. The bass fills your headphones, and that addictive breakbeat sample finds its way back into the fray before transitioning back into smooth jazz as if nothing had really happened. What the fuck just happened? I'll tell you what happened. Fellsius happened.
We're halfway through the album! Take a breath; you've earned it. I know I certainly have.
We pick up again with Web 1000, the shortest track, just 3 seconds shorter than Jom. The chords clash subtly and drift from tone to tone every second, fading into bubbly and dark percussion that builds into what might be the most distorted kick drum on the album. It's a fucking wall, and I mean that more than I did in e m a. It's distorted now, louder and harder, and every time it hits, you can feel it vibrating in your face. It's dancey, it's brutal, it's funky, and it's destructive. Accompanying the wall of bass drums is an addictive rat-a-tat-tat handclap line that drives the track all the way to its end.
l'eau begins glitchy and bubbly, a fizzy drink of a flower that blossoms into a beautiful piano melody. Soon it is accompanied with erratic and glitched-out hi-hats, chopped into slivers of 1/64 of a hit. l'eau then unexpectedly explodes with a deep bassy kick drum that erratically pulses, a blaring handclap line laid over top that only adds to the addictive. It smooths out its dress and then mutates into something that I can really only describe as Fellsius digging into IDM. It's a dubstep beat now, sure, but the instrumentation is so fragile, electronic, and pulsating with an indefinably alien life that it's hard not to see the influence that such experimental braindance cuts have had on this album.
Subfog picks back up with a tattered and loud organic snare line that makes way for one of the most abrasive cuts on the album. A hard-edged, minimalistic yet aggressive track, utilizing flat-out harsh noise influences, and, in a stroke of creative genius, taking an extra-distorted section of the kick drum, pitching it up, and using it as the driving electronically synthesized snare through the rest of this song. Sweeping lasers and a vocal sample that constantly shifts up and down in pitch soon join this challenging listen. It's definitely one of my favorites just due to how addicting that damn kick is, and if you can get through this one, you break through the darkness into the light on the last four tracks.
Unison begins with a glitched-out arpeggio before bursting into a colorful burst of drums à la breakcore. It builds once again into a soaring synth harmony before taking a hard, unexpected left turn into UK garage beats and synth lines. The percussion becomes slivers of its former breakbeat explosion, drifting between melodically inclined bubbles of synths, driving house beats, and even a later focus on that groovy bassline right at the end. Unison speeds by so fast you can barely catch your breath before the next track: Mist.
Mist, by contrast, has a little atmosphere. It is dark, but not a terrifying bassy dark; rather, it is nostalgic and light, something introspective that nevertheless takes a moment to let its melodies soar into the sky. Now, Fellsius looks backwards into the history of TREKKIE TRAX's melodically inclined future bass/Jersey club hybrid releases that made it standout in the industry, and Mist follows in the footsteps of such artists as Carpainter, Pa's Lam System, and even a little bit of Snail's House with a majorly funky melody and gritty bassline that uplifts as much as it pulls you back into your thoughts. It's a fun groove that takes the time to really think about its place on the album. And it does an excellent job of it.
Gazer is the unofficial outro to the album. Now we are treated to moving, emotional, airy pads, reminiscent of older San Holo, Jai Wolf, Chet Porter, and more, but now with a full breakcore twist, employing a frenetic Amen break that refuses to let up at any point, even as it fades into the background to let the synthesized drums in. Here, Fellsius programs with relentless abandon, effortlessly reaching across genres to paint his vision of the beautiful end. All throughout, Gazer shines brightly like a star in the night sky, and Fellsius even lets himself relax at the end; Gazer's second standout moment is the final drop, which falls away into light, funky programmed drums; a merging of indie dance, electropop, and liquid drum & bass as Gazer fades out.
Moon is the official final song on the album. It's thoughtful of Fellsius to include what amounts to a credit roll on MONOEYE. I mean, Porter Robinson did it on Nurture with Trying to Feel Alive; certainly Fellsius can do it. A sampled breakbeat propels the track forward on its own before a soft and nostalgic synth slowly enters the picture. Even at the end, Fellsius can't help but fuck around a little bit. The beat begins to glitch out à la breakcore once again, with drums being overlaid over themselves in rat-a-tat snare rolls. And then 2 minutes in, the beat transitions to something slower and funkier, almost as naturally as the tempo shifts on Jom. Just a minute later, the energy builds again as Fellsius highlights the snare in an addictive Latin rhythm that doesn't lose momentum from the previous slower beat but almost seems faster than it. Then, just as quickly, Fellsius returns to the faster breakbeat, playing individual hits on his own, slowing down again, and suddenly he's transitioned just as naturally to this absolutely groovy, light, and funky house rhythm, not unlike a DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ song. If Sabrina's aesthetic wasn't solely 80s nostalgia revivalism mixed with disco and house, I could see this fitting in just as well on Sabrina's Charmed as it does on MONOEYE.
Speaking of... thus ends MONOEYE.
I think this album might make my Top 5 of the year. I always love hearing albums that just absolutely fuck with people's assumptions about what music can be.
Whatever happens, this album certainly joins a list of albums that should be a priority when listening to new music. Music that challenges everything you think you know about music. Fellsius manages to do just that by adhering strictly to club-ready genres and completely deconstructing and rebuilding them into new mini Rube Goldberg machines, with a couple extra parts added in because, well, why not?
10/10 album. Incredible experience from start to finish.