I'm going to drop a tl;dr here and just say that I think Femtanyl's Reactor EP is pretty freakin' great. If that's all you came to see, then you can mosey on back to Reddit or wherever, but if you need to know more, read on, I have plenty more to say. Periodically, I'm struck by the concern that I'm not going to be able to find novel things to write about breakbeat, drum'n bass, jungle, dance, and electronic music, etc., just in general. Like, it's not always an intellectual style- it's something that is validated more by vibe than whatever verbiage myself or others can heap on top of it. It's a disheartening prospect because I very much love how radical artists working in these spaces sound on their face, but if I don't think I have anything novel to say about a record other than "slaps" well... I'm not going to write about it. To make things worse, an artist like Femtanyl literally does not need a tedious written extolment of their merits-they already live in a sphere of internet infamy and an evolving mythology that attempting to encapsulate is like putting up a fly screen around a radiative fog- it's unclear what you could even possibly be attempting to catch, and you might just be snagging a clump of the big 'C' in process, so why even try... well, attempting the impossible and stupid has never stopped me before, so why let it start now. A big part of what makes Femtanyl interesting in my opinion is that she lets a lot of her personality through on her material. The artist responsible for dance and electronic music tends to be unpersoned while their music is actually playing- they're the clockmaker and their machine can mostly run without their caring hand- this is usually ideal, because while people are dancing or vibing, they want to really sink into the moment and not have someone's ego budding in and bringing them down- but with Femtanyl, her presence on each track is unavoidable, not only because of the hyper-expressive and modulated digital hardcore (and frankly, just plain hardcore punk) vocals that provide the hook and melody for most tracks, but also because her persona is imprinted unmistakably on the incredibly angular and prickly integration of loops and beats that she articulates, none of which feel like they have been assembled for the listener's mere pleasure or euphoria- instead being a product of some fixation or monomania on the part of its creator- an explosion of another's intrusive thoughts and obsessions into others’ minds through the contagion of sound. Femtanyl's sound, especially on this EP, feels like a vertical slice of the layer cake of her brain, dripping with greasy discolored offal, foul-smelling ooze, and inhabited by swarms of insects with way too many legs and abdominal segments- her spirit takes this wedge of disgorgement in the shape of dessert and smear it all over some breaks like a chunky piece of clay until the whole productions looks like a murder scene- and that's when the beats really start to rip- when things get so grotesque that you can't look away anymore, then that's when Femtanyl really makes herself known, emerging from the viscera like a scene from Hellraiser- a malcontent, slighlty toothy and plush-textured abomination reassembling a physical manifestation in this world once enough blood has been spilt on her grave. This more or less gets to the heart of what's intriguing and so... let's say polemical about Femtanyl- you can't listen to Reactor, or any of her body of work, without feeling her presence and looming aura- you literally can't escape her while her beats are flowing and I think this triggers a flight response in some and a deranged tendon of connection for others. She's kind of the monster under your bed in that way- a projection of your own fears in the face of something there but unknowable- hiding in a place of supposed sanctuary, and thriving in the mystery of the dark- a manifestation of a dayglo beat-making boogie-girl ready to strip the lining of your head cage to make a sour broth to sooth her restive soul.
