REACTOR EP

To hit play on femtanyl’s “KATAMARI” is to be sucked into a wormhole of mad breaks and robotic cries that suggest a malfunctioning Five Nights at Freddy’s animatronic. “Bruises on my neck/Just a doll of flesh/You'll find my smoking body hung in wires overhead,” the voice whines, glitching like a computer with malware in a 1996 sci-fi movie. This is a feral simulacra of old-skool rave music, made by a producer born after the scene’s golden age ended and who likely grew up tapped into already diluted tributes to hardcore electronica, like Machine Girl. Literally feral: Though not a furry herself, femtanyl’s fanbase is full of them; she’s collaborated with furry artists like MAILPUP, and her covers feature a gleefully disfigured cat-like creature—knives in the forehead and cheek; pancake flat from a spike ball—named Token.

The on-the-bloodied-nose mayhem of the music—rife with cannibalism references and overclocked synths—has made the 21-year-old equally beloved and reviled. Haters say it’s grating noise, but that’s just made her fans even more steadfast, giving “femtanyl truther” the status of a marginalized identity. “These days it may be easier to come out as gay than to come out as a femtanyl fan,” as one popular meme jokes. But it’s not that serious. Rising above the vitriol alongside a growing wave of breaks-heavy rave producers like Vertigoaway and DJ Kuroneko, femtanyl may finally be the one to bring digital hardcore to the masses.

REACTOR is femtanyl’s second EP, the follow-up to last year’s CHASER, a relentless hamster wheel of energy. Nearly every beat revolves around chattering percussion, peaky synths, and stabs straight out of 1992. The concept of “negative space” has been annihilated; garbled cries of people who sound off their nuts inundate the mix alongside atmospheric samples like baleful monologues from The Exorcist III. Almost every song feels like it could soundtrack a Ridge Racer level; the treble sounds made for aliens who can only hear at high frequencies.

In the tape’s least dynamic and most forgettable moments, the formulaic hardcore rave clutter has the same placeless, amorphous essence that Nintendo gives its Mario bossa nova tunes. But REACTOR mostly intoxicates, thanks to the bright, infectious synth loops with hooks as sharp as pop jingles. They irradiate and clash with the dark witches’ coven of unsettling vocal styles lurking beneath, from metal howls to echoing warbles. The jittery sandstorm of “WEIGHTLESS” practically drowns femtanyl’s screams. It took me numerous replays to realize this music wasn’t a happy-go-lucky joyride. It’s more like hardgore breaks.

This is a dank realm where “spiders shoot out of guts,” puke spills across the backs of cars, shotguns paint the shower, and thumbs press nerves deep inside the narrator’s eyes. It’s Atari Teenage Riot for zoomers hooked on creepypastas, fan-fic, and the FPS game Ultrakill. femtanyl has spoken out about drug and mental health issues she’s been through, and it’s easy to read the ferocity as a cathartic outpouring. There’s also a joyous defiance to tunes like “IT’S TIME,” which comes alive when the punk maelstrom of drums and shrieks slows down and a bizarrely angelic hum drifts in. Danny Brown offers a sweet reprieve from the havoc on “M3 N MINE,” bobbing between the beat like he’s moshing on a unicycle.

REACTOR’s sleeper highlight is “ATTACKING VERTICAL,” which originally wasn’t supposed to be a song—femtanyl posted it on Twitter as a scrapped demo, but then came back and dropped it. On a tape of nonstop tumult, it’s surprisingly soothing, a dreamy deep-water drift. The vocals are so low and choppy—imitating the robo-drone of a text-to-speech machine—they’re like mutant percussion. It feels almost like a failed time-travel exercise, or an unsuccessful track from the ’90s rave era—someone from the outside trying to make an anthem but not quite pulling it off, which is exactly femtanyl’s position. The imperfection is part of the allure, like a raw file you’d find on a disc at a DIY hacker convention. It’s charming anemoia factor feels perfectly in line with femtanyl’s greater project, making you yearn to experience a time you never lived in.