What does feonao sound like?

LSDJ chiptunes with girthy basslines.

The review of feonao – In Da Circus

It isn’t often I see a description of someone’s musical craft containing the word ‘girthy’. Yet I immediately agree that girthy is a great way to describe how hard feonao goes with his first album ‘In Da Circus’. It is a throwback to Game Boy classics with hardcore rave elements thrown in.

feonao is an LSDJ artist. LSDJ, or Little Sound DJ, is a Game Boy music sequencer that pushes what a Game Boy chiptune sound set can provide. feonao’s approach to this is to throw breakbeat or rave beats under thick, girthy (there it is, I’ve used it now so I’ll stop) and extremely satisfying basslines. The overarching melodies are usually twisted and off-kilter. That manifests itself in chaotic and aggressive hardcore pieces like ‘New Genesis Red Army’ where heavy kickdrums and vocal samples chop through angry saw basslines. Elsewhere jungle beats collide with reversed chiptune arps and vocal samples in ‘Bezumno’. ‘A Wolf in Da Circus’ turns the Game Boy into a rave. Bass-forward arrangements mean turning this dark and deep grizzled piece up on the speakers will vibrate your floor and your bones.

The whole album feels like I’m playing it in boss rush mode. ‘Ass Naked Hardcore’ brings all the hard-hitting kickdrums and snares but layers a collapsing melody full of pitch-bent effects on top. It would feel right at home in a Metroidvania boss on the Mega Drive. ‘Double Trouble’ is two minutes of fast hardcore Game Boy chaos. Since feonao keeps so much low end in his music, making the basslines throb and sizzle so aggressively makes the tracks feel visceral to listen to. They feel physical too and ‘Double Trouble’ gives me 80s shoot-em-up boss vibes.

‘Gopnik Rave’ is a rave and happy hardcore crossover. The kickdrums smash you around the ears and feonao leans into his style of four-chord bass anthems after grinding the listener with an oppressive bass motif. As these often two-note motifs are like grinding gears, when the flurry of chords and melodies rush in, it’s as if the whole song has broken a chain and escaped. This all leads to the closed track ‘Trpd’. After six tracks of stifled melodies drowned in bass, this track brings everything together. Big melodies, bright chipsets, big beats and the omnipresent thick bass. This is the brightest and most cinematic track of the album. It reminds me of ZX Spectrum 128k music with its sound design as some bleeps shimmer and shake. It’s an epic odyssey and a fantastic way to round off the album.

As the owner of Russian Chiptune Mafia, an online chiptune label, I’m delighted that feonao delivers a tightly woven and intense album. All of these tracks could score a boss battle or an intense platforming action level and have guts to spare. Fans of bassy LSDJ music will be in heaven with this release but fans of retro boss themes and heavy chiptune will enjoy this too. Just be prepared to have the floor vibrate if you turn up your subwoofer. Those breakbeats are sublime too.

Recommended track: Ass Naked Hardcore

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