Patricia Taxxon Celebrates New Beginnings And Sharp Electronics On Latest Album ‘Bicycle’
For fans of: Autechre, Vylet Pony, Jon Hopkins, bedroom skramz artists on Bandcamp.
Underground internet electronic music has always left me split on whether I’m fully willing to support and share the art produced, or want to separate myself from the scene completely. This isn’t to say that I don’t want to support underground artists, quite the opposite actually, but the biggest issue in the scene is how easy it is for conflict to break out. Given how divisive social issues have become, and how social media intentionally creates algorithms that create echo chambers and directionless conflict, it’s incredibly easy to lose touch with reality and forget to see the humanity in other artists (For example, look at the story of drum and bass artist Sewerslvt for a clear understanding of the kind of toxicity that’s rife in the scene). This is by no means an attempt to scare people away from exploring internet artists and net labels, but it’s to convey my feelings on a group that I spent a good part of my life obsessed with, and why the album Bicycle by California-based artist Patricia Taxxon stood out to me so much.
To cover some basic background, Patricia is an incredibly prolific and diverse Bandcamp artist who mainly focuses on experimental electronica, which ranges from the tongue in cheek plunderphonic jab at copyright in her 2018 release Rage, to her post-industrial hellscapes of 2019’s Foley Artist where she passionately talks about her pain of having gender dysphoria, similar to artists like power electronic artist Uboa or fellow post-industrial band Xiu Xiu who both also cover issues of queer pain in their music. On a similar note, she’s also an essayist outside of her music, being a member of the BreadTube community which analyzes current events and pop culture through a leftist perspective. While this isn’t important to the album itself, one very important thing to note that will be relevant later is that she’s a staunch defender of furries and is a member of furry culture, she herself identifying more as a dog rather than a human.
Released exactly on New Year’s Day, Bicycle is a sequel of sorts to her incredibly ambitious work last year, known as the TECHDOG series, which examined her growth and self-discovery into the person she is now, and the arduous journey of trying to survive standing out in a world bent on conformity. Compared to her former works, the album gives a strong sense of acceptance and tranquility, reflected in the cover, which depicts a bright yellow portrait of a dog riding a bike. It reflects the music well, with the entire album having an upbeat and optimistic tone to it, painting an image of new beginnings similarly to the date the album was released.
Bicycle makes its cultural intentions known right off the bat with the first track, titled simply as “Furry”. Making use of sharp electronic clicks and pops, the track reminds me of a cross between the laid back grooves of Four Tet, the technicality of Chiastic Slide-era Autechre and the chiptune poppiness of Snail’s House (albeit less energetic than his work), and perfectly sets the tone of the record. “Boys” is a highlight from the album, keeping the same clicking sound that IDM is known for while centering the song around a pulsating beat and a long and powerful synth line, creating a microhouse track reminiscent of Jon Hopkins’s work.
“Cavalry” is the first of two tracks that has Patricia singing. The track is reminiscent of old memories and nostalgia, employing old squelchy analog sounds to drive the song and slowly growing more atmospheric as the song goes on. The vocals have a grainy sound to them, showcasing an amateur twang reminiscent of old samples. The lyrics also fit the tone of fascination towards nature and old memories in an abstract way, bringing to mind a medieval world:
“Do demons cantor with their wives?
Do demons ballet by these rainy skies?
Will water crash beneath the sea?
Will water fall upon the cavalry?”
These themes mentioned in this song will be explored further in the album, and I think this song does a good job at introducing this, as well as being a fun and danceable IDM track at the same time. “Frat Claws” brings it back down to a slower tempo, keeping the same squelchy analog and the clicking melodies while also having a slight trap feel to it. “Chipshop” completly drops the energy, creating a fusion between her IDM sound and jazzy “lofi” beats you find on Youtube.
“Brotherhood” is the turning point in the record where it goes from poppy to more atmospheric, and this is probably the best example of this change. The entire track is mostly ambient with a spattering of the clicking microhouse sounds from before, and it works really well not only to control the flow, but as an ambient track as a whole. Of what I have heard of Patricia, my favourite work of her’s tend to be the ambient tracks, and that’s mainly because she knows how to set and maintain a consistent atmosphere with her songs, which is a consistent belief I have with the songs on this album.
Before I talk about “Big Wheel”, which is the track that caught my attention first and prompted me to listen to the album, I want to address the final track “I Do”, which is easily the best track on Bicycle. Being the second longest song on the album, it takes cues from progressive house, slowly reintroducing the sounds and ideas developed throughout this record into one massive culmination, similar to artists like Underworld or F**k Buttons. The finality and euphoric tone of the track perfectly matches the tone the album was building towards, and a great ending to Bicycle. With that in mind, the reason why this track has that sense of finality to it is because of the 9 minute penultimate epic, “Big Wheel”.
“Big Wheel” is the second track that features Patricia singing, and it’s the track that I have the most mixed feelings about. Similar to “Brotherhood”, it uses the IDM sound as a means to develop the atmosphere and compliment her vocals, ultimately building towards a crescendo. The only problem is that the vocals on this song cross the line towards charmingly amateur to straight-up bad. The singing is monotone and tone-deaf, clashing with the poppy developing production the song has, not to mention the poor use of pitch shift that’s repeated throughout the track. With that in mind though, I can slightly forgive it because of the lyrical themes, which is what drew me to this record to begin with.
I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that Patricia sees herself as a dog rather than a human. If you look through her Twitter and Tumblr, you can see that she identifies closely with being therian, which is only really brought to light on this track. As someone who hasn’t been interested in her activities outside of her music, the song threw me for a loop when it started painting an image of her and someone else as animals, traversing through landscapes.
“This freeway runs so high
Its end meets eye to eye
Point a claw at the terminus
And watch the stars sail by
The cars flow back and forth
A light path to the north
Red and white leviathan
Her scales a glistening shore
The big wheel in the sky
He arcs o’er miles and miles
It’s getting hard to breathe
So take my paw and dive”
The reason I was hesitant to find interest in these online communities that Patricia was a part of was because of the toxicity that seemed to plague them. The drama and outrage that seemed to define those communities, made it difficult to want to show support for a community that acts virtuous when it hurts others for perceived moral reasons, hiding behind growing walls of irony and meme culture as a way to seemingly avoid self reflection. What made this release different is that while the album was clearly made to appeal to those small groups of people, there’s a sense of earnesty and positivity in record that opposed what I knew about the scene she’s in. Moving past the negativity that seemed to influence her older works, the message and themes in Bicycle come across as genuine and a positive reflection of who she is, including her identity as a therian, which deeply resonated with me in a way that I haven’t been able to experience with other musicians in niche online scenes.
Overall, while I think the vocals do mar the album from what it could be, I think that it’s a great IDM record with a lot of soul to it. I hope that Patricia continues to improve her vocals and goes further in this direction, because in a scene that acts as a microcosm for the growing divisiveness and distrust in the world. We need reflections of genuine love and expression like this with no regard for who’s listening or care about who she chooses to be.