Skeleten

“This whole record is the feeling of your brain being shaped by all the forces in the world. I’ve been thinking a lot about your body being physically altered by the content machine. Even the deepest things that make us human are up for grabs, we are literally transformed by what we see, mentalized for better or worse."

What does it mean to mentalize others? How might the world around us stick us to our seats? In the modern world, is it truly possible to mentalize yourself into being? These are questions more easily asked than answered. In the case of Russell Fitzgibbon, otherwise known as Skeleten, they lay the foundation for his new album, Mentalized.

For anyone connected to Sydney’s music scene, Russell is a familiar face; from going to shows and clubs, seeing friends DJ and play in bands. It was a few years ago that he began experimenting with music outside his existing projects. He was searching for a new feeling. Or perhaps a new way to capture a feeling.

The a-ha moment emerged with debut single ‘Mirrored,’ the first ray of a sun rising on Skeleten, and like its namesake a reflection of what has always been there - a warm desire to embody a time and place in hopes of connection. It would go on to live at the core of his 2023 debut album, Under Utopia, a celebration of a world of hope and beauty, with all of us underneath pushing it upwards. Mentalized posits that this push comes with a struggle. To play in this world doesn’t come without working for it, and that struggle is best when shared.

An architect of his own universe, he is the writer, producer and instrumentalist bringing Mentalized to life. An evolution in attitude, sound and style, it is a rich sonic universe, defined by hypnotic yet emotive songwriting, expert yet organic production, and the sound of genuine love and reverence for his craft. A singular vision drawing from a vast blend of influences that can only be the result of an avid, genuine music lover and listener. Industrial and nu-metal textures underpin dreamlike vocals and abstracted pop arrangements, while fuzzed out guitar, harking back to 2000s indie, punctuates deep house and trip-hop rhythms. Underlying it all is an innate inclination towards the dance music world that Skeleten comes from.

The album title is a response to an idea popularised by reality TV ‘mentalists’ who claim a psychological ability to influence the mental processes of others - to mentalize them, stick viewers at home to their sofas or convince otherwise unassuming people to commit armed robbery. This record is less about the fantastical, and more about asking how we are mentalized, and taken away from ourselves everyday. It speaks to a growing interest in ecological panpsychist thinking, a philosophy that sees consciousness as fundamental to existence, as a unification of the human experience with the world around us. At its core, Mentalized comes back to that struggle. The struggle to reclaim the mind from the forces of capital and capital-driven media. The struggle to find honesty in the physical body, amongst the overwhelming input of a post-truth world.

Skeleten spends days and days surfacing songs on his own. What you hear on the record is the result of a process that is slow and meditative, grounded in repetitive playing, listening and responding. This doesn’t mean, though, that ideas can’t spark from creative collaboration. Casual jams with friends would reveal a riff or an idea for a bassline, which he’d take away to pour over until they’re grown to bloom. This instinct makes sense when you’ve been to one of Skeleten’s countless live shows, each a masterful balance of re-engineering recorded music for a live setting, inviting an audience into his internal world in which ultimately, everyone dances. It’s an embodiment of the ethos of Mentalized that Russell builds camaraderie not only into the way he arranges his music with his band, but into the way his music is meant to be heard.

Skeleten's world is both a sonic and visual one, conceptualising and creating every feeling from each piece of artwork, to music videos, to live visuals. His video for lead single ‘Deep Scene’ is an optical treat in which he dances through the excavated tunnels of the underground of Sydney. The song opens with a vocalised exhalation “what the fuck…” an offhand shattering of whatever wall may have separated Russell the songwriter from Russell sitting beside you idly talking about the state of the world. It’s a search for playful euphoria in the face of seriousness.

‘Love Enemy’ is a trip-hop inflected, guitar punctuated, and quietly ascendent track. It’s one of many songs where guitars make a more visible appearance on this record. ‘These People’ is embellished by noodly and melodic guitar lines, ‘Bodys Chorus’ pulls you in with hypnotic synth-bell chimes, and pushes you back with staccato overdrive guitar stabs, as if shaking you out of a daydream.

Where the first half of the album is cerebral, things pivot on ‘Raw’. There’s more movement to Skeleten’s vocal melody, more foregrounding of his instrumentation, and lyrics pointing in every which direction. If ‘Raw’ is the first emotional outpouring of the album, ‘Let It Grow’ is the dissociative surrender to pleasure that follows. Over a sensual synth line, the song hangs heavy in the air, unmoving like the heat of an overpacked club, and the only way out is up.

‘Viagra’ is a hand extended out to catharsis, but perhaps just not reaching it. Singing in his highest register, the ways that we submit our bodies to the forces of capital are questioned. Viagra is the symbol here, at once a useful tool and a means by which the deepest parts of what makes you human are transformed by those same forces. The album closer, ‘Mindreader’ is an exhalation in being spent. It’s the result of navigating a relationship with oneself, with others, and with the world simultaneously. Striving for goodness and pushing upwards, and always inevitably falling short. The solace is in falling short together, and pushing anyway.

The album is driven by poignant images, turned into mantras orchestrated to dance to. It’s the way in which Skeleten knows how to share himself with others, and Mentalized is his offering. Not that he has the answers, but that he’s asking the same questions as you. In resisting being mentalized, he shows how important it is to submit yourself.