Race For Titles (feat. Lipsticism)

Aphex Twin

#171994

Aphex Twin's "Ziggomatic 17" from 2001's *Drukqs* sits at the root of experimental electronic music, emerging from the IDM tradition that influenced later post-hardcore acts like Underoath. At over eight minutes, this electroacoustic piece showcases Richard David James's signature style—hypnotic and algorithmically precise—which he'd refined since founding Rephlex Records in 1991. The track's densely layered textures and unconventional structure point forward to contemporary experimental producers like fromjoy, who blend electronic foundations with newer sensibilities. Aphex Twin's work across techno, ambient, and acid established the template for artists exploring the intersection of machine precision and human emotion that continues today.

Underoath

A Boy Brushed Red Living In Black And White2004

This track from Underoath's 2004 album *They're Only Chasing Safety* sits at the intersection of metalcore brutality and emotional vulnerability that the Tampa band made their signature. Producer James Paul Wisner's work here bridges the raw screamo intensity of Fire-Toolz's glitchy experimentation and the algorithmic precision Aphex Twin brought to electronic music in 1994. Underoath's Christian metalcore approach stripped away some of the genre's darkness while keeping the heavy breakdowns and dual vocal attack—Spencer Chamberlain's screams against cleaner singing—intact. The song's title itself captures that duality in black-and-white terms, a visual metaphor that matches the music's stark contrasts. This was the sound that made metalcore accessible to mainstream rock radio without losing its edge.

Kenny Chesney

Noise2017

Kenny Chesney's "Noise" (2017) bridges the gap between Better Lovers' introspective alt-country and Post Malone's genre-blending pop-rock approach. As a country artist who has sold 30 million albums worldwide, Chesney brings mainstream credibility to a track that refuses easy categorization—it sits equally in rock and country spaces. Co-written by Shane McAnally, Jon Nite, and Ross Copperman, "Noise" reflects the shift happening in mid-2010s country radio toward harder production and emotional directness. The song's lean toward rock instrumentation and Chesney's delivery predict the way Post Malone would later collapse genre boundaries entirely. "Noise" proves that by 2017, country's biggest names weren't afraid to let guitars roar and structure dissolve into raw feeling.

★ Fire-Toolz

Race For Titles (feat. Lipsticism)2022

This is where the lineage starts — and Fire-Toolz makes sure you know it's not going to be a smooth ride. "Race For Titles" is the opening shot, a collision of jazz fusion, new age ambience, screaming metalcore vocals, and digital noise that somehow holds together. Producer Angel Marcloid built the track as part of Fire-Toolz's hyperactive signature style, stacking genres that have no business being in the same room until they suddenly make sense together. The connection forward to Underoath's 2004 post-hardcore is the thread of emotional intensity running underneath the chaos — both tracks use extreme sonic contrast to carry real feeling. Featured artist Lipsticism adds another layer of voice and texture here, making "Race For Titles" feel less like a single song and more like a pressure valve releasing everything the lineage is about to explore.

fromjoy

Helios2023

"Helios" picks up where Aphex Twin's glitchy minimalism left off, but pushes the math-metal fusion into overdrive. Released April 28, 2023, on Houston artist fromjoy's self-titled album, the track layers mathcore riffs and metalcore breakdowns with drum and bass rhythms and breakcore chopped samples—a direct escalation of the algorithmic precision Aphex Twin pioneered in the '90s. Producer Kellan King and the band strip away the cold abstraction and inject raw metal aggression back into the equation. What comes next in Pharmakon's "METHANAL DOLL" takes this collision of order and chaos even further into industrial territory, proving that the lineage from Aphex's computerized chaos to contemporary metal-electronic hybrids represents a genuine evolution in how extreme musicians think about structure and noise.

100 gecs

Hollywood Baby2023

"Hollywood Baby" from 100 gecs' 2023 album *10,000 Gecs* bridges Pharmakon's harsh industrial noise and Tune-Yards' deconstructed pop experimentalism. The St. Louis duo—Dylan Brady and Laura Les—combine hyperpop's fractured energy with elements of dubstep, happy hardcore, and deconstructed club, genres that define their sound. Produced by Brady and Les themselves with mixing by Mark 'Spike' Stent, the track exemplifies how 100 gecs helped define hyperpop by collapsing pop punk, trance, and metal into chaotic, accessible hooks. The song's glitchy production and melodic instability create a middle ground between digital destruction and pop catchiness, setting up Tune-Yards' 2026 response to similar genre-blending questions.

Better Lovers

Sacrificial Participant2023

Better Lovers' "Sacrificial Participant" bridges the mathematical precision of mathcore with raw emotional intensity, arriving after Tune-Yards' experimental noise work and before Kenny Chesney's stripped-down "Noise." With Will Putney producing and the full band contributing to composition and lyrics, the track showcases the collective songwriting that defines modern metalcore. Greg Puciato's vocal delivery over Jordan Buckley and Putney's interlocking guitar lines creates the kind of technical-yet-visceral sound that separates mathcore from straight metal. The SharpTone Records release sits within a lineage where calculated dissonance serves genuine feeling rather than mere complexity—each member's contribution audible in the track's architecture, making it a conversation between musicians rather than a showcase.

Pharmakon

METHANAL DOLL2024

Pharmakon's "METHANAL DOLL" strips away fromjoy's ethereal ambient warmth and replaces it with abrasive industrial noise—a direct rejection of transcendence. Released September 10, 2024, on the album Maggot Mass, Margaret Chardiet's death industrial project weaponizes dulcimer and synthesizer into something hostile and corporeal. The track's title invokes formaldehyde, suggesting preservation and decay, while her layered vocals become another texture to distort rather than carry melody. This sets up 100 gecs' "Hollywood Baby," which will co-opt industrial aesthetics for pop structure, proving that power electronics and hyperpop occupy opposite ends of the same contemporary spectrum—one rejecting mainstream appeal entirely, the other weaponizing noise for TikTok virality.

Post Malone

What Don't Belong To Me2024

"What Don't Belong to Me," released August 16, 2024, on Post Malone's album F-1 Trillion, marks a sharp genre pivot from Kenny Chesney's country-focused "Noise." While Chesney stayed rooted in Nashville tradition, Post Malone (Austin Richard Post, born 1995 in Syracuse) blends hip-hop, trap, country, R&B, and rock into a hybrid sound. The track features session musicians typically associated with country—Bryan Sutton on acoustic guitar, Larry Franklin on fiddle, and Paul Franklin on pedal steel—but filters them through urban production by Louis Bell and Charlie Handsome. This collision of genre conventions shows how rap and country's shared roots in storytelling can merge in unexpected ways, creating something that belongs fully to neither tradition.

Tune-Yards

The Stolen Design2026

Where 100 gecs' "Hollywood Baby" pushed hyperpop's production into overload, Tune-Yards pulls back into deliberate constraint. Led by Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner since 2006, the Oakland-based project uses loop pedals, ukulele, and lo-fi percussion to build layered soundscapes—a direct rejection of digital excess. "The Stolen Design" traces how art pop can reclaim messiness as method. Garbus's work earned The Village Voice's top ranking in their 2011 Pazz and Jop poll, proving experimental lo-fi could reach critical consensus. This track opens the door Better Lovers' "Sacrificial Participant" will walk through: the idea that limitation and repetition, not polish, define the next wave of careful listening.