Eora/Sydney-based artist Skeleten releases his second studio album, Mentalized, today via 2MR / Astral People Recordings, alongside his new video for focus track, “Raw”.
“‘Raw’ is one of the most personal songs on the record. I think often I’m making music in the space between myself and the world, but ‘Raw’ feels more like it’s just straight up from me. The first half of the album is kinda wading through some angst, trying to strip away noise to reveal a bit of truth and I think ‘Raw’ is one of the moments when that actually happens. Like when life hurts but you know it’s real?”
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.
Where Skeleten’s 2023 debut album Under Utopia celebrated a world of hope and beauty pushed upwards by us all, his follow-up posits that this push comes with a struggle. It’s less about the fantastical, and more about asking how we are mentalized, and taken away from ourselves everyday. To play in this world doesn’t come without working for it, and that struggle is best when shared.
Mentalized is an evolution in attitude, sound and style that sees Skeleten emerge as a unique chronicler of contemporary living. 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, and the sound of genuine love and reverence for his craft.
Skeleten’s world is both a sonic and visual one, conceptualizing and creating every feeling from each piece of artwork, to music videos, to live visuals.
Are you adding this one to the rotation?
