Vylet Pony’s I Was the Loner of Paradise Valley breaks down barriers and builds a unique sonic landscape.
Cringe is dead, listen to brony cloud rap.
Cringe culture is in. It's always in, actually, because the only constant in this modern-day mass media hellscape is what’s not in, what doesn’t fit within the current trends and what unapologetically exists at the outskirts of cultural normalcy. To be cringe is to be life-affirmingly cool internally and unwaveringly lame externally at the same time—and this is the core of Vylet Pony’s 2021 single “ANTONYMPH,” which was my first introduction to the Portland-based artist’s music.
What I loved about “ANTONYMPH” was how fresh it sounded to me when I first heard it. In the year that For the first time and To See the Next Part of the Dream were in prime positions to take up spots in my rotation, I found myself listening to none other than pony music in the form of an internet-tinged progressive house song that transported me back to Newgrounds circa 2009. It’s a song filled with love from the very top of its sugary synth lines to the deepest parts of its pounding bass, playfully weaving in references to Parry Gripp, Ray William Johnson, and Skype notifications so that you can’t help but smile to while listening to it…which was a new feeling for me. Smiling? No one had done that since March of the previous year, and certainly not while listening to Black Country, New Road or Parannoul.
So, in hopes of listening to more lighthearted house to make me smile that year, I decided to check out CUTIEMARKS (And the Things That Bind Us)—the album that “ANTONYMPH” is on—when it came out later that year in July. Unfortunately, I did not find what I was looking for, but what I did find was something much deeper and much better. After a spoken-word opener, CUTIEMARKS jumps from riddim to funk rock to synthpop to drum and bass to industrial rock to cumbia to who knows what; and the sheer range that Vylet is able to show off—and show off she should!—in the span of just a little over an hour is utterly impressive and completely distracts from the “cringe” of listening to pony music, especially as an outsider to the My Little Pony fandom. CUTIEMARKS holds up as an incredibly diverse album with extremely proficient production work, as do Vylet’s following projects Fish Whisperer and Carousel, which similarly defy any and all genre categorizations and conventions. To those unafraid of “cringe,” whatever that even is in 2024, I wholeheartedly recommend her work because, despite its pony persuasions, I find it to be among the most human music you can listen to right now.
Vylet’s newest project, a mixtape called I Was the Loner of Paradise Valley, is much more focused in both scope and sound, which made me excited for it upon its announcement. Her past three albums had all been propelled by sprawling concepts in their sound design and their loose-ish narrative progression, which is commendable, but I couldn’t ever just put one on casually; her albums are events in and of themselves, and they command close listening. Paradise Valley is different in that it’s a simple collection of introspective and laid-back trap bangers about “turning your life around,” or something like that.
And it’s always the “something like that,” because Vylet’s production work is just as forward-thinking as ever on Paradise Valley and pushes her sound to new heights; the beat of the opener “Narcissus” combines lush Whitearmor-esque trap soundscapes with a candy-coated sparkle, while the following “By the Seaside” is a hazy neoperreo jam à la Dinamarca. Both songs wear their influences on their sleeve while maintaining a unique equine sheen. Vylet’s vocals on “Narcissus” give the song a melodic, almost psychedelic hookiness, while the lyrics on “By the Seaside” turn the hedonism of reggaetón into empathy and an inflection point for introspection: “I’ve been in the hell he believes in / It’s a ten-step guide on social eating.”
But to make these comparisons to other artists isn’t to say that the production on this mixtape sounds derivative: far from it, actually. The glitchy, effervescent house of “ECR” and “Cross” are both exquisitely glossy in entirely different ways—the former growing and swelling with string orchestration and the latter with its fast-paced, singalong chant of “I believe in you”—that bring the magic inherent in Vylet’s music to the forefront of each. “ECR” chirps and flutters as she sings lines like “Peering through the mist / Through the fog where the spirits dwell,” while “Cross” radiates its light in all directions through the Perspex bus window, not unlike Imogen Heap’s skittering urban indietronica dressed to the nines in party-ready pony maximalism.
Paradise Valley, in all its cloud-searching magic, also manages to be down-to-earth on cuts like “Paintbucket,” featuring frequent collaborator Namii, and the ambient, dubby title track “Paradise Valley.” “Paintbucket” is an odd song in that it sometimes stumbles through its clunky lyrics (“Fashioning a veil for economics to trickle”), yet it makes up for that amateurishness in its fun-loving beat that inexplicably combines the the DJ Mustard “hey!” with a lively piano riff and post-chorus guitar solos. Immediately following is the scuttling post-dubstep of “Paradise Valley,” with its heavy sub-bass and Vylet’s ethereal vocal performance that both contrast with the perky, naive loneliness of “Paintbucket”—and yet their order works, with “Paradise Valley” answering the former’s physicality with lines like “Software ghost, do you believe in me? / How could you be in reach when you don't know my name?”
To write off Paradise Valley as fandom music is to ignore what makes it relevant in 2024. It follows in the footsteps of other niche artists who have used the internet to break down the social barrier of cringe between their art and a wider audience and, throughout its runtime, embodies the sincere humanity of Lil B’s “I Love You,” steeps in the hyperdigital aesthetics of M.I.A.’s VICKI LEEKX, and allows its listeners to emerge unafraid of net art. At the creative forefront of this new wave of internet-fostered musicians, Paradise Valley uses the aesthetics of fandom to propel its meaning, operating on its own terms to create a mystical soundscape that belongs entirely to Vylet—who, in her generosity, shares this magic with the world. The depths of the internet will always be a breeding ground for cutting-edge art and communication, and, to everypony willing to explore them, a respite from the machine of mass media and mainstream culture.
Favorites: “Narcissus,” “By the Seaside: A Boardwalk, a Garden Party, and a Fly,” “ECR,” and “Cross”
edited by Kristen Wallace.
album artwork believed to belong to either the publisher of the work or the artist.