femtanyl’s kinetic brand of rave punk comes with its own main character, Token, a feline-like but ultimately anthropomorphic creature that, since its creation, has taken on a life of its own, serving as something like a mascot for the Toronto-incepted duo and their larger fanbase, which has connections with various online queer and furry communities. 

It’s a visual identity that provides a perfect compliment to the duo’s music. On their new album, MAN BITES DOG, the group, which first started as a solo project of Noelle Stockwood before adding Juno Callender into the mix, smashes together strains of high-energy electronica and digital hardcore, the final product being something that could exist at a rave or on the soundtrack of a video game. High-energy business! 

We sent some questions over to both Stockwood and Callendar; their thoughtful responses provide insight into everything from the creation of Token to the group’s subreddit. We also get into formative breakcore experiences, favorite video game soundtracks, and Canada. Read it below.  

Could you talk a bit about the character of Token? How important is Token to the femtanyl project?

Noelle: I started drawing Token sometime in university while I (Noelle) was taking animation. It was originally much more of a nasty mischievous little creep than what it became. I noticed more and more I would imprint my own emotions on them as I kept drawing, it was just such a good blank slate, inhuman but still very emotive. As I started to create music that revolved around destructive feelings I was having at the time, I also started to destroy this cat thing. Always in outlandish and Looney Toon kinda ways but it served as a big source of catharsis for me. It was a decently successful coping mechanism that ended up becoming extrapolated and torn out of my hands. I’m not particularly upset by this, I’m really happy that it can serve that purpose for others now as well. 

It felt like Token made its way into my life and is now out in the world doing the same for others. Nowadays, whenever I draw Token, I always like to do it with love, I like to imagine what Token would be getting up to, what kinda camo they'd prefer. I think I treat this weird cat thing how I try to treat myself most days and I think that’s pretty good. I do not think that femtanyl would have succeeded in the way it did without Token, it’s such eye-grabbing and strange iconography, hell a lot of folks are really only in it for the cat. Either way it’s an integral part of the project, the heart if you will.

“HEAD UP” is a real banger. How did that track come together? What were you influenced by?

Juno: A great deal of our work takes inspiration from the “big beat” era of aggressive electronic dance music from the mid-to-late 90s. With “HEAD UP” we wanted to push a little bit earlier into the waning years of the early-90s rave boom, treating vocals like they were samples, utilizing oppressively optimistic chord progressions and sequencing synthesizers and other instruments by hand. I grew up several hours away from Los Angeles which also happened to be the nearest location I could travel to see bands perform live and go to raves; the drives home would always occur in the early hours of the morning and would frequently be soundtracked by my Orbital 2, In Sides and The Prodigy Experience CDs. 

The feeling of being exhausted from a night of live music, ears ringing, half-asleep and listening to early UK rave while driving through the night is deeply ingrained into “HEAD UP”’s compositional and sonic DNA; listening back, I’m immediately reminded of those formative moments as soon as the track starts and am fully transported by the time it reaches the halfway point. More so than many other tracks on the record it takes its influence from whole-body experiences soundtracked by my favorite music rather than the music itself, and in that spirit a large portion of the song was recorded and performed on hardware rather than software; forever preserving unquantized spur-of-the-moment decisions and fun little inconsistencies.

femtanyl seems to have a pretty active Reddit page. Is that something you engage with?

Noelle: Loll not particularly, it's really cool to see such a community form out of something I made and I’m really thankful for it but I have a lot of fears about being perceived and being a public figure. Sometimes a friend will send me a post from there that’s speculating about my personal life and it scares me! Obviously that’s a very small portion of that community but I have a difficult time reckoning with the fact I can be something to be speculated about. 

I love to interact with fans at shows and on the street, I really value that more personal aspect of it. But as I currently am with the things I’m worried about, I’m more than happy to just be a lady who makes music and let them be fans of it without that level of contact. I dunno, I’ve been on the internet for most of my life and I’ve seen many instances of parasocial behavior get out of hand. Essentially I just want to try and foster a healthy back and forth between us as a musical project and the people who enjoy it!

How do you approach live performance? Who are some performers that have inspired you over the years?

Juno: Experiencing music performed live is possibly my favorite feeling on the planet, so I hold a great deal of respect for the process. I always try to approach our different tours from different perspectives when it comes to gear, energy, how our songs are reproduced live, etc. It’s a forever-evolving experiment, with the main throughline ensuring that what members of the audience experience is wholly original, true to the music and unique to their show. 

I was head-over-heels obsessed with the industrial music scene of the late 80s and early 90s at a young age and was always fascinated by how these artists worked improvisation and chaos into the typically rigid and sequenced nature of live electronic music; as a result every femtanyl show is constructed with the room to improvise in mind whether musically or energetically. When shows blend together and become too formulaic it becomes more difficult to fully transcend while on stage and put on what in my mind is the best performance. Noelle typically performs under the pretense that the show is “happening” to both of us as well as the audience rather than something that we are directly facilitating; we are at the whims of the ebb and flow of our shows just as much as the audience is and in this respect maintaining and controlling that level of chaos is deeply important.

Can you remember your first exposure to digital hardcore or breakcore music?

Noelle: For me it would have to be the music videos for “Rubber Johnny” and “Come to Daddy” by Aphex Twin. (Both directed by Chris Cunningham!) While probably not considered “true” breakcore or digital hardcore (I don’t think we are either lol), both of those songs and videos did a number on my probably 12-year-old brain, I don’t think I had ever heard anything that abrasive and unfriendly, I was quickly addicted. My dad was also a huge music fan and would burn me mix CDs full of early jungle and dnb, I remember listening to what I think was the first time I heard an Amen break on a CD my dad burned on my speaker shaped like the red bird from Angry Birds. I must have been like 9!

What is the best video game soundtrack? Have you made one yourself?

Noelle: I’m very partial to the OSTs of Pathologic, Spore, Undertale/Deltarune and Silent Hill (first three). I also love the soundtrack for Night in the Woods :].

Juno: I was a huge JRPG fan growing up, so Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 9, 10 and 12 are forever favorites. For a more contemporary answer, Cicada Sirens and 1000eyes’ work on the Signalis soundtrack stuck out to me as particularly phenomenal; the blend of well-composed ambient music and gnarly, grindy sound design (both things I’m obsessed with) is executed perfectly. Stewart Copeland’s work on the Spyro 2 and 3 soundtracks is insane. And like Noelle, Silent Hill 1-3 and Undertale/Deltarune. :)

We have contributed a song or two to games here and there, it’s really fun to try and work in that headspace and it would be cool to undertake a full soundtrack at some point.

How did you link up with Danny Brown? What is special about collaborating with him?

Noelle: So I’ve been listening to Danny for like, at least since 8th grade. I found “Ain’t It Funny” through a remix on SoundCloud and then binged the whole catalog immediately after. I was a huge fan of everything the dude did. About a decade later, about 4-5 months after Chaser blew up, I was scrolling Twitter and saw that he had posted a screenshot of Chaser. I was in a Taco Bell drive thru and screamed so loud we were not able to order. After I had calmed down slightly, he reached out to me directly and asked if I would be interested in producing for his next album. (Stardust out now!!!) 

I promptly stopped calming down and ran around my apartment for a long time. Getting to work with him is such a treat and an honor, I’ve never met someone in my time working in this industry who is so receptive and interested in the talent of others. He never told me what I should do here or put there on the track, he was genuinely just interested in what I wanted to do. He engages with you on a level that’s really cool, he just is genuinely a fan of the people he works with in the ways we’re fans of him. Hell, "M3 N MIN3" came to be because he just asked to be on one of my tracks! He’s a really incredible dude and it’s an honor to know and work with him. He’s also the funniest guy you will ever meet, I miss getting to see him everyday on tour, hopefully we can hang again soon if he’s not sick of me by now loll.

What is your favorite thing about Canada? What is your least favorite thing about Canada?

Juno: My favorite thing about Canada (in my limited experience) is that my beloved bandmate and best friend comes from there. :) I’m also a big fan of the general air quality (outside of Toronto) and crowds. Canada always turns up no matter which province. My least favorite thing about Canada is that it’s too cold; my fragile California-to-PNW transplant body can just barely handle it. Also the Taco Bell menu isn’t all that great.

Noelle: I really enjoy the cold! I like to bundle up. :] For my least favorite thing, I hate that I can’t play there more right now, we will be back soon!!