Harto Falión’s life isn’t just a movie. According to The Hurtless, his new collaborative album with in-demand cloud rap producer and fellow Surf Gang affiliate Evilgiane, it’s also a cartoon and a video game: anything but real. Formerly known as Trip Dixon, Falión is something of a scene veteran, coming up in the mid-2010s alongside emo rap pioneers like Black Kray, Kirblagoop, and Lil Tracy, primarily as a producer of sinister, grime-caked trap beats. With that wave long past, he’s found a place and a new moniker among the disaffected underground upstarts who’ve kept the mumbled, somnambulant sound of Goth Money en vogue. His excellent beat selection and taste in graphic design that could be mistaken for an NBA Street loading screen or MTV2 bumper puts him in convincing company with vanguardists like Xaviersobased and Polo Perks, though Falión’s songwriting lacks the distinct personality that makes their work compelling. Throughout The Hurtless, his expressions of detachment and dissociation are as hollow as the feelings themselves. Listening to the brief 20-minute tape feels like visiting a national park via VR headset, surrounded by beauty while still breathing the stale air of your bedroom.
Falión’s vocal textures are an ideal match for Evilgiane’s vaporous, meditative production, which dabbles in vintage downtempo ambiance and the skeletal trappings of ’80s minimal wave. Falión backs his lilting delivery with a chorus of multi-tracked hums and moans, which easily melt into lovely keyboard arpeggios that sound like they’ve been lifted from early µ-Ziq. Their synergy is strongest on tracks like “Un Love Able,” when Evilgiane takes the lead, emphasizing bouncy melodies and a bitcrushed flute while Falión phases in and out of focus. On “An Innermission Conducted by Eli & Giane,” he eschews rapping entirely to weave a sort of cyborg Gregorian chant over squelching arpeggios. Though billed as an interlude, the track is one of The Hurtless’ most complete offerings. Falión’s wordless presence takes on a mystic quality, echoing through a twisty, cavernous beat. Distorted flecks of digital percussion sound like they’re dripping from stalactites: the sense of isolation and disembodiment is all-consuming.
The Hurtless succeeds at creating a desolate atmosphere. Falión’s writing doesn’t quite meet the moment, often merely asserting the album’s themes without fleshing out the finer details. On multiple tracks, he describes his life as if he’s watching it unfold onscreen; it’s tough to listen to lines like, “[T]hey told me life is just a game, so why you acting like a noob? You better level up, you know my team is OP,” without being reminded of TikToks winkingly lip-synced to Falling in Reverse’s “Game Over.” The title of the drum’n’bass-infused “Like Lain” suggests an exploration of cyberculture and identity inspired by the 1998 anime cult classic Serial Experiments Lain, but the series isn’t even referenced in the lyrics—it’s just another media-centric signifier. When he does offer sensory information to process, describing how he’s “so hungry for this shit [he’s] gnawing off [his] cuticles” on “Don’t Believe ’Em,” or crafting absurd flexes like “the Tris giving me expensive belches,” The Hurtless’ world feels much more lived-in. There’s a fragile beauty on the record’s surface, but the emptiness beneath veers into the uncanny valley.
