Lessons From Pony Land, or,
How I Learned to Free My Mind and Love the Cringe

As previously mentioned, this was the album that seems to have really turned heads from outside the pony scene for the first time. If you’ve heard any Vylet Pony song, it’s probably “ANTONYMPH”, which became an anthem celebrating internet culture and has also been featured on SiIvaGunner multiple times (my first Vylet Pony exposure, now that I think about it). Unlike most other Vylet Pony albums, this one doesn’t exactly follow a narrative structure, instead being in part a series of drastic reimaginings of My Little Pony characters and in part autobiographical — at its core, it seems to me that it’s a celebration of what the series and fandom mean to the artist, put most poignantly near the album’s end. There’s a wide variety of styles here — I’m sure “LESBIAN PONIES WITH WEAPONS”, “PROTAGONIST SYNDROME”, and “37.6486° N, 122.4296° W (SEABOUND)” would cause whiplash if placed back-to-back. But oddly enough, the album as a whole manages to feel cohesive despite all these contrasting styles, and maybe even in part because of them. I can see why this album drew attention. It’s also true, however, that some of the more poetic lyricism I appreciate from later albums is not entirely here yet... there is some heavy subject matter tackled without a particular abundance of lyrical grace — perhaps the bluntness of a song like “ISOMETRICA” is the point, but I find myself wincing a little when I reach it every time. This album is a foundational Vylet Pony touchstone, but still leaves much room to grow, to become more refined and polished.

This is the album that really trapped me. I fell head over heels for can opener’s notebook, and maybe wouldn’t be here writing this if not for it. I got hooked by fishpop. I guess it’s only natural. This album is technically narrative, though said narrative is not particularly clear from solely listening. What is clear, however, is the themes underlying it — can opener’s notebook comes as a response of sorts to CUTIEMARKS’ reception, as it was Vylet Pony’s first album to ever really be thrust into the popular mechanisms of music criticism. The title alone of the album’s opener, “you’re not a real musician”, maybe gives you an idea of where it goes. It’s about following your passions and making art for the sake of making art, knowing yourself and expressing that creatively. It’s optimistic at its core. There is a very distinct sound to this album (“fishpop”) that I can only describe as nautical. The roundness of its signature synths are immaculate, and the textures of the strings in later tracks send me somewhere else. Texture is truly the name of the game here — can opener’s notebook is a masterclass in that regard, whether it’s the clicking percussion of “typewriter” or the way the electric guitar enters in “fish whisperer” or the perfectly positioned morse code throughout. The overall mixing is incredible too, as it continues to be, which is not something you really hear people point out about music often because when it’s done well you don’t notice it. But I guess I’m the type of person to lie awake in bed at night listening to Vylet Pony thinking to myself, “God, how do I get my bass to sound that clean?” I could speak about how much I love this album for a long time, but in summary I will just say that if I had to pick a favorite album of all time... currently, it would be this one.

Carousel takes you on a journey, more so than any other Vylet Pony album in my opinion. Progressing from soft optimism to a certain angst, when the album’s end comes around, there’s a mood shift that washes over you and allows you to breathe a great sigh of relief — there’s an arc of tension in the album that’s executed wonderfully, with the final three tracks hitting such an indescribable emotion. Narratively, the album follows its protagonist as she meets her own shadow, realizes said shadow doesn’t like her very much, and then in the end the two manage to reconcile. Carousel comes with a booklet that explains its story in greater detail, though I think the heart of it is understandable without any supplemental reading — it’s about the parts of ourselves that we cast aside into the shadows, and whether that’s the treatment those parts really deserve. Reading the booklet recently for the first time was a surreal experience though, as it mirrored in certain key ways a dream I had a year before ever listening to Carousel. Part of my deep love for this album comes from a connection to it I can’t fully explain (...or maybe just don’t want to right here and now). It took me longer to warm up to this one, but it now serves as steep competition against can opener’s notebook as my favorite.

Paradise Valley is described as a “mixtape about homesickness, processing trauma, reflecting on life after changing as a person, and choosing how to remember your own past”. It’s a much softer and floatier album than Vylet Pony’s others, featuring dreamlike ambience and breathy vocals. It’s easier to discuss style broadly here, as it varies relatively less between tracks — the narrower stylistic and dynamic range of this album keeps it from grasping me quite as tightly whenever I listen. It’s been growing on me over time as a relaxing ambience to work on stuff in — I just wouldn’t consider it to be an album with an abundance of surprises.

The long-awaited Vylet Pony EDM album is... maybe not entirely my thing. I’m not a big fan of wobble bass (or wubz, I suppose). The good news is that that’s not all this album does — there’s always something else interesting going on; it never feels stale or same-y. It’s clearly a fun album, for both composer and listener, with a bunch of silly samples and surprising amount of references to the world of video game music in the sound design (I have a neuron fire from those Roland pizzicato strings in “telephone” (from can opener’s notebook) every single time, but Girls Who Are Wizards is a lot more consistent with this stuff). I find that I enjoy the second half of this album much more than the first as a matter of personal taste (less wubz), and “In the Name of Friendship” is the perfect ending track, as it suddenly hits you that this silly, meme-y EDM album is actually making you feel something — could it be that it was truly never ironic to begin with, was fully genuine the entire time? Sublime reuse of the “ANTONYMPH” motif.

Though I’d heard some Vylet Pony tracks here and there over the past year or two, it was Monarch of Monsters that was really my pony gateway drug, due largely to morbid curiosity when it popped up in my recommended — “what in the world is Vylet Pony up to?” I thought on first glance. Where'd all the colors go? And, y’know, the ponies? It’s certainly a change of pace. Monarch of Monsters, put simply, is wild. Hands down the craziest album I’ve ever listened to. You go from “okay, I’m picking up what you’re putting down” into a steep nosedive of “WHATWHATWHATWHATWHAT” to finally come out the other end with the standard Vylet Pony ending message of “life is beautiful and you must keep living it”. This is a heavy album, and the content warning/parental advisory is certainly deserved. You hit “Princess Cuckoo” for the first time and think to yourself, “Oh. That’s not something I realized music could do,” in the most uncomfortable manner possible. It is the sort of album you listen through to appreciate as a piece of art more than you do for casual enjoyment — because it is, after all, a very well-executed art piece about cycles of toxicity, released with an art book and a novella and everything to really hammer its narrative home. I don’t think it would be possible to listen through it all and not feel anything. If I just want to jam to something though, I’m likely to pick and choose tracks more selectively — Monarch of Monsters contains some of my favorite of Vylet Pony’s songwriting, a series of knockout punches (“The Heretic (Woe is Me)”, “Survivor’s Guilt”, and “Vitality Glitch” strung as beads in a row is insane), but it is also true that “Sludge” is 22 minutes long and I just can’t do that in a casual listening setting. It’s worth noting that the album and its supplemental materials are free to download via Vylet Pony’s website — I’d personally try to purchase it on Bandcamp if possible (it’s also easily streamable online), but hey, she’s put it up there for a reason. It’s easy to check out, and maybe will be your gateway drug, too.

Vylet Pony’s latest album, Love & Ponystep takes the audience gained from Monarch of Monsters and thrusts them headfirst into the quote-unquote twee internet crap that has characterized some of her previous work (*cough cough* “ANTONYMPH”) — the video for “My Love is a Quickscope”, the first single released to tease the album, cranks this up to an almost absurd degree. Broken up into four chapters prefaced by brief narrations, Love & Ponystep both articulates its core message more explicitly within the music’s bounds and hits a more personal emotive note than other albums — you are, to a much greater degree, in the protagonist’s head. A breakup story, though perhaps more importantly one about personal growth and finding who you are, the tracklist drags you all around. Listening to “Dual Headed Hydranoid”, I would never have predicted the existence of something like “Walking Besides a Dragonfly” until I got there (and no doubt its power as this immense emotional catharsis is made possible by the ridiculousness you wade through in the album’s start). Then again, of course, nothing is obvious without having already walked these roads.