Sydney’s Golden Features has reached a crossroads. Thomas Stell is an inherently underground electronic music artist, but is signed to a major label and now has a mainstream audience. He seems ambivalent about that status, his second album ‘Sisyphus’ betraying a desire to retreat.
Stell has always fluctuated between the darkest deep house and festive future bass. He broke out serendipitously with the airy single ‘Tell Me’, featuring Nicole Millar, in 2014. Already, Stell was mysterious: He donned a gold mask, joining a long line of electronic auteurs concealing their identities, from Detroit’s Underground Resistance to the UK enigma Burial – all purposefully putting the focus on the music but also subverting image-based marketing in the music industry.
For some acts, possibly beginning with Daft Punk, that cult mystique became less of a statement than novelty. And, in the digital era, such manoeuvres generate conspiratorial cynicism – as in the case of German tech-house DJ/producer Claptone, who, wearing a gilded plague doctor’s mask, may or may not be multiple people.
Super-private, Stell has managed to control perception. As with Burial, there’s little biographical information in circulation. He’s known for his music – and impressive streaming stats.
In 2018 Stell’s debut ‘SECT’, a triple j Feature Album, spawned the countercultural pop song ‘Falling Out’, penned with members of The Presets and DMA’S. He’s since collaborated with The Presets on an EP and, in 2020, launched the supergroup BRONSON alongside Seattle’s ODESZA, pushing a counter-EDM movement.
‘Sisyphus’ arrives five years after ‘SECT’ but, curiously, Stell released the lead single ‘Touch’ 12 months ago – the groovy tech-house track, featuring Melbourne vocalist and triple j staple Rromarin. Though Stell has started showing his face, ‘Sisyphus’ still feels anonymous, impersonal. Indeed, it underscores the many contradictions of his career trajectory.
Stell titled ‘Sisyphus’ for a king in Greek mythology who, angering Hades by twice cheating death, was compelled to eternally roll a monolith up a hill as punishment – Sisyphean labour now colloquially associated with futility and absurdity. The opener ‘Vigil’, a propulsive club banger, carries the refrain “I can’t take it.”
The album was prompted by Stell’s pre-pandemic adventures in Berlin, famed for its hedonistic club subculture, photo-snapping forbidden in venues. It chronicles a night out raving, Stell losing himself in communal and liberating dancing before returning to the solitary confines of his apartment.
Berlin is presently enduring hyper-gentrification – and, amid global discourse about decolonisation, descendants of the city’s original Slavic inhabitants are demanding formal recognition of indigeneity in Germany. And, symbolically, ‘Sisyphus’ reveals a sonic tension not only between techno and commercial ‘EDM’ but also within techno, with criticism of “business techno”.
Stell has previously recorded with ‘names’ like US alt-rapper K.Flay, Thelma Plum and Julia Stone. But, on ‘Sisyphus’, the vocals are his own – sampled, treated, disguised – or those of Rromarin. The Kult Kyss frontwoman and longtime Golden Features cohort, Rromarin’s ethereal tones elevate the Burial-like garage of ‘Endit’. The album’s sole buzzy ‘feature’ is Louisahhh, the American luminary in Paris’ house scene channelling (Miss) Kittin on ‘Vapid’, which is part electroclash, part ’90s trance.
Not that there aren’t hooky numbers on ‘Sisyphus’. The decadent single ‘Flesh’ broaches The Presets’ warehouse electro-pop – and, like ‘Touch’, should ignite crowds at Stell’s upcoming arena shows. Nor has he eschewed songs – ‘Butch’, an indietronica ballad, is unusually vulnerable for him.
‘Sisyphus’ is transgressive, a product of Stell resisting crossover dictates or A&R influence. But Golden Features’ intangibility means that any lyrics, references or narratives are ambiguous or fragmentary, ‘Sisyphus’ ultimately plays less like an album experience than a playlist for late-night transits.
