Mentalized is beautiful in its breeziness, excelling in mood and subtlety. Make no mistake though – despite its vibe, this is a deeply serious, deeply important exercise for Skeleten.
Its title is effective in its ambiguity: Mentalized is concerned with a very of-now feeling understood by most: an ‘alteration,’ in Skeleten’s words, of ‘your brain being shaped by all the forces in the world.’ The word itself is lifted from reality TV ‘mentalists’, Simon Baker-esque mind-readers powerful in the arts of persuasion and apparent, all-encompassing knowledge. But the ‘mentalists’ of Skeleten’s disdain are much more frightening – an increasingly enshitified and unmoderated platform capitalism and information economy.
The uneasiness of this reality comes not just from its objective terror, but because we all kind of know and are unable to stop what it’s doing to our minds and our lives. “There’s a good chance I’m free, we pretty much just sit around,” Skeleten sings before a climatic outro on ‘Crack In The Shell’. Our brains are slowly rotting, but Skeleten’s focus is as attuned to the bodily implications of this status quo.
Mentalized is a focused, intentional antidote to just that. It’s an exploration of indietronica taking cues from trip-hop, dream-pop and Aquatic Ambience-esque mood. When aesthetically beckoning towards downtempo-era dance music, however, Skeleten doesn’t simply replicate that era’s ultra-digital fascination. However moody and spacey Mentalized gets, it’s always injected with a pulsing warmth: memorable, ear-wormy basslines, and drums that sit somewhere between neo-soul and dance-floor ready breakbeats.
‘Deep Scene’, ‘Ravers Dream’, ‘These People’: the track titles on Mentalized show Skeleten’s intention, a desire to ground oneself back again in others. Its an unpretentious and unselfish mindset reflected in the music itself; as accomplished a producer as Skeleten is, Mentalized never feels showy or overstuffed. Everything, Skeleten’s vocals themselves, are in service to the experience, to the song itself. The Sydney artist can see the path forward – a ‘Bodys Chorus’, people dancing, moving together.
Words by Lindsay Riley