FELLY Announces New Album 'Ambroxyde'

This morning, Connecticut-born artist FELLY announced his new album, Ambroxyde, due out June 13. Alongside the news comes “High on You,” the album’s third single following last month’s double release of “Ambroxyde” and “Black Shoes.” Gianluca Buccellati (Lana Del Rey, Arlo Parks, The Marias) co-produced the track with FELLY.

Against the first set of lead singles, “High on You” is an elevation of FELLY’s jangle-pop directive, refining his already dream-seeped atmospheres with a buoyant rhythm section and a bed of delicate vocal melodies. The gentle lull of the track is only a blanket over his lyrics; though. Underneath the hazy refrains, FELLY is talking about the pain of addiction and the hurt that it causes to all involved. Still, by the time the second chorus rolls back around, it’s nigh impossible not to give in to the catchiness of the hook, “I get high on you my baby / I get high on you / and there’s no escaping.”

“Writing ‘High on You,’ I was thinking about back home being around so much opioid addiction, pill heads, and people who really found themselves slumped and bent out by life. Always edging on something or someone and not really getting anywhere. So many people around me growing up were stealing from people they loved to buy drugs and it always carried this hopeless gloom,” FELLY says. “I was also listening to a bunch of early 2000s alternative music and a lot of it is from bands from the Midwest. That area has a distinct sound. Reminds me of Fall. Stuff like American Football, Bright Eyes, Smashing Pumpkins. With ‘High On You’ I was fusing together a lot of different things, and probably something about my own inability to crack some of my own attachments.”

Most Popular

Across Ambroxyde, FELLY is distancing himself from the rapper/producer persona that surrounded his early career. He ventured from Iceland to Greece, from the ranches of Texas to the remote deserts of California, to record Ambroxyde, separating both physically and mentally to find a sound that reflected his current artistry. The result is an increasingly self-actualized interpretation of FELLY, picking guitar pedals over drum machines and pulling from aughts-era alternative rock instead of classic hip-hop tropes.

FELLY says of the new album: “My whole approach to writing songs was a bit different with ‘High On You’, and with all the other songs on the album. I intentionally made myself uncomfortable. I think I was too used to (or bored of) going into sessions, making a beat or putting vocals on a beat, and having a finished song. I still do love to do that, but for this record—and all the other ones on the album—I started with just me and an acoustic, and worked out the lyrics over time, knowing it would eventually be brought to a band and recorded.

“I’d have demos and references here and there, but mostly kept it in my head and heart until I was ready to record and show the band the idea. It’s more like how they used to do it back in the day, I’d imagine—when you’d have to record to tape and not have all the freedoms of the digital age. It’s not a better or worse approach, just something I’ve personally never done for an album—so it inevitably switched up my whole sound.

“I feel like if there was a box I’ve been put in from my past, it doesn’t exist anymore. At least for me and in my eyes, and that’s important to me. It just opens up the future of what could come. I’ve been making music and touring for almost a decade now, but still feel like I’m at a brand new starting point.”

Listen to “High on You” below.

Exclusive: FELLY Announces New Album Ambroxyde

The Los Angeles singer-songwriter’s latest LP arrives June 13. Listen to “High on You” below.