Felt Out Archives - KUT & KUTX Studios

When we last geeked out over Austin’s Felt Out, we broke down their foundation as that of auto-tune innovators on the cutting edge of alt-pop. And following the first anniversary of their second full-length Until I’m Light, that’s clearly still the case for these multi-instrumentalist-producers. They still sound like a next generation Imogen Heap. Their style still scratches that itch within the hyper-processed, accessible-yet-oddball alt-pop niche. And they’re still going strong in 2024.

Yep, after a year of silence for studio releases, Felt Out touched down from their natural habitat way up in the electro-aether last week, almost as if ushered in by the solar eclipse. On Friday they fired off “Know You (closer3.0)” – a Frankenstein re-assembly of leftover samples from their current streaming star – and “Crash Inside It” – which came alongside a minimalist music video. Unlike the polished, narrative-driven visual companion to “Closer”, “Crash Inside It”‘s counterpart lets a flickering frame rate and negative polarization do the storytelling, a return to their earlier aesthetic of amateur footage, analog grain, openness to interpretation, and all.

It’s certainly on brand for Felt Out, that’s for sure. And it’s got us eager to see and hear what they’ll come up with next. You feel us?

Given the generation-sprawling success of industry darlings like Billie Eilish and Future, it’s safe to say that the use of auto-tune has become a near-universally-accepted aesthetic. Or at least more so than when “Believe” first broke conventions in 1998 or when the disdainful “D.O.A.” dropped in 2009. Auto-tune’s ascent into ubiquity has also aligned nicely with an advent of alt-pop over the past decade, a movement that wouldn’t be what it is without acts like Felt Out.

Cemented in ten years of friendship, Austin multi-instrumentalist/producers Sowmya Somanath and Walter Nichols first showed off their sultry smooth style on Felt Out’s 2019 debut full-length Superfluid. The pair also passed off a trio of Superfluid B-Sides back in 2021, but since then we’ve felt a bit in the dark about what’s next for Felt Out. Today, that all changes.

Felt Out announced their sophomore full-length Until I’m Light earlier this morning. The ten-track LP’s set for release on April 14th, toting some of the most innovative harmonic auto-tuning we’ve heard since Imogen Heap’s mid-2000s heyday. The record’s lead single “Closer” just touched down alongside a phantom-filled music video, whose forlorn dynamics and fleshly form will make you feel held all the way up to Until I’m Light‘s release day.