Following on from Dopamine, his well-received official AnalogueTrash debut, Bjørn Felle gets up close and personal on the lyrically and sonically deep Theory of Mind.

Sitting on a branch with a Game Boy and a cup of earl grey, Bjørn Felle takes pot-shots at narcissists with an idiosyncratic electronic sound inspired by 80s synthpop and punk, 90s techno, house and indie grunge, the odd 16-bit video game soundtrack, and a healthy dose of psychedelia.

The result is a blend of the tongue-in-cheek party of Holy Fuck and the character-piece songwriting of Blur, amped and industrialised and then degraded with the lo-fi VHS vibes of TVAM. In Theory of Mind, Bjørn takes a sonic detour via wistful vibes evocative of Lorn, with a minimalistic Röksopp-esque synth arrangement—thumping not-quite-four to the floor kick drum and all.

Theory of Mind sees Bjørn look at the mechanics of the mind, what makes them tick, and how some people’s minds work so differently. It looks at how individuals with certain traits do not have our interests at heart, yet end up deciding how we learn, live, and love.

He says, “Narcissists and sociopaths are everywhere. Within all human hierarchies, these personality types are either at the top of the tree, or breaking branches on their way up. They're teaching your kids, providing your healthcare, supplying your products, legislating your rights, and speaking for your god, but they don't care about you beyond what you provide for them.”

It's a theme that dominates the lyrics: “Theory of Mind is a portrayal of this broken form of empathy, which can be used to get inside another person's head, but not to truly care about them. Lyrically I approached this as a moment of change, where the emotional mode of connection is deprecated in favour of a purely cognitive function.”

“What follows is a brute force attack, like using what you know about someone to guess their passwords. There's this notion of freedom, like the part of the programming that makes you feel shame is just redundant now, since you don't have to experience what the other person feels.”

Bjørn approached the arrangement and sound of Theory of Mind with these concepts in mind. “Sonically I was aiming overall for a hollow, cavernous feel. I filled the cave with layers of arpeggiated synths and skippy percussion in an inconsistent rhythmic structure, all repeating in loops, like the iterative process of breaking down another person's psyche from the outside in.”

These concepts also influence the emotional landscape of the song through its melodic themes. Bjørn continues, “The chord progression and melodies are quite melancholic, which is pretty much how I imagine the internal life of a person with a cluster B personality type. The vocals become less human throughout the song, ending up kinda half robot. They're just going through the motions at this point.”

You’ll also be able to hear Theory of Mind on Bjørn’s upcoming double album + EP release, which he describes as “A brutalising joyride through the wasteland, followed by a glimmer of hope for a brighter future. Extreme Hazard Planet combines a harsher, more industrial sound than previous releases, and tells the story of a future civilisation learning about the fate of life on Earth.”

“Satellite EP Paradise Moon tells a more personal story from the point of view of a denizen of end-stage capitalism, bleeding lungs and all, with a more tender synthwave sound from a half-demagnetised tape found among the detritus of a poisoned landscape.”