Madxsen Stands on Her Own Two Feet on PROTOFEMCELCORE
The Santa Clara artist divulged how her experiences of femininity impacted the sound and lyricism of her self-released debut album
“Sometimes I’m not too sure of myself / I know I’m not a half life,” echo the gut-wrenching concluding lines of PROTOFEMCELCORE, a sentiment that, for many, will stick around long after they’re done listening.
Independent Santa Clara musician Madysen Moreno dropped the addictively poppy album under the artist name Madxsen on October 28. The album is entirely written and arranged by Moreno.
PROTOFEMCELCORE was recorded in her bedroom over the course of a month. In the past Moreno has focused on workshopping and performing with a band backing her, so this shift to an independent approach to songwriting was illuminating. “It was a very odd month in my life,” she said. “Very much so being in my room, being reclusive. I really got to know myself in the process.”
Self-alienation came to inspire the album’s title. The internet trend of femcelcore, an aesthetic that descends from the manic pixie dream girl trope, welcomes a toxicity that rebels against the traditional role of docile femininity.
Her semi-satirical embrace of the trend’s outrageous nature imbues the album with a certain angst. “It entails the figure of Ophelia or the hysterical woman,” she said. “This is it. This is the most primal version of being a femcel that you can get on the market.”
The album is inspired by her experiences navigating the world as a woman. “I don’t think that there are any words that can describe that feeling of being hit in the face with being a woman in a patriarchal society,” Moreno said. “Once you have that moment where you really realize it, you can’t not see the difference in treatment. You can’t not see how it affects the way you see yourself.”
Many of the songs on PROTOFEMCELCORE are directly informed by this confrontation with femininity. The second track, “No Clothes On”, is a striking example. “The intro lyrics are about sexual assault and being taken advantage of,” she said.
The bleak themes that Moreno brings to her lyrics is set off by the album’s upbeat sound. “It’s delivered in a very happy way but the lyrics are very grim,” she said. “I don’t know how well my music could be resonated with because the way that I cope is humor and happiness.”
While she uses music as a mechanism to unpack and explore negative experiences, their transformation into art is most gratifying for Moreno. “I really have taken from trauma and traumatic events, these big life events that were objectively terrible, and I’ve turned them into something positive,” she said. “I’m a firm believer that you’ve got to make the best of a bad situation.”
Moreno made sure to stress that she does not believe that trauma or poor mental health are necessary to create impactful or beautiful music. Over the course of creating PROTOFEMCELCORE, she witnessed firsthand the impact that wellness can have on the capacity for artistic expression.
“I’m doing better and better every day. I feel like I am coming into my musical self through mental health,” she said. “With a sound mind and body, you’re up to put in way more effort than you usually would put into a musical project, and you’re more willing to learn and to grow.”
As a manifestation of her trauma and growth, PROTOFEMCELCORE is a unique window into Moreno’s selfhood. “My intention wasn’t to make a huge statement. It was really a statement for myself,” she said. “I wanted to put something out there that feels tangible; to say, this is where I was at at this point in time. This is how I feel, this is what I realized, these are the things that I went through.”
“You can stand on your own two feet,” is, Moreno said, PROTOFEMCELCORE’s concluding message, partially to her listeners but, most crucially, to herself.