Culture Cabinet

For Felly, music has always been about more than just the sound. It’s been about the environment, the feeling, and the sensory experiences that shape each note. His newest project, Ambroxyde, out now, is the culmination of years of exploration, risk, and vulnerability, a studio album that spans continents, sense memories, and emotional revelations.

“I come from Connecticut, and I grew up making music,” he says in an interview with Culture Cabinet. “I got a start when I started putting stuff on YouTube at an early age.” After losing his father at a young age, Felly found himself with time, and space, to turn inward and create. “I had a lot of free time. I morphed into a large family. I became one of five, I had all these older siblings, and was just getting babysat, so I just had so much free time to just explore my own creativity.”

From uploading beats and instrumentals online to discovering that those beats needed words, Felly’s earliest work became a vehicle for storytelling. That passion led him to University of Southern California, where he and a group of friends launched a dorm room label. “We were kind of early to the vlog era, and we were just like capturing ourselves and putting it out without thinking anything of it,” he explains. “It sort of just developed this really organic fan base of people who kind of felt like we had a community, and they had a friend in me and all my squad.”

It didn’t take long before the fan base became something much larger. Touring, releasing albums, and skipping class to play shows became routine. “I always had to convince teachers to let me skip school for months to go out on tour,” he says. “I have a thousand kids waiting for me in Chicago. I can’t take this class on how to run a concert. I’m doing that.”

Eventually, the pace caught up. After moving between Brooklyn and LA, COVID brought an unexpected and necessary pause. “I got to slow down and see what’s what just happened for the past five, six years. I got to become a little bit more intentional with what I wanted to do.” That intentionality became Ambroxyde, an album anchored not just in sound but in sensory depth.

At the heart of the album’s sonic evolution is Felly’s collaboration with producer Gianluca Buccellati. “He didn’t really know anything about me, and connected with me and my songs and what I had going on.” Together, they left Los Angeles behind and set off on a creative pilgrimage. “We went to Iceland, we went to Greece, we went to Arrowhead,” he says. “We were getting Airbnbs all over the place and creating and writing and seeing what what sticks.”

The journey wasn’t just geographical. “I was writing music in a totally different style, pretty much just me and the guitar, instead of laptop and hip hop and raps,” he explains. “Because that that was coming easy, and I just wanted to push myself a little bit.”

Being immersed in foreign places unlocked new creative doors. “I think your experiences are what filters through you. I’m quite an impressionable person,” he admits. “So when we’re in Iceland and we’re studying Icelandic artists, and just seeing what the vibe is, I think that was sort of the point.” The goal was never mimicry, but fusion. “You can love and admire a bunch of things, and it becomes a fusion within you.”

This willingness to be shaped by his environment extended beyond music. Scent, especially, became a guiding element of the album. “We went into this perfume shop in Iceland, and it had all these different notes of scents, and they’d read you a poem, and I just started tearing up.” That sensitivity to smell, to the visceral memory locked in scent, is embedded in the album’s name. “I was really inspired by this one candle called Ambroxyde, and I was just burning that, and it was sort of this thing that filled my body and inspired me in so many ways.”

Architecture, too, became a source of reflection. “I think there’s a quote about how architecture is like music, but in space form,” he says. “Music is organized sound, architecture is like organized space.”

As a result, Ambroxyde became a deeply personal album, one that doesn’t shy away from difficult emotions or unguarded moments. “I think I’m quite introspective person, and I welcome change,” he reflects. “I love when things don’t work out how I expected, it’s just humbling.” He sees music creation as a kind of test: Can you let go and allow? Are you open to receive? Letting go means releasing attachment to outcome. “My least favorite song, could be somebody’s favorite song,” he says. “So you obviously have to go with where your heart is, but you also have to be open to the idea that sometimes you don’t know.”

With Ambroxyde, Felly’s asking listeners to walk alongside him. Not just as fans of his past work, but as witnesses to the full arc of who he is becoming. “I’m here for the long run, and I allow that. I’m pursuing a journey that’s not just a short term, like quick hit type of thing.” But, the big picture is still unfolding. “You might not understand the picture if you look at it in a small way,” he says. “But if you zoom out, it’s gonna play out amazing.”