PLURR note
merely a receiver for the world's will. i create what i must.
—from the Halley Labs Bandcamp page
Halley Labs
, formerly Lapfox Trax and Vulpvibe Records, is a record label owned and operated by one Emma "MSX" Essex (agender, but prefers using she/they). Around 20 artists are currently signed to the label, several being notable members of the furry community.
As "Lapfox", it was affiliated with another label; BreakBit Music, formerly ROFLTrax, and D-Mode-D are signed to both labels.The old label is also associated with Psurg Design, the design group formerly responsible for many of the releases' album arts and a game starring one of the artists, and Mungyodance, a StepMania-alike designed by Renard and featuring music from many past and present Lapfox artists. Emma also makes games featuring Lapfox music under the MuleNgine label.
Oh, and by the way... All 27 artists are Emma under different names. They released 26 albums in 2010 alone.
Starting from 2015, Lapfox Trax was rebranded into Halley Labs. While the Lapfox name has been underused since then, it still pops up as the official handles for their Twitter and Patreon, as well as for rereleases of older songs under the "Lapfox Classics" sub-label.
Artists Under Lapfox Trax/Halley Labs
Active:
- Renard (Breakcore, Raggacore, Intelligent Dance Music, Ambient [pre-2010])
- The Quick Brown Fox (Speedcore)
- The Queenstons (Melodic Drum & Bass, Synth-pop, Nu-Disco, Jump-Up, Dubstep, Electro)
- Kitsune2 (Chiptune, Arcadepunk)
- Jackal Queenston (Drum & Bass)
- Klippa (Dubstep, Downtempo)
- Mayhem (Electro House)
- Negaren (Reggaeton Fusion)
- Aurastys (Ambient, Noise, Drone)
- Kitcaliber (Digital Hardcore, Shmuppunk, Digital Rock)
- Darius (Progressive Fusion, Freeform)
- Truxton (Mashups, functionally chiptune/electronic ranging from hip hop and funk to R&B, also Trap)
- JAQL (Footwork, Breakbeat, Trap)
- Eugene (Noise Hop)
- RQ/RQ laji-2 [Trappy Hardcore, Hypercore; Improvisional Synth Jam, Synth Rock (under RQ laji-2)]
- hyi (Glitch, IDM)
- Rotteen (Hardcore Fusion)
- Emoticon (Happy Hardcore)
- BANDETTO (Experimental Japanese Speed-Fusion, Skatepunk)
- Azrael-II (Gabber)
- DOWNLOAD (formerily stylized as ⇩LOAD)/deuteronomy (Noise)
- Halley Labs Associates (Experimental, Impressionist)
- DJ Snaggletoof (DJ Mixes)
- HALLEY LABS R&D (Various)
- HALLEY HARD SOUND UNIT (Hardcore Ambiance)
- 𝕮𝖆𝖒𝖇𝖎𝖚𝖒 (Hardcore)
- RHODE STRIXMAN (Textural Gorge)
Retired:
- Detergent (Electropop)
- Sonitus Vir (Symphonic)
- Adraen (Breakcore)
- MGD Sound Team (various)
- G-DARIA (Drum and Bass) [Only two songs were released under this alias, which were originally from a two-track Jackal Queenston / Sonitus Vir EP. Emma felt that the aliases didn't fit the songs, and later added them into ON Trax Vol. 2 under this alias. It eventually became what is now Darius.]
- Furries in a Blender (Nightcore; Happy Hardcore)
- D-Mode-D (Techno)
- PSURG Sound Team (Game soundtracks, mainly)
- HALLEY LABS SOUND CREATION (Game soundtracks)
- 4-Eyes (Remix, Chiptune)
- 5 Step Sound Team (Various)
- Neko (Hard Dance)
- sno.lukav (Symphonic)
- LFTHHC SQUAD (Various)
- MGD Sound Team (Various)
- Perdique Darron (Melodic Trancecore)
- POOCHIEPOLYP (Metal)
- Silent Debuggers (Rock)
- Bloomin' Nutters (Happy Hardcore)
- Hecate (Samplepop, Synthpop)
- Kettu (Break, Funk)
- Lollipop (Dance, Synth-pop)
- Plusfuchs (Trancecore)
- Punisher (Hard Trance)
- Sigma (Combat Music)
- Captain Gotobed (Bad/Joke)
- Reslard (Parody)
This label provides examples of:
- Album Title Drop: The Queenstons' Figurehead. The first song ("Figurehead", of course) namedrops the album.
- Several of the "Best Of" Albums are like this. "Because Maybe!" from the Renard track Sinisterrrrrrrr, "I Knew A Little Bookworm" from the Klippa track Bookworm, and "It's Murder" from the Mayhem track of the same name.
- Amen break: Of course!
- Anti-Love Song: Most of them, after "Amber Starlight" and its remixes and derivatives.
- Arc Number: All three of the Truxton albums have 8 songs.
- Author Avatar: Nearly every one of the artists has one, with Sonitus Vir being the sole exception.
- Back from the Dead: JAQL made a very unexpected return in 2013 after nearly five years of inactivity. The official alias list actually said he was retired.
- Black Sheep Hit: He got an email from his brother that said aliens and monsters were attacking his place...
- Broken Pedestal: A noticeable number of fans swore off the label after Emmanote was accused of sexual assault. Twice.
- Bungled Suicide: The cover of Trauma is also a Cruel and Unusual Death.
- Call-and-Response Song: Painkiller, with Renard and... Renard.
- Celebrity Endorsement: Emma is fond of a lot of series; as varied as Adventure Time to Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.
- Chiptune: Kitsune2, a fan favorite, primarily produces chip pieces. A lot of others blur the line between this and techno. One of Klippa's album termed it "Arcadepunk".
- Concept Album: Kitcaliber's album D.FREQ.CRUSH. From the intro:in the year 2001, our connections are shut down. team GUNDOGS was sent against the powerful enemy force, RICOCHET AASVOGELS. they were destroyed. OPERATION HELL DIVE was a failure. we are the new resistance. we are only two, but we are armed with skills that training does not amount to. we are armed with vision and audio. DIRECTIVE: FREQUENCY CRUSHER is now active.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Emma does not like people they don't know referring to them by their birth name, which can only be seen on a couple of websites (none of which are their own), and their personal Facebook page.
- Digital Piracy Is Evil: Completely inverted, and given a mention in the website's FAQ:A: great! piracy rules. piracy and filesharing are great promotional tools, and help spread the word of artists.
- First-Name Basis: Emma is usually just referred to by their first name.
- Flesh Golem: At first glance, the cover of On Trax Volume 5 (and MAG Trax). But, as stated by Ren, it is just a mix of their various aliases.
- Genre Mashup: Even though the Genre Roulette aspect is taken care of by multiple project aliases, Renard songs typically include such a myriad of source material that it can be generalized as this.
- Genre Roulette: Lapfox releases from quite a swath of genres. Made more impressive because it's all Renard.
- Truxton is hard to define. They switch rapidly between genres even within the same song. The definition above is the closest fit.
- Greatest Hits Album: Four of these were released in 2010 for Renard, Jackal Queenston, Klippa, and Mayhem. Each is an hour-long DJ mix of the artist's most popular songs.
- Hardcore Techno:
- Speedcore: The Quick Brown Fox.
- Gabber: Azrael.
- Happy Hardcore: Furries in a Blender.
- Digital Hardcore: Adraen.
- Heartbeat Soundtrack: Portions of Renard's Daeva Suite, among others.
- I Have Many Names: And how!
- Losing Your Head: The cover of the album Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
- Lucky Charms Title: The album "Knight," by RQ, officially spelled simply as "♞".
- Lyrical Dissonance: The music is generally upbeat or at least fast-paced (with the exception of any ambient or downtempo work), but the lyrics can be all over the place. Case in point:
- Ms. Fanservice: Mayhem up until the album Washed Out, where she underwent breast reduction surgery. Rest in peace, Sharktits.
- New Sound Album: A PICTURE OF FINN FARTING is supposed to be what Renard does when they ignore all their inhibitions. One thing's for sure — it turned out a lot better than they thought it would.
- The Queenstons' Undertones. Fans were even warned that it would not sound the same as previous Queenstons albums before it came out.
- Non-Appearing Title: The vast majority of tracks.
- Justified, because they're mostly instrumental.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: Mayhem. Lampshaded by her album Sharktits.
- As well as D-Mode-D.
- Obligatory Bondage Song: Both of them aren't exactly about bondage, but the Queenstons songs What You Do and Painkiller are about erotic disembowelment and sadistic urges (Others say it talks about "incestuous rape"), respectively.
- Obsession Song: Probably The Queenstons' Outsider. Doctor Q and Everything You Wanted off of The Revenge of Doctor Q probably also count in some way...
- Old Shame: Description of the Detergent album:I wouldn't recommend paying for this. or even downloading it for free.
- Open Secret: Emma even acknowledges that all the other artists are them in the latest version of the site. Before this, it was actually somewhat difficult for a new fan to pick up on that without direct spoilers.
- Protest Song: Truxton's work is basically a giant middle finger to every major piece of anti-piracy legislation out there, including SOPA, PIPA and ACTA, primarily because their work consists to a large extent of use of copyrighted music, yet their work is still protected under current American legislation, which Truxton took glee pointing out when releasing Hellhound.
- If the samples were all licensed, the fees would have been somewhere around $2.000,000.
- Also, to some extent, the This Place Will Grow EP.
- Backfired immensely as Emma has come under legal pressure because of the above.
- Recurring Song: "Amber Starlight" has received various permutations and remixes.
- Refuge in Audacity: Some of the songs are this. So is Emma by the fact that they're completely insane.
- Truxton delves into this. Only the audacious would think of mixing Whistle Concert and When September Ends.
- Running Gag: Starting with Post-Apocalyptic Porn Groove and going all the way up through SPEEDKORE 4 KIDZ!, the album credits were usually something along the lines of "all music written/produced/tracked/____ by [artist]", with the ____ being something related to the musician or their genre; e.g.: Renard - "contrived/demolished"; Mayhem - "sliced and diced"; Azrael - "distorted"; The Quick Brown Fox - "dsfhkjsfjh'd".
- Sampling: All the artists (especially Truxton and Renard) sample a lot.
- Self-Backing Vocalist: Renard, Kitsune2, and Kit from Kitcaliber (although Kit is actually a Synthetic Singer).
- Speedy Techno Remake: Some of the work under Furries In A Blender, and TQBF as well.
- Spoken Word in Music: In ROBOT BRAINSTRONAUT BLASTOFF!!!, "Your Energy'" ends with a recording of the poem "So, we'll go no more a-roving" by Lord Byron, backed by sound effects from Galaga
- Tron Lines: Adraen's got 'em all over his skin.
