Tamagotchi Massacre Explores Gender and Genre on "i guess i’m a woman now…"

Los Angeles-based artist TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE’s debut album, i guess i’m a woman now…is an exciting start to 2023’s experimental pop music scene. The record is a meld of genres with a heart that can be described best as uber-femme, hyperpopian breakbeat, and candied 8-bit experimentation.

“I’m two years on hormones and i’m still sad i want a refund” titles the album’s somber opening. TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE plays to the album’s title here, exploring the plight of a “newfound” womanhood. She conveys that this simply isn’t enough. Her ties to womanhood are complicated by what once worked as a feminine comfort blanket, conveyed with a well-placed insert of the HBO show Euphoria.

“I feel like my entire life, I’ve been trying to conquer femininity, and somewhere along the way, I feel like femininity conquered me,” said by Hunter Schaefer in her role as Jules Vaughn, works as a simple summary of the record. The album is packed with an unpacking of gender. Transness, and the means in which TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE navigates femininity and gender at large, is at the core of i guess i’m a woman now—and it propels the record to greatness.

Melancholy is immediately offset with the cacophonous “clean plate club ft. Peach Rings.” Beating drums and submerged vocals shine against shimmery and shiny pop-punk-esque production. Yet, TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE still touches on the sensitive subjects of family, disordered eating, and dysphoria. It melds together the humanness that rests at the heart of i guess i’m a woman now….

TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE’s lyricism is just one piece of the puzzle. The record’s production conveys emotional highs and lows with twinkly pianos (“kiss me!”) and hard-hitting synths. A use of tender guitars and softened autotune contrast with hyperpop-leaning production and high-pitched vocals. Toneshifts happen both between tracks and also within them (see “cloud emoji feat. Fluoriide” and “heatsore/heartsoar feat. Lu-Ee.”) I guess i’m a woman now… offers an impressive use of a sonic landscape to immerse the listener in the artist’s feelings.

On “hermit crab,” she returns to the first track’s message of “I’m on hormones, now what?
She sings of her plight with fantastical imagery: “Drown out dysphoria with estrogen and glitter/If I sparkle loud enough maybe I won’t hear/When they call me ‘he’ or ‘sir,’ whatever I’m not bitter.” Later on “fantasty ft. Happy Birthday Mr. Baskets,” she similarly laments: “Size 12, I’ll never be Cinderella.” There’s immense sadness under bubbly production and murmured vocals. There’s tangible pain in her laments, but TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE pushes through these heart-breaking moments with the help of her electronic, sometimes bordering punky, sound.

I guess i’m a woman now… is an introspective journey through the mind of TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE. Her self-exploration bounces between well-drafted metaphors and raw, unfiltered confessions. She dabbles into glitchy, hyperpop while flirting with an out of left field experimental popness. The record contrasts acoustic guitars (“mirrorsong* feat messyroom”) and what may be best described as the furthest thing from it (“morbid obsession.”)

At only twenty-years-old, TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE is at the start of what should prove to be a fruitful dive into the ever-shifting world of experimental pop music. I guess i’m a woman now…is only the beginning. Make sure to check her out on Instagram and Twitter.