2hollis.
Sirena Warren / via publicist
2hollis is the master of selling a vibe. He’s maintained a mysterious, ineffable aura even as his music ripples with nerve-wracking glitchkicks and ear-ripping basslines, a balance that’s always confounded me. His latest project Pirouette dropped last night ahead of his upcoming set at Camp Flog Gnaw this weekend, and strikes a harsher, more aggressive posture than his previous eras. From its harder-edged instrumentals to his keening, emotional lyrics, Pirouette presents a new version of 2hollis: bolder, brawnier, and steeped in eclectic Japanese influences.
Nowhere is that more evident than album opener “Spring (Love Me),” which kicks off with a snippet of Vocaloid as if 2Hollis and co-producer skai were auditioning for the SEGA sound team. It wasn’t just his sample of “Flashback Sound” by kuwagataP that made me think I queued a J-pop song by accident: a constellation of tolling bells scattered atop the hard-hitting drums could have landed this track on Project Sekai in a heartbeat.
While the twinkly, bitpop sound of “Spring (Love Me)” fondly reminded me of my rhythm-gaming days, those cuter sounds are in stark contrast to his off-puttingly raunchy lyrics. “With you, I want to do what spring does to the trees,” 2Hollis sings. “Cause I want you in cuffs and a mouthpiece / Blue knees, no sleep, big eyes, small skirt.” It feels voyeuristic, if not outright violent, but perhaps I should expected a sadomasochistic “love” song given the tone of lead singles “Hurt” (“I'ma make you hurt / Right now, right now, right now”) and “Warhorse” (“Scary, I'm on FaceTime with a demon / Mouth wide open, you can't feed it”).
Despite that, “Spring (Love Me)” succeeds thanks to 2Hollis’s earnest recontextualization of and tribute to Japanese art, both sonically and visually. While his upbeat electro-pop sound, Kamijo-esque appearance, and Shinichi Sakamoto-inspired tracklist visuals come together slightly incongruously, his usage of the Japanese dark fantasy genre didn’t fail to warm my otaku heart a little, and I’m sure plenty more fans of shojo manga and Visual Kei felt the same.
The Yoshitaka Amano-illustrated album cover for Pirouette.
via publicist
That’s exemplified by the album cover for Pirouette, illustrated by the renowned Japanese artist Yoshitaka Amano. Amano has described 2Hollis as, “very close to the kind of character I have always drawn—as though he had stepped directly out of one of my paintings.” In a similar fashion, the music on Pirouette seems perfectly aligned with Amano’s work, as if the album were recorded within one of the artist’s delicately sketched images. Amano seems to feel similarly, saying, “Rather than having to adapt my style to fit [2hollis], I was able to portray him naturally within my own world.”
A shadowy knight, clad in ebony armor glimmers in an iridescent light, carrying an auburn-haired woman in a death-like slumber, her eyes wide shut. A moth-bitten shawl, rosy with cherry blossoms mourning the springtime, hangs below her bloodless countenance, which shines like shattered fine china. The pair are encircled by disembodied skulls and a single hummingbird, but 2hollis’s gaze is turned firmly outward, his narrowed eyes piercing through the fourth wall.
2hollis has gone through plenty of aesthetic evolutions over the years, from hypebeast eboy to Hedi Slimane-chic, so it’s no surprise that 2026 led him to another rebrand. But the vampiric style he’s settled on for Pirouette towers over his previous arcs, heralding the arrival of electropop’s dark prince.
