Background and composition
The album's title references ponystep, a bronyspeak term that originated in the early years of the brony fandom that described a brony music subgenre that combined dubstep with My Little Pony content. [3] Following the conclusion of Friendship Is Magic in 2019, brony music evolved from remixes of episodes to songs that often have minimal direct references to the show, with some brony musicians using the fandom primarily as a creative outlet rather than drawing directly from show content.
Love & Ponystep was conceived in 2023, with Lulamoon's interest in 2010s EDM artists being reciprocated through meeting fellow musician Tracey Brakes, and subsequent research of techniques and samples from pioneering EDM musicians such as Skrillex and Savant resulted in Girls Who Are Wizards, an album Lulamoon describes as "an initial test of strength for these ideas". Brakes is credited in the album for production in the title track, and is included in the special thanks for their friendship and inspiration. [4]
Love & Ponystep was partly inspired by Lulamoon's personal experiences with a breakup. [1] The album follows the story of two alicorn characters from Lulamoon's "Wayfarer" universe, an alternative universe based upon the Friendship Is Magic continuity [5] : Top Five Videos (a lesbian alicorn YouTube host) and Dubstep Growl (a nonverbal, purple alicorn DJ), tracking their breakup and eventual reunion. [1]
The album features narration segments from Lenval Brown, most known for his narration and voice work on Disco Elysium and Ultrakill , as "Lodestar", a realization of Top Five Videos' subconscious [6] that provides spoken word segments throughout the album. During a Disco Elysium livestream from Lulamoon in early 2025, viewers encouraged her to reach out to Brown for his vocal qualities, and Brown accepted the correspondence. Brown is credited in the album's special thanks for his "incredible performance and open mind". [7] [4]
Lulamoon also described the album as an attempt to reclaim traditionally masculine interests, stating: "I was also always a Call of Duty fan, for better and for worse; and as a trans woman, it's always felt weird to embrace that out of fear of leaning into some sort of traditionally masculine interest. So I wanted to see how gay and feminine I could take that shit." [2] The album heavily samples Call of Duty: Black Ops II throughout its 95-minute runtime and pays homage to Skrillex, particularly interpolating his remix of Benny Benassi's "Cinema" in the title track. [1]
Themes
Continuing thematically from Lulamoon's previous album, Monarch of Monsters, which deals with finding self-love through inward trauma, Love & Ponystep views the relationship and breakup of the main characters, Top Five Videos and Dubstep Growl, as an allegory for Lulamoon's own experiences with heartbreak and her subsequent pursuit for self-improvement. [8]
Within the songs, the album addresses themes of internet culture, piracy, and criticisms of corporations. [9]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
