Effective period / Period of releases: 2023

Members: Mikaela Bellamy

MTF is a solo alternative metal effort hailing from Texas. The music covers a variety of different sounds, from soaring shoegaze and fiery raps to blistering heavy metal riffs. Guitars roar as the vocalist screams, raps and belts out manic lyrics telling of depression, isolation, anger, misunderstandings, mistreatment, gender dysphoria, transphobia, addiction, and other issues which plague her life. All music is written, recorded and mixed by one individual.

MTF began in December of 2017 as a fun hobby when I was teaching myself basic music composition, with a song about trepanation called "Hole in the Skull." This recording has since been lost to time and will never see the light of day. Throughout 2018, I kept a low profile trying to learn guitar and to seriously develop my songwriting skills. A 3-track acoustic demo was recorded in May of 2018, with the song "The Bliss in Bleach" as the main attraction. However, due to overall poor quality, the demo has never been released publicly. From late 2018 into early 2019, I began to experiment with basic recording techniques such as double-tracking guitars and use of effects and elaborate audio mixing. In August 0f 2019, I started college, where the first ever MTF live "shows" were performed. The first show took place on September 18, 2019 in the theater room in my dorm, where various other student artists were invited to showcase their talents. The only song played was "Cave", an instrumental ballad. The second show took place less than a month later on October 9th, where I performed a newly constructed version of "Hole in the Skull", and "Cave" as well. For the next year, I went back into hiding to begin working on new material and to prepare recording an EP of my own, while working with a nu-metal band called Not Yet on the side. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I sat down and wrote about 30 minutes worth of music, and I began to gather equipment to record the first MTF EP, but COVID and other issues set me back even further. In March of 2021, most of the songs written in 2020 were recorded as demos. I played the guitars, the bass, programmed the drums, mixed, and recorded all of the music, but vocals were never recorded for these early demos and they mostly remain unreleased, sitting on a hard drive. I was obsessed with the quality of my music and I still am, to a degree. I aim to deliver an emotional sound that listeners can, grab onto, fall in love with, and jam out to. But thanks to my stubbornness and perseverance, as of November 2022, I've finally finished recording an album. With over a half hour of material, the eponymous debut is ready to be unleashed!
-Mikaela