On the fifth of December, Subtronics delivered the final installment of his most daring studio album, Fibonacci. Stepping out of Oblivion into Infinity, Fibonacci is a dubstep-fueled representation of reality, derived from the all-encompassing code of the universe, better known as the Fibonacci sequence.
More than just a sonic experience, the album manifests as an immersive world that’s both tangible and transcendent. Yet this world isn’t formed by bass alone. Synchronized with Subtronics’ ever-evolving sound design, its the visual aspect that transforms the music from a singular sonic existence into a multi-dimensional universe.
From the genre-bending soundscapes to the themes fueling the narrative, Fibonacci is an album filled with complexities.
For Ray Elemento, the creative director behind Subtronics and Cyclops Recordings, the only way to transform these complexities from something invisible like sound into a visible spectrum is by creating visuals that not only capture the essence of Subtronics’ music but mirror each soul-stirring melody and brain-tickling bass drop with precision, amplifying it into a physical existence.
But, of course, this is no easy feat, and what was Subtronics’ most ambitious album became the crucible that would push Ray into the upper echelon of EDM visual artistry.
“The entire experience still feels a bit surreal,” Ray Elemento explained in an interview with The Daily Frequency. “We started around October 2024, and from the very beginning, it was clear just how ambitious the scope of this project was. Wrapping my head around the sheer amount of work and creative problem-solving ahead was definitely overwhelming at times, but in the best possible way.”
Stepping into the visual world of Fibonacci meant extending a language that had already been evolving for years, one that fans subconsciously recognize the moment Subtronics hits the stage. Like the albums before it, Fibonacci was never meant to be a collection of isolated visuals stitched together for spectacle.
Instead, it required continuity. It required a language that could stretch across two albums, a full tour cycle, and an evolving mythology without collapsing under its own weight.
“What really pushed me creatively was building a visual language that felt unified and intentional across all the visuals. Having visually directed Subtronics’ previous three albums, Fractals, Antifractals, and Tesseract, gave me an incredibly strong foundation and creative blueprint to approach this project with more confidence and clarity.”
That foundation mattered because Fibonacci wasn’t built out of thin air. It was built from everything that came before it. The Cyclops universe already had a pulse, a grammar, and a recognizable structure. Expanding it meant honoring its DNA while allowing it to evolve into something more intricate, more dimensional, and more aligned with the philosophical scale of Fibonacci itself, where repeated visual codes quietly reinforce the same universe again and again.
“This was by no means an easy process,” he explained. “One of the biggest challenges was designing persistent elements, such as symbols, UI illustrations, and stylistic motifs, that could live consistently across almost all the visuals the team and I developed. On top of that, trying to build an entire universe that could truly match Jesse’s cosmic, high-energy musical vision felt almost impossible, but also incredibly exciting.”
What fans experience as immersion is not just the result of intentional visual concepts capturing the energy of Subtronic’s heavy-hitting sound, but a meticulous work ethic and a deep passion for building worlds.
“I always find myself wanting to go back and tweak a million things, but when the clock finally hit midnight when the album dropped, I felt this massive collective sigh of relief from myself and the team. In that moment, I think we all knew just how much passion, effort, and love had gone into the project, and that made the entire journey unbelievably rewarding.”
By the time the album arrived, the world he helped create felt complete. But much like the Fibonacci sequence, Ray’s path into this space wasn’t a random chance of fate, but a predetermined destination started long before he ever made a visual.
Before the cyclops, before the fractals, before the spirals of Fibonacci, Ray’s journey began as an artist simply trying to find his medium.
“I’ve always gravitated toward the arts in one way or another, whether it be dance, sketching, or digital art; it’s been a constant throughout my life. I studied graphic design and marketing at university, but left just before graduating to pursue competitive hip-hop dancing, ahahahah. After a few years, I went into debt, and I found myself working in the Australian health system to pay it all off, but that left me feeling creatively stuck.”
But when you’re destined for something, the universe doesn’t conspire against you; it works for you. It’s those moments when you feel like you’ve lost it all that redirect your path, guiding you to where you’re supposed to be.
“That push led me to move to Canada with three high school friends. I had no clear career plan and was pretty terrified, but one of them encouraged me to try out 3D animation, something I’d always been curious about. A month before the move, I inhaled tutorials on YouTube nonstop and started posting my work online purely because I thought, heck yeah, why not!”
Of course, it wasn’t just the complete immersion into his craft, but a new experience that would define his trajectory.
“The day I landed in Canada, we flew straight to EDC Las Vegas, and that experience changed everything. Seeing the massive screens, the energy of the crowd, and visuals perfectly synced to the music was the moment I knew I wanted to create visuals for electronic music. I originally thought animation in film or TV might be the path, but after EDC, it was clear, EDM visuals are what is always going to feel like home.”
From that realization, the path began to reveal itself, and it wasn’t long before he found his first client in the EDM space.
“When I started posting my work on Instagram, a high school friend of mine who DJs as AXEN reached out and asked if I’d be down to make visuals for him. He became my first client, and I honestly just went all in, experimenting, having fun, and pushing ideas as far as I could. Those visuals started getting shared alongside his releases and slowly picked up momentum online.”
That momentum quickly extended far beyond his immediate circle, eventually crossing paths with the leader of the Cyclops army.
“Not long after, I got a call about possibly working with the Subtronics team. Not going to lie, I didn’t know who Subtronicswas or many of the acts in the EDM scene, as it was all quite new to me,” Ray laughed.
Rather than forcing a new aesthetic onto an established brand, Ray approached the opportunity analytically, studying the visual language that already existed.
“At first, I was only meant to make a few assets, so I spent a lot of time studying his visuals. I noticed the cyclops imagery was a big part of the brand, especially the illustrations by Aaron Brooks, and focused on translating those characters into 3D. I remodeled the cyclops and shared it with the team, and they really connected with it right away.”
One deliverable turned into another, and before he knew it, he was tasked with building the ever- evolving Cyclops universe.
“From there, they asked if I could put together an ad mat for a tour, so I used the new cyclops models and quickly whipped one up overnight. I guess they really liked it because shortly after that, they offered me the role of Visual Director. It all happened pretty fast, ahahaha.”
Yet as quickly as it all came together, the opportunity required patience, resilience, and determination.
“I couldn’t jump in full time with Subtronics as I was in the middle of my Canadian permanent residency process and working full time at an interactive animation studio called NGX Interactive, which meant I could only freelance with Subtronics every night after 5 p.m. and most weekends, pretty much up until February of 2025,” he noted. “It was a grind, but my goal was always clear. I knew I wanted to work full-time with Subtronics, and I was willing to put in whatever it took to get there. Once I got permanent residency, I handed in my resignation and became full-time with Subtronics!”
Of course, leadership introduced a different type of complexity. Directing a team while remaining hands-on in production meant balancing creative immersion with operational oversight.
“The biggest challenge was time management. I was coming from a place where I had been making all of the visuals myself, and once I started working with other artists, I didn’t want to just step back and only direct. It was really important to me to stay hands-on and still be creating visuals myself, which made things incredibly intense, as I was essentially working 12–16-hour days.”
Luckily, his experience in a lead role at NGX became unexpectedly foundational, sharpening his ability to build pipelines, manage workflows, and maintain clarity across moving parts.
“What helped tremendously was being promoted into a lead role at NGX. That experience forced me to level up quickly in terms of scheduling, pipelines, processes, and overall management, and I was able to directly apply those skill sets to my work with Subtronics.”
Because he understood the tools at a granular level, direction never became detached from execution.
“I primarily work with artists who use the same design and animation tools that I do. That meant I was constantly learning new workflows and techniques while still being technically fluent enough to give very precise direction or jump in and make changes myself.”
That type of workload, in a fast moving enviroment, leaves little room for complacency.
“I’m somewhat of a perfectionist, so nearly every hour of my day was packed with production work, meetings, or tutorials just to make sure there’s always something to improve on. The turnaround times for visuals in the EDM space compared to art installations, film, and television is night and day.”
With collaborators spread across time zones, maintaining momentum required discipline that extended beyond creativity.
“There were even times where I was literally in two meetings for both jobs at once because the artists were spread across so many different time zones. It was hectic. Staying organized and disciplined with my time became absolutely essential.”
Underneath the logistics, however, the fascination that made Fibonacci possible had been present long before the album existed.
“I’m honestly a massive space nerd. I’ve been fascinated by mind-bending cosmological and philosophical concepts for as long as I can remember, well before I ever touched 3D animation. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t really know the math behind most of it, but I’ve spent years studying art fundamentals like shape, form, color, texture, space, composition, perspective, anatomy, and lighting to be able to translate those concepts visually.”
Whether it’s rendering the cyclops on his first-ever project for Subtronics or abstracting the Fibonacci spiral, the underlying drive remains the same.
“My creative approach doesn’t actually change that much whether I’m making googly-eyed cyclops characters or abstract fractals. The main difference is really just the stylization. In both cases, I’m still obsessed with detail and pushing things as far as I can visually.”
And when the themes lean into science, research expands, but interpretation always remains central.
“Where things start to differ is in the amount of research I do and the tools I use when I’m working on visuals that lean more toward science or reality-based ideas. I always want to be clear, my work is heavily romanticized and definitely not meant to be taken as scientifically accurate. At the end of the day, my goal is simple. I just want things to look incredible and move in a way that feels exciting and immersive. I just wanna make cool shit, ahahaha.”
For Ray, the objective isn’t decoration. It’s alignment. When a Subtronics drop fractures into a thousand microscopic details, the screen can’t just react. It has to anticipate. It has to feel embedded in the same code.
“Honestly, when Jesse sends me new WIPs, it can be anywhere from one or two weeks to three or four months before release. He’s an absolute beast when it comes to producing music. His output, depth, and complexity still blows my mind. It’s honestly hard to keep up with the man sometimes, but that’s also what makes it so inspiring. Making art alongside his art is epic.”
Aside from a broad direction from Subtronics, it first begins with a complete immersion into the music. After enough repetition, the drops stop surprising you and start revealing structure. The space between percussion becomes just as important as the impact itself. Visual movement begins forming before a frame is ever rendered.
“Usually, Jesse will give me a broad theme, an idea, or a few key elements he wants included, and from that, I really expand on it narratively. The first thing I do is just live with the music. I’ll have the tracks on repeat while I’m working on other things or even while I’m sleeping. I want the visuals to feel instinctive,” he explained. “To me, every track feels like a movie that becomes more vivid and clearer every time I hit repeat. His songs are so layered that I’m constantly discovering new rhythms or moments to latch onto creatively.”
Then, once he’s deeply connected to the music its time to start building out the concepts.
“From there, and if there’s time, I’ll put together a brief and gather references to share with the team so everyone’s aligned. Next, I mentally map out a pipeline and process for how the animation should come together. After that, it’s a mix of quick R&D and applying everything I already know or, more often than not, just fully brute-forcing ideas that probably shouldn’t work.”
In a project at this scale, the process is essential. Through his experience working on previous albums, that process has been refined over and over, becoming second nature while laying the foundation for what’s to come.
“Over time, that process has become a lot more natural and efficient, and if you look closely across my work, you’ll probably start to notice some consistent patterns.
Those patterns are not accidents. They form a visual narrative where repetition creates familiarity in something entirely new. And once he has the vision, the world-building begins.
“My process usually starts with time-coding the track, really breaking down the tone, the buildups, and the drops. The tone helps define the overall color palette and stylization, the buildups guide what elements I want to introduce or animate, and the drops completely dictate how those elements move and hit,” he noted. “Everything is driven by the music. Creating visuals for his music is endlessly inspiring, and every track feels like a new world waiting to be built.”
With Fibonacci Part 1: Oblivion and Fibonacci Part 2: Infinity, that approach matured into something more cohesive than any prior cycle. Oblivion moved like raw energy, unfiltered and organic. Infinity introduced awareness, interface, and evolution. Two chapters unified under one expanding system.
“The Fibonacci album, both Fibonacci Part 1: Oblivion and Fibonacci Part 2: Infinity, is really the culmination of everything we’ve learned across previous tours and albums. This two-part album and tour represents the evolution of our entire team and how we approach building fully immersive visual experiences.”
Oblivion took us back in time, exploring the beginning of reality, in other words, a reality without form.
“Visually, Fibonacci Part 1: Oblivion explores the natural state of everything in its unconscious form. My goal there was to tell a story through visuals that reflect the movement of nature, raw energy, organic forces, and the unseen systems that bind everything together.”
Infinity then expanded that motion into something constructed and self-aware.
“Fibonacci Part 2: Infinity shifts into the realm of possibility. It’s driven by the idea that, given enough time, science and technology become indistinguishable from what we perceive as magic. For that chapter, I focused on creating worlds shaped by human interaction, the conscious side of existence experiencing itself.”
Across both parts, repetition tied everything together.
“We then created elements such as symbols and UI that became persistent throughout all of the visuals and still art. Across both parts, my overarching goal was to visually express the synchronicity found in unobserved moments where the Fibonacci sequence occurs, while making it feel like everything exists within the same unified universe, one powered by the expansive sound of Subtronics.”
Even the cover art followed that same logic.
“When we first kicked off development on the cover art, we went through quite a few iterations. We knew early on that this was going to be a two-part album, but it wasn’t until around the fourth or fifth draft that everything really clicked.”
But, of course, the vision is constantly evolving, and that’s when brainstorming as a team really comes into play.
“We jumped on a Zoom call as a group and started brainstorming how the covers could relate to each other. That’s when Jesse had this real eureka moment. He suggested only revealing half of the album artwork at first, then unveiling the second half later. It was kind of genius.”
That idea reframed the rollout entirely, turning the artwork into part of the narrative itself rather than just a static frame attached to the music.
“From there, we made the central symbol that ultimately unifies both halves. Each side represents the themes we explored in the two chapters of the album. Over the years, I became obsessed with detail. I’ve always wanted my work to reflect the same level of complexity that exists in Jesse’s music, so I packed in a ton of detail while making sure the composition still felt balanced and intentional.”
That mindset extended beyond structure and into the smallest details embedded throughout the piece.
“If you zoom into any of my work, you can find hidden easter eggs either related to the Subtronics brand or something I was obsessing over at the time. It’s like the “Where’s Waldo” of EDM art, ahahaha. What I love most about the final cover art is that it was truly a team effort. That collaboration is what made it special.”
That same philosophy carries into the live show, where visuals function as an extension of the sound system itself.
“I think the most important role visuals play in live bass music is amplification. The best visuals don’t compete with the music. They translate it, extend it, and give the audience something to emotionally latch onto.”
When that translation is precise, the drop doesn’t just hit, it lands with context, color, and motion that reinforce the emotional weight of the moment.
“Cohesion is huge. The strongest experiences come from a clear visual language, consistent symbols, recurring elements, color logic, and motion rules. When visuals feel intentional and connected, they create immersion instead of distraction.”
That attention to cohesion also shapes how he views the future of the craft.
“Looking forward, I think visuals are evolving toward deeper world-building and more narrative-driven experiences. At the same time, I think restraint will become more important. As technology improves, the challenge won’t be how much we can do, but how intentional we are with what we choose to show. That’s where visuals really do their job.”
And, when asked what advice he has for new artists trying to find their footing, he keeps it straight to the point.
“Don’t get too attached to a single piece of work or style. Try everything, move on quickly, and keep leveling up. Developing a solid process is essential, especially in the electronic music space, where turnaround times are short. The more versatile you are across the entire pipeline, the more valuable you become. With AI becoming more common, management and communication skills matter more than ever. Most importantly, stay genuinely passionate. Clients gravitate toward artists who truly care.”
As he continues to rise as one of EDM’s most innovative visual artists, his focus extends beyond his own output and into the wider creative community.
“I hope my work encourages the next generation to stay curious, experiment freely, and take creative risks. If I can help raise the bar, it would be through more intentional world-building and stronger collaboration.”
As he sees it, in a culture built on shared experience, the next evolution won’t come from one artist alone, but from a generation willing to push the visual language even further.
“At the end of the day, I want to show that passion, process, and intention matter. Visuals can be more than spectacle. They can create emotion, connection, and a lasting impact.”