r/electronicmusic

I love how very dystopian this song sounds.

Someone in the YouTube comments described it as the perfect background music for watching genetically modified humans destroy each other, and frankly I think they nailed it 😂

'Walkman' appeared on SebastiAn's 2006 Ross Ross Ross EP on Ed Banger Records and comes from that delightful period of French electro where making something abrasive, distorted and borderline hostile apparently still counted as perfectly acceptable dance music.

Everything about it feels overdriven. The huge low end, mangled fragments of sound, clipped transients and layers of noise give it a mechanical, almost malfunctioning quality, yet underneath all that chaos the groove is incredibly controlled.

That contrast is probably what I enjoy most. It sounds as though an enormous machine is progressively destroying itself, but somehow you can still dance to it.

SebastiAn's production process is quite fascinating. He has said that his early setup was remarkably simple, using an Akai S950 sampler and an Atari 520ST running Cubase 1, equipment he kept working with for years.

I find the Cubase connection interesting because Justice are big Cubase users too. I've always wanted to try that DAW, although creating anything remotely resembling this would probably be a fairly ambitious place to start 😅

For a song that's twenty years old, 'Walkman' still sounds so vicious and futuristic to me. Like the soundtrack to a cybernetic nightmare you still want to dance to 💃

Brand-new release from Amon Tobin (as Cujo). Definitely worth a listen. Particularly enjoyed the tracks "Beats of Eden" and "One Like This."