System Overload

Your computer is crashing. Your super-sized collection of kitten memes has surpassed the hard drive’s physical limit. You have 30 minutes to save everything before it is lost to the cyber void. These records are the soundtrack to your venture through the depths of the digital world: brain rot, rebooting, discovering darkness and dopamine beyond what you thought possible. The unimaginable highs you reach leave you wanting more. An slave to the screen, you will find yourself lost in the soundscape of utter chaos within the virtual chasm. No way back and no desire to return. This is obsession. This is addiction. This is system overload.

Total, SebastiAn (2011)

A jaw-dropping record at first listen. I honestly do not reccomend listening in public because I guarantee a freak-out (or at least uncontrollable dancing). Friends of mine have not shut up about SebastiAn for years, but this was my first time listening myself. I've heard few productions as unique and wild as those featured in Total. I cannot attest to his other records, but this one feels brave. daring. True electro house / dubstep.

SebastiAn produces brain-melting perfectly orchestrated chaos. Within the record, he uses such a variety of electronic elements that each track feels like a different world from the previous. Still, he maintains the integrity of the Ed Banger sound while ensuring that nothing is predictable. Each beat, each drop, each element is something strange and wonderful. Total will keep you guessing - and leave you pumped and dazed.

KOREAN, kimj (2025)

Yeah, so this is insane. By far one of the craziest albums of the year, kimj’s renowned and respected production skills is here honor, not replicate what many loved about Skrillex (I’m terrified of the fanbase). His production work with The Deep and Effie launched him into a niche space of fame some years ago, but it is on his two recent solo albums that you painly see his musical genius.

KOREAN is a 7-track 25 minute-long album of pseudo-dubstep hyperpop arrangements. Walking the line between almost ridiculous and utterly impressive, kimj mixes everything from internet brainrot to iconic anime intros. While some are not convinced by the technique of his mixing, I believe his arrangement choices make up for any such deficiencies. KOREAN might get you fired up, head-thrash, or make you burst out laughing from it’s absurdity. But it won’t dissapoint.

I Love My Computer, Ninajirachi

If you are (weird enough to be) searching for the intersection of (hyper)pop, cybercore, EDM, indie, and glitchcore, look no further. On her clean debut LP I Love My Computer, Ninajirachi emerges as a clever computer-loving internet-inspired anime-addict stylistic shape shifter. Ninajirachi’s influences are vast (from SOPHIE to Skrillex) and she manages to turn them into her self-proclaimed “girl EDM”.

Admittedly, I was initially thrown by her strange mix of cybercore with EDM. I wasn’t sure that the album felt like neither raveable nor sufficiently glitchy. However, once I stopped trying to put her into a box (or compare her to Yameii Online, Grimes, etc.), I discovered a newfound appreciation for what she was doing. Outside of being outside of a box, I Love My Computer is special in that it is truly a storytelling album. From a questioning of the human self to a desire to fuck your computer, I Love My Computer is a tasteful, honest, and entertaining account of being a digital-age girly. With a Ayesha Erotica y2k nostalgia mixed with a Crystal Castles heaviness, Ninajirachi feels like all of your online fantasies realized in sonic form.