INTERVIEW: Diabolus Ex Machina – James Kent of Perturbator

I first heard Perturbator almost exactly a year ago while editing a highly rated review for Dangerous Days at Heathen Harvest. The writer described a faux-retro synthwave album that melds cyberpunk aesthetics with the neon-cool atmosphere of Drive, with an evil supercomputer named “Satan” thrown in the mix. Being a long-time fan of electronic music, cyberpunk, and the films of Nicolas Winding Refn, I couldn’t help be feel like someone formed an album specifically for me.

Keeping my solipsism in check wasn’t hard. It turned out that Perturbator was doing quite well in the underground electronic dance scene. The project was getting excellent coverage in digital and print magazines, and had tracks included in popular indie video games Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. In many ways this reminded me of the faults of having musical blinders on. Being so focused on specific obscure genres of music almost had me missing out on what would become one of my favorite projects in recent years.

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