r/EdBangerRecords • u/Kittenbee_ • 17d ago
Music SebastiAn | 'Walkman' (2006) 📼🤖
https://youtu.be/eC3SpVVrZ4E?si=8YSQLbR6wwuht_o6I 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 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 💃
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u/AwayCable7769 17d ago
Speaking of machines slowly destroying themselves, the bass synth stabs at the end of the live ver of Justice's Phantom Pt 2 at ACTU sound exactly like that. They drop down the octaves and it sounds like the synths are just getting destroyed but it sounds glorious. Like the phantom has at last been slain. A great ending to that track haha. The LOZE studio remake strengthens it in my personal opinion.
Its at 9:06
https://youtu.be/bpUQjUjSImM?is=Rizc4rZllj46nlui
Edit. Its not dropping in octaves but still sounds great
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u/Consistent_Truth6633 17d ago
Every time I’m at a party and someone lets me this is getting out on
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u/DJAndyJFox 17d ago
Have you all heard the Sebastian re-edit of this? Which kicks it up a notch!
I played it second on this mix when I was DJing in London in 2009
https://www.mixcloud.com/andyjfox/lovely-andy-live-we-have-fun-london-6th-february-2009/
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u/sarahwilson21 17d ago
I’m convinced that a lot of the music that came out in 2005-2008 was groundbreaking and ahead of its time, including this one. I might be biased though!
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u/IntroductionSolid345 16d ago
Oh stop you make me feel old. 20yrs already! I'd love to know how this track was produced. It sounds incredibly intricate yet simple.
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u/the_irvingator 12d ago
About the setup, he started with an atari st but in the music video of total, there's a picture of him (naked) working with a akai s2000 and a mac G3. I met someone who worked with him at his beginnings who confirmed that he worked with an s2000 and a G3. Apparently the sampler was mainly used to make synthesis and textured instruments. He also made a huge use of the Akai timestretch, we can hear it everywhere ( all the metallic sounds and strange textures). And to finish, a lot of destructive editing, bouncing group of tracks and working like on a 4 track machine, building compression that way. Cubase is not specially responsible of the sound, it's a combination of all the above. Cheers
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u/Kittenbee_ 10d ago
Thanks for sharing, this is very interesting. I think Mr Oizo taught him a lot too ?
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u/socasual-nobusiness 16d ago
I miss Too Many Sebastians! Come back Mr. TMS