Carbon Killer

Nestled in the winemaking epicenter of France, Bordeaux is the sixth largest city within the country also known for it’s electronic music scene.  The competing genres are split, classified and re-classidied, then broken down and built up back up into something completely new.  There is always new development among innovative musicians.  The upcoming young musical act, Carbon Killer, divides their time between Bordeaux and border crossings to neighboring Berlin, Germany.  Their style, we call synthwave, goes by many different names.  Among them are, Outrun, vaporwave, and darksynth to name a few.  Regardless of what you choose to label it, they have a new album coming out on March 16th, 2018 and a whole lot more.

Slickster: There are a few hot spots of electronic music that seem to pop up frequently. Those would be Quebec, Berlin and Paris. Is there are a friendly rivalry between Berlin and Paris in terms of electronic music on the European scene?

Carbon Killer: I don’t really think it’s so much of a rivalry but these days there has definitely been a rise of a more techno scene in Paris, very similar to what has been already established in Berlin for years. I don’t think it’s much of a competition but more that more clubs in Paris are exploring the techno scene nowadays and that’s probably good.

Slickster: You have a web series with Red House Collective debuting in 2018 as well as your next record. What can you tell us about your upcoming web series? What will make it unique and entice fans of synthwave to check it out?

Carbon Killer: Actually, I noticed there isn’t that much web series or even cross-media projects in the synthwave world as far as I know, except for The Summoner and some other things. I wish to transcript my ideas around the cyberpunk culture and share this with sci-fi enthusiast among the synthwave community. It’s very likely to include heavy synths, heavy rain and lots of neon lights.

Slickster: A common statement we hear during our interviews with synthwave musicians is their love and admiration of Mr. John Carpenter. Can you share some anecdote about this man’s influence on your work and perhaps your favorite Carpenter movie?

Carbon Killer:I do love and admire John Carpenter and his work. I actually did watch a lot of his movies while in the process of making this EP so it might have influenced me to some degrees. My favorite movies probably are “The Thing”, “Escape from New-York” and “They Live”.

Slickster: Let’s say there was zombie apocalypse. Ok, it doesn’t have to be zombies, but whatever happens, you are the last man on the earth. All alone, and the last species with the genetic code safeguarded in your DNA, it’s up to you to repopulate the world. You can choose only one 80’s model to make babies with. Who would you choose to be with you?

Carbon Killer: Tough question. On the pragmatic side, I’d say that it would actually be even better to try to find a huge sperm and ovum bank and learn how to make In Vitro humans but my nihilistic personality would rather go for something like “If to humans have to disappear, let it go, they’re probably responsible for what happened to them”.

Slickster: Let’s talk about your name, Carbon Killer, for a moment. It sounds cool, but what does it mean? Carbon is basic building block of life as we understand it our solar system, so it is kind of cool and paradoxical to pair ‘Carbon (Life) with Killer (death). Is that what you are going for with your stage name?

Carbon Killer: That’s actually a pretty cool explanation, never thought about that ! Unfortunately that’s not really it but nice try though. It actually comes from the upcoming web series : in a dystopian alternative 1983, huge corporations rules the world with the biggest of them being “Carbon Inc.” who created a few decades ago the “carbons” which are human-like androids who progressively replaced actual humans in all kind of labour. Long story short : some humans from an obscur anti-transhumanism extremists don’t want such things to exists and decide to kill them, they call themselves the Carbon Killer.

Slickster: Do you have real name, or is that super Top-Secret level stuff?
Carbon Killer: Every one could be a Carbon Killer, so my name doesn’t really matter actually

Slickster: Who are some of your favorite synthwave musicians to work with and listen to?
Carbon Killer: Obviously, both Carpenter Brut and Perturbator are huge influences, I don’t think I’ll ever stop being amazed by their work. I can add a few more like Volkor X, his track Enclave was one of my highlight from last year. Also I can mention Sierra as one of the most bad ass producer out there, she has this kind of darkwave techno sound that has a bit of a synthwave feel and it love it so much ! Lazerpunk just released a superb darksynth masterpiece few weeks ago. And last but not least, Boucle Infinie, which is the side project of Algorithm, it’s probably the most beautiful thing I heard last year.

I think we should also be watching Aerds and Skelone, they are two young french guys with great talent.

Slickster: What message would you like to share with the world?
Carbon Killer: Stay rad, Stay fabulous.