For Rebūke, the spark that fuels his creative flame is one derived from a sense of originality. Self-taught and self-determined, the Irish producer’s distinct sound emerged from the Emerald Isle’s underground scene, where his unique take on techno first began to take shape.
Eventually, one of Rebūke’s most contemporary productions would break through the airwaves as “Along Came Polly” dominated the dancefloor in 2018. The mesmerizing earworm captivated the dance music world, dominating the Beatport charts and garnering over 40 million streams to date.
As the Irishman’s notoriety steadily rose, Rebūke’s progressive productions would once again be front and center, this time alongside another powerhouse techno producer. A collaboration with Anyma, “Syren” was unescapable in 2023 and cemented Rebūke as one of electronic music’s most forward-thinking creatives.
The unfolding of his career over the last half-decade has led to the release of his debut album, World of Era. While it’s a stunning encapsulation of his transformative soundscapes, it also serves as his most ambitious world-building effort yet.
“The World of Era is a fictitious city where each track is accompanied by a story that takes a bird’s-eye snapshot of a different scene,” Rebūke explains as he sits down with EDM.com to discuss the album’s concept. “I remember playing Cyberpunk 2077 and losing myself inside that world; the music, visuals and story were so amazing. So I used that as a sort of reference to create my own world.”
Each of the album’s 15 cuts has been meticulously curated and is accompanied by intricate visuals, helping to bring Rebūke’s futuristic story to life.
“I’m a big fan of cinema and the correlation music has with a visual or a scene in a film, like in Bladerunner,” explains Rebūke. “So when I was starting to get booked to play bigger festivals, I realized I wanted to do something that touches people emotionally, and that’s where the idea for the visuals came about.”
Rebūke’s fascination with graphics led him to seek out independent artists to advance his creative concepts further. However, after realizing his ideas were not coming across, he took matters into his own hands.
“I found it hard to work with 3D artists because I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing,” he recalls. “I was giving them directions and they were coming back to me saying, ‘This is going to take three weeks to do and here’s the budget,’ and I’d go, ‘What the fuck?’ In the end, I just downloaded Cinema 4D and gave it a crack so I could get inside the head of the artists to be able to communicate and help with the show. But I got a bit carried away and learned it all myself, and I did the whole thing on my own.”
“For me, Rebūke stands for originality and stuff that’s a little bit more quirky,” he adds. “I love what I do musically, and I love building the brand that is Rebūke.”
When it comes to his approach to learning the intricacies of 3D renderings, Rebūke says he preferred a more hands-on method as opposed to being taught by someone else.
“I’ve always been really bad at school in the sense that I don’t take direction very well,” he says. ” To me, the easiest way to learn something is to just do it. I knew I wanted to make a TV man and shatter the glass on the screen, so I spent a month trying to do that, and out of that came the first visual that I used in Afterlife Mexico.”
Rebūke’s inclusion in Afterlife productions has only helped further his audiovisual projects, garnering him a loyal fanbase across the globe. Additionally, his performance in Anyma’s historic Sphere residency has further cemented Rebūke as a suitable partner for the brand.
As Rebūke’s infectious take on techno continues to creep into the mainstream, he hopes to be an innovator in the genre by pushing the envelope in future productions.
“If you follow the Rebūke project from ‘Along Came Polly’ onwards, my sound has changed from slower techy groovier stuff to hard-hitting Drumcode techno to now melodic techno,” he says. “I think we change as we get older and our sound changes too, but the underlying sound of Rebūke is still there.”
As far as the inclusion of visuals in his future projects, Rebūke is dead-set on pushing the boundaries, especially in the AI era.
“A year ago, you could get a decent visual for 10-30 thousand dollars, but with AI, it’s getting so much cheaper; the barrier of entry for big visuals is becoming way easier, and it’s getting super saturated,” he explains. “If I see one more fucking robatoid or humanoid on Instagram I’m gonna… It’s just one of these things that’s just part of the game now. The innovators will keep advancing it forward, and they will always be ahead because they think beyond what’s hot at the moment.”
Those innovators he speaks highly of are his contemporaries. Artists like Eric Prydz, The Chemical Brothers, or Anyma are all elevating their productions with the inclusion of 3D graphics and visuals.
“Those are the true artists,” he asserts. “They are the ones that push the boundaries, and that’s the sort of guys I inspire to become.”
Rebūke is about to take the first steps in following the path carved out by his peers as he embarks on the “World of Era Tour.” Blending DJ sets and visuals, each two-hour set will help tell the album’s story while showcasing his latest endeavors.
“The ‘World of Era Tour’ will have new visuals and content, and it will be a hybrid of both DJ sets and visuals,” Rebūke explains. “In club settings, we will use LED walls, and we will bring in extra production to make it bigger if other venues permit.”
You can find find World of Era on streaming platforms here.
Follow Rebūke:
X: x.com/rebukemusic
Instagram: instagram.com/rebukemusic
TikTok: tiktok.com/@officialrebuke
Facebook: facebook.com/RebukeMusic
Spotify: tinyurl.com/2p976k79
