Für deutsch klicke hier. With “EXIT UTOPIA,” Anthony Rother releases an album that can be read as a personal log of an intense year. In our Q&A, he speaks openly about mortality, machines as metaphors, creative autonomy, online addiction, the music industry, and why every ending is also a new beginning. The work was released on his own label, 3MULATOR BOY.
Anthony, what does the title “EXIT UTOPIA” mean to you? It sounds like a farewell to an idea.
For some time now, I’ve been producing an album every year, released in December. “EXIT UTOPIA” documents the year 2025. It is a musical autobiography of my experiences, observations, ideas, and creative experiments. 2025 was a very intense and interesting year. Over the past twelve months, my health and the sober realization that one apparently does not live forever after all—like one naturally believed as a young person (laughs)—were central themes. At my age, you already have a sense of it. But when you are actually confronted with mortality, that’s a different matter. However, the strategy of repression quickly kicks in again, and immortality continues.
Many tracks and lyrics revolve around machines, control, and dependency. Is the album more of a warning—or are you simply describing a state we have long since accepted?
I think my album has no fixed statement. It has atmosphere. What I think while writing is not necessarily what the listener thinks. And that’s a good thing. I keep discovering new things in my own music—that’s great. Art has a life of its own. “EXIT UTOPIA” is my idea of what Technobeat-Electro sounds like. I’ve been working on this since 2024 and founded my new label, 3MULATOR BOY, for it. Through technological progress, we are already living a rather futuristic life. With my music, I try to create a mood that connects stories of the future firmly to the present. The machine is a metaphor for deeply human themes. Artificial intelligence is changing how society perceives machines; AI machines are entering and transforming the social space.
We’ve known your motto “IN 3L3C7RO WE TRUST” for quite some time. How has it evolved over the years?
This claim dates back to 2005; it’s a kind of attitude. It is what people—and I—make of it. With my Technobeat-Electro, a lot is currently changing for me. And that certainly changes the attitude as well. Since last year, my hybrid set consists of 50 percent Electro and 50 percent Technobeat-Electro. The latter is my focus. Technobeat-Electro is my new universe in which I am currently creatively letting off steam and experimenting. The interplay between gigs and studio work, where the experiences from performances flow directly into the music, feels like a Gesamtkunstwerk to me. I feel a high intensity when making music. The music is like a diary from a science fiction film I dream myself into—escapism and self-exploration.
You wrote, produced, and mastered the entire album yourself. What does this total autonomy mean to you artistically—and where can it also become a burden?
This autonomy arose purely from a lack of financial resources. And today it benefits me. I had to learn mastering because it was too expensive to have all the tracks for the hybrid set mastered. That would have severely limited my ability to experiment while producing and to play these many tracks in the hybrid set. I founded my label PSI49NET because it was always difficult to place unconventional music with labels. I wanted to decide how and what I release, and that was only possible with my own label. The real burden was rather that labels did not pay licenses or that many promises were made in advance but not kept. Autonomy was always a safe haven.
Titles like “Slave To The Machine” or “God Machine” work with religious imagery. Does technology replace spirituality for you today, or has it taken on something dogmatic itself?
I would replace the term religious with spiritual. The songs speak for themselves; explaining them would probably require an entire book. Last August, I became aware of my online addiction, specifically my YouTube addiction at its peak—one could also say its final stage. For years, I had been struggling with spikes of YouTube addiction and thought I had it under control through abstinence. Last year, however, it became so severe that I completely lost my ability to concentrate. This had happened gradually over many years. I could no longer make music because my drive was gone. I had no motivation anymore, even though I wanted to make music—it simply didn’t work. And when I did manage to make music, I couldn’t concentrate for long, maybe ten minutes. With the help of AI, I gathered all the information about what happens biologically in the brain and body in such a case and what I could do to normalize my brain and neurotransmitters again. I followed it strictly, and after a month things improved dramatically. Today I’m fully back. It’s unbelievable what online media—and especially passive consumption—does to the brain. I experienced it; it’s true. It starts harmlessly. By the time you realize it, you’re already dangerously deep into it. One could say that technology as a medium of consumption works like chocolate: it comforts and fills an inner void. But it’s not a solution.
Sonically, you continue to rely heavily on hardware, modular systems, and your own machines. Is this a conscious counter-model to increasingly software- and AI-driven music production?
Not only the result matters to me. What’s especially important is how I make music. It’s a ritual; I celebrate it. I like real synthesizers and drum machines; I like turning knobs and physically engaging with them. I also use software, but only to a limited extent. For me, both have their justification—I’m not dogmatic about it.
Your lyrics are often very reduced, almost like a mantra. How consciously do you leave gaps in content so that listeners can project their own meanings into them?
I don’t write for the listener. I write what I experience, what I observe; I create atmospheres or realize a sound idea. The intention has nothing to do with the listener. But there are certainly overlaps with what someone who listens to my music has experienced or observed. As a matter of principle, I almost never talk about my intentions. However, the audience can be sure that these intentions exist—and that what one thinks while listening may sometimes not be so far from what I think.
“EXIT UTOPIA” is released exclusively in digital form. Has your relationship to release formats and today’s music industry changed?
The music industry is dead—at least the independent sector. This sector was a kind of middle class and used to function well; today it doesn’t anymore. And there are understandable reasons for that. In my opinion, something could be changed, but many would have to participate. As long as you operate as a medium-sized player in the mass market, you’re dead. Mass products from large corporations function differently. Anyone who wants to participate in that field as a medium-sized player with small runs is doomed to fail. On top of that comes the passion many musicians have. This love often switches off a healthy business perspective. One ends up subsidizing the profits of corporations, distributors, and everyone else in the value chain. The love of music and the dream of success are shamelessly exploited.
If you compare your early releases with this new album: what has shifted most strongly in your view of the future, technology, and society?
Now, at the beginning of 2026 and looking at the current world, I have to say that many things are different. When I look back at 1999 and 2000, when I think of the Love Parade as one rave event among many, I remember that we had the feeling back then that world peace was just around the corner. How wonderfully naive we were! Today I have to admit that while we spent all those years celebrating techno and trusting that politics would more or less do the right thing, a lot of mistakes were made. Today I have to deal with politics in order to understand why things are the way they are and to somehow find my way among the various positions. I wish the world all the best.
If “EXIT UTOPIA” is an exit—where does the next step lead for you, musically and mentally?
An exit is always also an entrance. I follow life. For a while, I tried to steer and control things. Perhaps that produced what I wanted—but that is not life. Today I wait and try to sense where life is moving, and then I follow, receiving the unknown that life offers me. Because that is the real, the true life.
From FAZEmag 168/02.2026
Text: Triple P
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