Dallas experimental electronic duo Starleen have released their debut album, Evolution // Rebirth (out since September 23), and it’s one of the most ambitious records of the season. Glitch-laden breakbeats, corrosive synths and waves of dystopian tension surround ethereally soulful vocals, making for a project that treats electronic music as something to be seen as much as heard.
Internet Core Meets IDM
The album’s aesthetic is immediately recognizable if you’ve spent time in the internet core, cyber and futurist corners of the web. Starleen take that visual language and pour it into a sound that mixes hyperpop, electroclash and experimental electronic music, with a synthwave atmosphere that still has its own twisted personality. For us, the reference points are easy to name: Mr. Kitty, Mareux, Pastel Ghost and Crystal Castles all live somewhere in this world, even though Starleen never sound like any of them.
What keeps the record compelling from start to finish is its variety. Every track sits inside the same cohesive style, but each one has its own variation and its own experiments, so the album never falls into monotony. Songs like “Modernity,” one of the highlights, push into hallucinatory electronic futurism with psychedelic synth movement and an atmosphere of fractured digital consciousness. The result is a record that gives each song its own psychological space while building toward a larger meditation on modernity, identity, technological alienation and rebirth.
A Visual Duo
Starleen approach music through a visual lens, and the video for the lead single, “Evolution // Rebirth,” has been selected for the Dallas International Film Festival this October. It isn’t their first recognition on screen: their video for “Right Back” previously won a film festival award in India, giving the duo an international profile in the visual arts to match their musical one.
Built at Home
Starleen formed after a chance meeting in a high school music theory class. Their collaboration grew into the 2020 EP Life Is Strange, followed by To Give In in 2022 and an accompanying remix project in 2023. They work entirely from their home studio, keeping close control over recording, production and songwriting, which shows in the album’s unconventional structures, cinematic production and emotionally charged lyrics. Their earlier singles, including their biggest streaming success, “Let Me Go,” and “Replica,” set the stage for this record.
Standing at the vanguard of IDM futurism, Starleen are exploring human nature, personal freedom, emotional vulnerability and life mediated by technology through darkwave, alt electro pop, IDM and dance influences. Picture Björk with more transhumanist fire in her soul, and you’re close.
Stream Evolution // Rebirth now on all platforms.
