London-born bo en is a producer-singer and video game composer. His 2013 debut album pale machine was released on the legendary Japanese netlabel Maltine Records and lauded by Line of Best Fit as “2nd best hyperpop album of all time” which was described by Pitchfork as “the fantasia of a 100-person orchestra rendered in the primary colours of a dial tone”. The last 10 years have seen this album die and respawn in necromantic fervour as furries, beatniks, TikTok cosplayers, Twitch streamers & hyperpop tweenieboppers have since discovered, meme’d, shared and re-shared year after year. During this extended period of vampiric hibernation sustained by merely a single body of work, bo en was hired as a composer by Nintendo and ran internet happenings such as his YouTube match-making service ‘The Bomance Ball’.

The album itself serves as an internet opera where Bacharacian songwriting is rattled by a careening Vocaloid headache and the rhythmic jolt of SoundCloud micro-genres costume-changing atop the lone actor who sings an earnest and rough confession. Pale Machine’s closing track ‘my time’, an unlikely tumbling waltz was used as the ending theme for the cult hit psychological horror-RPG OMORI. The song has lived its own rich and varied life being covered by the infamous Hatsune Miku producer Kikuo as well as being arranged by the prestigious and historical Wiener Sångeknaben (Vienna Boys’ Choir) for a personal performance in the great hall their regal palace-like school.

After a silent retreat, studying tapdance and ratio’ing BTS on TikTok, this 10-year anniversary sees bo en re-emerge with new material, alongside reworkings and a re-release of the classic album which crystallised him as a singular voice in the internet music world.