Mankind Is The Program

How much of a human action is a choice, and how much is a programme learned and repeated? Mankind Is The Program leaves the question open. Its heavy electronics connect to unease about a world in which destructive patterns reproduce themselves with alarming ease.

The musical demo existed earlier, but the context around its 2022 release made the idea more urgent. War had deeply affected the producer; the composition and its accompanying visualisation became one way of expressing that experience. Music already written met circumstances that changed its meaning.

Around the same period, All Out made the discography available free as a gesture of support. The hope was for music to have a use beyond the catalogue, offering someone energy and a reason to do something good. It was a small action the producer could take in response to events.

All Out’s musical world did not narrow to a single dark thread. Billain, Bonobo and The Weeknd remained part of it: different approaches to energy, space and emotion. Their company cannot reduce the track to a formula, but it suggests how varied the experience behind its hard exterior could be.

The material interested Evan Gamble Lewis and became part of a meaningful musical exchange. Mankind subsequently appeared in All Out’s programmes, followed by Other Side in 2024. This first version retains the moment an earlier idea acquired a new meaning, when it suddenly became especially important for familiar music to be heard.