"Ambor, it’s time to grow up! The 90s are over." I used to hear that phrase a lot around the age of 27. I was still stuck on my first loves—those teenage heroes who had become living legends or tragic icons, now recycled by mainstream pop-rock culture.

In 1991, as a 14-year-old from a working-class background, you couldn't miss the metal and grunge tidal wave. Looking back, I admit I was obsessively devoted—a sort of "Space Cadet" drifting in his own bubble, totally disconnected from the real world with that music as my only onboard radio.

Many years later, in the summer of 2004, I headed to Bordeaux. At Zoobizarre, I met Sgurrr; they were blowing everyone away with their avant-garde noise show. We instantly bonded over our shared "geekeries." Friendships grew around noise, glitch, and IDM, but also that relic of the last century: Metal. It was there that Freeka introduced me to James Plotkin’s Phantomsmasher album. It was a massive wake-up call. I was fascinated by the record's mystical atmosphere and intensity, with its math-hardcore drums pulverized by time-stretching.

I already had a pile of power metal and grunge demos in reserve. Back in Montpellier, I decided to perform a radical mutation on those tracks, following the method of my early EPs: relentless, excessive micro-stutter editing. At the time, everyone was trying "sync skippin’." I actually worshipped Kid 606's remix of "Straight Outta Compton," but I felt there was still an uncharted territory to explore. This work eventually became the Metal Computer demo, shared with friends and released as MP3s on my website.

I integrated these sounds into my live sets between 2005 and 2007, making them almost part of my signature style. Then came the doubt. I remember one of the last show with this setlist, where I received this critique: "It feels like you're playing in your bedroom." Truth be told, with only my laptop as a crew, I looked like a lonely nerd trying to embody a power that likely demanded the sweat of a real band (or at least a less "DIY" scenography). I had to grow up. The energy I was pouring into it was just an echo of my 90s teenage vibrations; it was time to turn the page.

Others, like Drumcorps or Igorrr, would later brilliantly lay the foundations of this improbable genre, though in a much less melancholy form than mine. They crystallized the "metal-glitch" sound I had fantasized about.

I am releasing this record today, remastered but kept in its original "juice." I embrace the production's naivety and that tortured young rocker vibe: it’s the logbook of a Space Cadet who didn't yet know he’d have to land, but it's a part of me I could never deny.