Cadence Weapon (Rollie Pemberton) follows up his 2021 Polaris Prize-winning Parallel World today with ROLLERCOASTER. For it, he enlisted a group of likeminded Canadians and “fellow Black weirdos” to produce and collaborate, including Bartees Strange, Loraine James, Austra, Jacques Greene, Machinedrum, Grandtheft, and more. Lyrically, the album explores our internet-and-screen-obsessed lives. “I was observing parallels between the fraudulence of certain institutions and the fake news of the internet,” Pemberton explains. “With bots and people being willfully false for profit, the internet has led to a total obfuscation of reality.” You can listen to the whole thing below.

With the album’s concept in mind, Rollie made us a list of his 11 favorite songs about technology, including tracks by Silicon Teens, Maceo, The Cleaners from Venus, Deltron 3030, Chris Spedding and more. He threw in one of his ROLLERCOASTER songs for context as well. Listen to a playlist with all his picks and read his commentary on each below.

CADENCE WEAPON – 10 FAVORITE SONGS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY

Silicon Teens – “TV Playtime”
‘80s synth pop was a major influence on ROLLERCOASTER. Quirky songs like this have always resonated with me. What I like about this track is how it comments on the social impact that technology has on people. It’s a great time capsule of the major cultural influence of television that has mostly been replaced with the internet today.

New Musik – “Warp”
New Musik is one of the most underrated groups ever. I was really obsessed with them when I was working on my album. The “system” being referring to here is kept intentionally vague. I love how the music is perfectly synced up with the concept, the music warping and distorting as it goes on.

Neggy Gemmy – “Playing on My Phone”
This song does such a good job of capturing the ecstatic thrill of fooling around on your phone. It’s also seriously addictive and feels like eating a ton of candy in a short period of time. It’s great how the song is less than a minute long, it’s literally like a ringtone. I like the emphasis she puts on the word love in “I love playing on my phone.”

Basil Kirchin – “Silicon Chip”
I actually first heard this song in the credits of M3GAN, which I absolutely loved. Musically, these songs about technology are often tiny glimpses of what the artist thinks “the future” should sound like. “Silicon Chip” is a great example of that. “We must be friends / let us be friends” seems to predict the social media age.

Chris Spedding – “Video Life”
Imagine what it must have been like when VHS first hit the scene in the late ‘70s. It must have been so surreal to be able to film your life and look back on it in the comfort of your home. There’s an elegiac tone to the music here. Chris Spedding singing about watching himself on tape is tinged with a fear of the unknown, an anxiety that should be familiar to anyone who has ever made a TikTok video.

The Cleaners From Venus – “Gamma Ray Blue”
I first heard this song on a Mediafire zip of a cassette rip that a friend sent me many years ago. It’s amazing how many layers of technology that a piece of art will go through over time. I love the elevation of the mundane in the subject matter here. Martin Newell paints such a vivid portrait of watching a TV on mute while bathed in “ethereal blue.” When he sings, “Then the telephone rings / And you’re there in my head,” it reminds me how incredibly intimate a phone call can be.

Suburban Lawns – “Computer Date”
I briefly considered covering this song on my album. Back in 1981, dating through a computer was an abstract concept but now it’s obviously very common. “Our data was merged / And love was born” is such a good line, I like the sarcastic tone of the whole song.

Whodini – “Rap Machine”
The beat on this one is super hard, it’s actually produced by Conny Plank. I love hearing Whodini rap about not being replaced by machines. There’s opposition to the idea of the rap machine in the song but there’s also some optimism about a future filled with rapping robots. Sometimes old school rap is actually the most futuristic stuff out there.

Maceo – “Nextel Chirp”
Ringtone rap! A whole subgenre of music directly tied to an emergent technology. And this song in particular is all about the pitfalls of a specific form of tech. This beat is still absolutely incredible.

El Jubo & KEY! – “Online”
Tony Seltzer is one of my favourite producers right now. Love the bounce on this one. KEY! is criminally underrated as well, he’s gotta be one of the most creative rappers of the last decade. Love how ecstatic he sounds about meeting a woman online.

Deltron 3030 – “Virus”
Listening back to ROLLERCOASTER, I’m reminded of this song by Deltron 3030. He was definitely a big influence on me when I was in high school. It’s rare to hear anti-capitalist sentiment in rap like you do here with Del rapping about crushing corporations and shutting down the White House with a computer virus. I love how deeply he commits to the concept, it feels like an episode of Mr. Robot.

Cadence Weapon – “My Computer”
I wanted to replicate the feeling of going down a Wikipedia wormhole in music form, a fusillade of tech jargon that adds up to my perspective on the internet.

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Cadence Weapon is on tour this spring for ROLLERCOASTER and plays Brooklyn’s Elsewhere Zone One on May 3 with Fatboi Sharif.

Cadence Weapon Tour Dates:
Fri. April 19 – Hamilton, ON @ Bridgeworks
Sat. April 20 – Toronto, ON @ TD Music Hall
Wed. May 1 – Quebec City, QC @ Pantoum
Thu. May 2 – Montreal, QC @ Système
Fri. May 3 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere Zone One
Sat. May 4 – Washington, DC @ Quarry House Tavern
Sun. Aug. 4 – Montreal, QC @ Osheaga Festival