How It Was Made: Electrons In Slow Motion – MEKANIKARU (Dark Cinematic Electronica)

Electrons In Slow Motion (EISM)’s new album MEKANIKARU is a fully engineered world disguised as a concept album. Before the first synth patch was built or the first rhythmic fragment took shape, the project began with a question: what does unpredictability sound like in a future designed to eliminate it? Set in a near-future city governed by flawless algorithms, MEKANIKARU follows a lone negotiator tasked with entering the synthetic mind of the metropolis itself. Their mission (reclaiming the right to randomness) became the thematic blueprint for every musical decision on the record. Mechanical pulses, fractured glitches, and algorithmic patterns represent the city’s computational order; atmospheric melodies, noise fragments, and moments of harmonic drift embody the fragile human spark pushing back against it. Today, we’ll explore how EISM (the alias of Bucharest-born artist Marius Copel) transformed this narrative into sound: from the hybrid of analog synths and digital processing shaping the album’s neo-industrial textures, to the ambient-cinematic layers that mirror the psychological depth of the agent’s journey. Known for crafting immersive audiovisual environments and for projects spanning film, installation, and avant-electronica, EISM approaches MEKANIKARU as both composer and world-builder, sculpting each element as if it were part of the city’s living machinery. What follows is a look under the hood of the track “Orochi, The Serpent Woman“, and looking into the choices and tools that built this album. If you’re interested in creating electronic cinematic experiences that tell stories and build worlds, read on to see how EISM did it here. The entire project. HYPERION Hyperion is a very interesting and playful multi-layer modular synth. Several core sonic layers in “Orochi, The Serpent Woman” were built using Hyperion VST as a multi-instance sound engine rather than a single-patch instrument. Instead of treating Hyperion as a lead or pad source, multiple instances were stacked and distributed across the spectrum: Low-register instances handle sub-harmonic weight and slow movement, Mid-range instances generate harmonic density and emotional mass, High-register instances provide air, motion, and spectral detail. Much of the sonic body of “Orochi, The Serpent Woman” was sculpted through Hyperion — not as a single voice, but as a chorus of synthetic organisms layered, detuned, and emotionally misaligned on purpose. Hyperion becomes less a synth and more a machine choir in this track. Several instances run in parallel, each one breathing slightly differently, occupying its own pocket of space and frequency, creating a shifting organism rather than a flat sound. Through stacked oscillators, drifting modulation, and slow harmonic corrosion, Hyperion behaves like a living circuit — unstable, sensual, and faintly dangerous. The sound becomes thick not by volume, but by density of intention: multiple realities blurred into one voice. It’s not a lead instrument here. It’s the atmosphere thinking. The result is a layered, cinematic surface that feels ancient and futuristic at the same time — like a myth being computed in real-time. If you’re working in cinematic electronica, or techno-noir sound design, Hyperion is exceptional for building depth through layering rather than relying on single “big” patches. Run multiple instances across low, mid, and high registers with slightly different modulation speeds and filter movement — it creates motion that feels alive instead of looped. Treat it less like a lead synth and more like a texture engine, and let each layer breathe in its own space with different reverbs and stereo positions. The power of Hyperion is not in making one sound loud, but in making many sounds feel like one organism. TAL-U-NO-LX TAL-U-NO-LX is a software emulation of the Roland Juno-60 / Juno-106 architecture, built around classic virtual-analog subtractive synthesis with a single-oscillator signal path enhanced by sub-oscillator, noise, and a signature stereo chorus. Its sound is defined by tight envelopes, a fast low-pass filter, and a chorus circuit that introduces subtle detuning and stereo movement, making it ideal for warm pads, evolving drones, and unstable-sounding textures. In darker and cinematic genres, TAL-U-NO-LX excels at producing slow-burn atmospheres, degraded harmonics, and wide, melancholic pads when driven gently into saturation and modulation. The simplicity of the engine forces strong sound design choices — filter motion and chorus become the main expressive tools. Used in layers, it adds emotional weight and nostalgia-coded color that contrasts perfectly with more modern or digital synths. TAL-U-NO-LX is perfect for creating emotionally heavy pads and melancholic harmonic beds with very little effort. Use the chorus generously and keep the filter slowly moving to get that drifting, unstable “nocturnal” character that works so well under darker productions. It shines when layere