MKSTN (em-kay-es-tee-en) invites listeners into a world where analog warmth meets digital precision, where existential questions float over driving beats, and where intimacy is coded into every frequency. A Toronto-based electronic artist and producer, MKSTN has been quietly carving out his own dreamlike corner of the music landscape. His newest single, “Adorn,” is the first glimpse into his full-length album CONTENT, and it’s nothing short of a hypnotic manifesto. At once a nod to classic drum and bass and a modern meditation on identity in the digital age, “Adorn” pulses with urgency beneath layers of introspective vocals and lush, immersive textures.
The story of MKSTN is one of transformation and relentless creativity. Beginning as a street dancer, he was drawn to the offbeat rhythms and obscure sounds of artists like Booka Shade and Junior Boys, often creating intricate mixes for choreography long before he ever thought of producing music himself. A sudden injury redirected that energy, pushing him to invest in his first pieces of gear instead of a trip to LA. That pivot opened a new portal, and what emerged was an artist devoted to building sonic worlds that feel both cinematic and deeply personal.
With “Adorn,” MKSTN offers not just a track, but an entire mood. The drums, recorded directly to tape with collaborators Chino De Villa and Braden Sauder, are fragmented and rebuilt to evoke the feel of a sampled rhythm section, grounding the track in a tactile groove that’s both nostalgic and forward-looking. Above it, synths shimmer and vocals drift, balancing the emotional weight with a kind of weightless grace. A quietly haunting line—“Do you have the right stuff?”—echoes through the mix, hinting at the bigger questions the full album promises to explore.
CONTENT plays with a double meaning: being content, and the endless stream of content we consume. This duality—between peace and chaos, between connection and isolation—runs through every note and lyric. MKSTN, whose sound fuses chillwave, dream pop, and lofi house, leans more than ever into live instrumentation and vocal performance. He becomes the center of his own sonic universe, his voice adding a ghostly vulnerability to songs steeped in analog synths, omnichord swells, and trip-hop undercurrents. Comparisons to Beach House, M83, or Kevin Parker feel apt, but MKSTN’s work is filtered through something more fluid—more like a lucid dream slipping into a memory you can’t quite place.
His artistic world stretches beyond music into the visual. For CONTENT, MKSTN employs mixed media in every aspect of the release, printing, scanning, filming, and re-recording images to reflect the impermanence of digital life. In doing so, he not only questions how we consume art, but also how we remember it—how quickly something can fade into the noise after it’s been shared. The fleeting nature of online connection becomes a theme not just in lyric, but in every pixel and beat.
“Adorn” marks a new chapter for MKSTN, a signpost for what’s to come. It is not only a showcase of his evolving production and vocal talent but also an invitation to experience music that demands more than passive listening. It asks for reflection. It challenges perception. It offers beauty wrapped in contradictions, emotion wrapped in code. And this is only the beginning.
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mkstnnn