Tokky Horror Examine 21st Century Love & Sex On New Single

Hot on the heels of a debut DJ set at Liverpool M&S Bank Arena for the Liverpool Digital Music Festival, the ‘virtual hardcore’ collective Tokky Horror have now released their latest single ‘Simulate Me‘ via Alcopop! Records, the trio also recently announced their first ever full band live appearance for 20th March 2021 at Birkenhead’s brand new Future Yard venue. ‘Simulate Me‘ is another slice of forward-thinking, aggressive, punk-attitude-injected electronica, the track marks Tokky Horror‘s further ascent into their own imagined futuristic landscape of ‘virtual hardcore’ that takes influence from Atari Teenage Riot’s concept of ‘digital hardcore’ and pushes it forward 30 years. 

‘Simulate Me’ can be streamed and purchased here and you can view the video below

ATR were showing punk must always be at the forefront of innovation. It might look backwards to do that, but culturally, politically, and musically it must move forward. ‘Simulate Me’ was about creating an aggressive sound in a modern, virtual way. If punk is about back to basics, it doesn’t get any more basic than just me and a synthesizer. I saw a piece recently that said there have been two great ages in technology, the mechanical and the digital, and we are now entering the third: the virtual. The lockdowns that have been a result of the Coronavirus pandemic have pushed all our lives, including relationships, into a more virtual space. That’s what Tokky Horror is; a virtual band. With ‘Simulate Me’ we wanted to ask what the virtual age will look like for love and sex. We all know this isn’t how an organic process like love works, and that this sort of power would be abused, creating little fulfilment or happiness. Most of us don’t truly know what we want, most of us definitely don’t know what we need. Your ‘perfect partner’ may be someone you never expected, and I feel that the virtual world of love is moving more and more away from organic romance towards a checklist of idealistic criteria.