The Mechatok movement is upon us. Following the release of the anthemic ‘Expression On Your Face’ with Bladee and Ecco2k, Mechatok returns today with ‘200′, a collaboration with Tokyo rap icon Tohji. The track is the latest taste from Mechatok’s hotly anticipated forthcoming debut album, Wide Awake, out 8 August via Young Recordings. ‘200′ marks the first time Mechatok and Tohji have reunited since the 2022 cult release ‘Ultra Rare’. The music comes alongside a video directed by L-DOPA studios’ dopesolitary and shot by eternalusa and Guz Reichwald.
Speaking on the new music, Mechatok says “I made 200 on a shitty winter day Berlin chopping up a vocal Tohji sent me. I was missing the times me and him would roam the streets of Shibuya at speed around Tokyo in his blue car at night.” It follows earlier singles ‘Addiction,’ ‘Virus Freestyle,’ ‘Expression On Your Face’, and they reinforce Mechatok’s architectural ability to stretch the boundaries of what modern pop and rap can be and preview the ambitious project to come.
WATCH THE MUSIC VIDEO FOR ‘200’ BELOW
A precise and emotionally intuitive body of work, Wide Awake explores identity, authenticity, and expression in an era shaped by algorithms and digital overstimulation. Featuring a carefully curated global cast of contributors including Bladee, Ecco2k, Isabella Lovestory, and Tohji, Wide Awake is a future-facing record that positions Mechatok not just as a sought-after collaborator but as a solo artist in full command of his voice. Tokdemir distills pop components until they become addictive, personal mantras; fragments that feel at once fleeting and enduring. Through the Mechatok persona, he accesses forms of expression that feel paradoxically more intimate and timeless. Wide Awake is available for pre-order in digital and physical (black 12” LP and CD) formats. Released digitally on Friday 8 August 2025 and physically on Friday, 5th September.
PRE-ORDER/SAVE Wide Awake NOW HERE
Mechatok
Friday 8 August, 2025
Young Recordings
Tracklist:
- You Don’t Exist
- Don’t Say No – Mechatok & F5VE
- Expression On Your Face – Mechatok, Bladee & Ecco2k
- Everything
- Virus Freestyle
- 200 – Mechatok & Tohji
- Addiction
- House Of Glass
- She’s A Director – Mechatok & Isabella Lovestory
- When You Left
- Sunkiss
ABOUT MECHATOK
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Anyone familiar with electronic music will know Mechatok, aka Emir Timur Tokdemir. He made his name touring globally and releasing a series of records and collaborations with some of the most forward-thinking artists of the past decade, from Drain Gang (Bladee, Ecco2k, Whitearmor, Thaiboy Digital) to Charli XCX to Lorenzo Senni. Often subtle in delivery, these works circulated widely across underground and adjacent mainstream scenes, quietly shaping the direction of experimental pop and club music and leaving a lasting mark far beyond their origins.
Tokdemir’s upbringing was suffused with music. He took up the guitar aged six and considered becoming a full-time classical guitarist. That trajectory shifted when his father brought home an Apple computer with GarageBand. Enchanted by its creative possibilities, he began producing music and releasing his first tracks via SoundCloud aged 14 – marking the birth of Mechatok.
Around this time, Tokdemir started frequenting clubs and soon set his sights on Berlin. Immersing himself in the city’s cutting-edge electronic scene of the 2010s, he connected with collectives and labels like PAN, Janus, and Staycore (which he later joined). His involvement in this ecosystem deepened quickly, leading to collaborations with Oklou, Toxe (with whom he formed the duo Emiranda), as well as with Ecco2k and Bladee – culminating in their 2020 full-length album Good Luck.
These relationships led to the launch of his club series Natural Mind in 2022 – a space for cross-pollination within his creative community. The series has since hosted performances from the likes of Evian Christ, Mica Levi, Elysia Crampton, Babyxsosa, Vegyn, and Florence Sinclair. Elsewhere, Mechatok contributed to more experimental projects, including Kim Laughton’s Defective Holiday videogame – whose soundtrack, released on Yegorka, took on a second life as an ambient record. His composition work has also appeared in the HORIZON videogame, exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum, and in sound installations at institutions like Haus der Kunst (Munich), MACRO Museum (Rome), and Oude Kerk (Amsterdam).
After years of honing his sound in the studio, Tokdemir is stepping up to share Wide Awake, his kaleidoscopic debut solo album. The record crystallizes a journey that is entirely his own, establishing Mechatok not just as a standout collaborator, but as an undeniable solo artist fully in command of his vision.
Everything on Wide Awake is tied together by a playful yet deeply intuitive sonic palette and a set of core, haiku-like lyrical themes. The album poses questions about the possibility of authenticity and the status of self-expression in the context of algorithmic flattening. Is it possible to exist online without turning yourself into a character? Can your character-self and your “real” self coexist peacefully? If modern software tools make it easy to emulate any sound you want, how do you individuate yourself as an artist? Mechatok declines to propose utopian solutions and chooses instead to live with strange ambiguities, tapping their generative potential.
Having built up his community of fellow travelers over time, contributing production, guest features, and bonding over shared sensibilities, Wide Awake finds this network coming together in a new striking context. While the album features a striking cast—Bladee, Ecco2k, Isabella Lovestory, Tohji – and a host of other notable vocal samples hidden in the sounds, it’s far from being a feature-driven album. Each contribution has been intentionally selected and sculpted, spanning a wide emotional and stylistic spectrum while all filtered through Tokdemir’s precise vision.
His collaborators’ contributions forming not “guest verses,” but phonic collages; vocal material abstracted, reduced and reassembled from their original takes into hyper-specifically chopped musical components and textures.
The result shines as a meticulously crafted electronic pop opus, showcasing the producer’s ability to synthesize and reconfigure bracing flights of sensation and generate earworms at will. The album engages deeply with various pop archetypes, transforming them into mediums in and of themselves.
Tokdemir treats Mechatok as a kind of fictionalization experiment – an avatar that allows him to explore new facets of himself and brings a sense of openness and freedom to the creative process. He cites artists like Daft Punk and Gorillaz as inspirations: timeless figures who turned the concept of the artistic project itself into an artwork, finding liberation in creating from a third-person perspective.
Wide Awake luxuriates in overstimulation and the fragmented listening habits of the 21st century. Tokdemir distills pop components until they become addictive, personal mantras; fragments that feel at once fleeting and enduring. Through the Mechatok persona, he accesses forms of expression that feel paradoxically more intimate – and more timeless.
