Ever wondered what it sounds like when a cowboy rides through a neon-lit forest in the year 3029, haunted by ancient magic and memories?

That’s the world of Kindwave— an ambient shapeshifter who doesn't just make music, but conjures entire universes. One moment you're drifting through a medieval dreamscape, the next you're deep in a shadowy cyberpunk alley, or wandering a dusty western ghost town lit by synth starlight. Each suite in this kaleidoscopic collection is a portal, stitched together by emotion, drenched in cinematic atmosphere, and steeped in sonic world-building.

It’s not just a sound — it’s a story. A genre-fluid journey. A mood-powered multiverse.

Enter Net Runner — not just an album, but a full-blown audiovisual descent into a machine-ruled dystopia.
This one-hour cinematic ambient suite doesn’t just suggest a movie — it is one. Hosted on YouTube, the entire project unfolds as a surreal, entirely human-made computer-generated journey, with each track scoring a chapter in the story. Frame by frame, synth by synth, you follow a lone hooded figure navigating flickering alleyways, corrupted skylines, and the silent spaces in between — a ghost in the machine, searching for something still human.

Crafted entirely by human hands in a world increasingly built by algorithms, Net Runner blends brooding sound design, melancholic synthwork, and immersive cyberpunk textures into a single cohesive narrative. Drawing from dark ambient, lo-fi futurism, and sci-fi scoring, it’s a love letter to everything from Blade Runner 2049 and Cyberpunk 2077 to the sonic atmospheres of Carbon Based Lifeforms and Trent Reznor.

This isn’t simple background music. It’s a digital fever dream. A glitch-drenched resistance. A soundtrack for a future already leaking into the present — and it’s waiting for you to press play. Follow us along, as we review the album track by track.

The opening track — just 48 seconds long — hits like a jolt straight to the cortex. Dense with multilayered textures and dripping with cinematic weight, it wastes no time pulling you under. It’s a sonic handshake that grips tight and doesn’t let go, hinting at the atmospheric richness and narrative depth to come. In less than a minute, it sets the tone: this isn’t just an album — it’s an entire world, ready to unfold.

Track two — Against the Machine — deepens the descent. Here, things get primal. Processed electronics mimic ancient textures: tribal drums, jaw harps, ghostly drones that echo like throat singing from a forgotten world. It’s both epic and eerily intimate, evoking the feeling of an old ritual in a future that’s forgotten its past.

Visually, the companion video sets the tone: a hooded figure trudging through a fog-drenched wasteland, lit only by the dim glow of twin red eyes — not quite human, not quite machine. The air is thick, the silence heavy. There's no rain, just a suffocating cloud cover and the weight of something unspoken.

Then the track takes an unexpected turn. The atmosphere shifts — not suddenly, but with the slow gravity of revelation. Warm hues emerge in the visuals: amber sunlight, hints of orange peeking through steel-grey skies. The figure, once aimless, now carries something across its back — a burden, maybe, or a purpose. An echo of Atlas, shouldering the sky.

Musically, this section recalls the haunting spirituality of Eduard Artemyev’s score for Tarkovsky’s Stalker — a sonic exploration of the soul’s terrain. The resonance is uncanny: a quiet pilgrimage through the fog of meaning, loneliness, and the stubborn pull of hope.

Then — convergence. The final third weaves all these threads into one: the tribal echoes return, refracted through the glow of that newfound warmth. Artemyev-like textures ripple beneath, transformed, and the optimistic melodies reappear — altered, matured, layered into the track like a memory that refuses to fade.

As the music swells, the focus shifts. Reverb-heavy strings bloom into the foreground, thick with anticipation. Something is coming. Something important. And with it, the sense that we are now truly leaving the prologue behind — stepping into chapter two of a much larger odyssey.

Track three — Blending In — opens with a jolt of industrial tension: metallic clangs, mechanical groans, and percussive grit that feel torn straight from the playbook of Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. It’s raw, loud, and unapologetically abrasive — like a glitch in the system that refuses to be silenced.

Visually, we meet a new character: a punk-styled woman blowing a bright pink bubblegum bubble, her silhouette flickering against a neon-drenched backdrop straight out of Blade Runner. She’s striking, rebellious, and — despite the noise and color — unmistakably alone.

The track mirrors her with sharp, unsettling textures that scrape and shimmer. But soon, a new layer creeps in: ethereal, vocal-like ambient tones, swirling in and out like ghostly choruses. It’s a sonic nod to ‘90s New Age and ambient artists — maybe even touches of Enigma — adding a surreal, dreamlike contrast to the industrial chaos.

Textures drift and shift like fog: some float forward, others retreat. The soundscape breathes. The woman fades into the background, and our hooded figure returns, still silent, still watching.

Then something unexpected happens. Amid the cold electronics and fractured rhythms, a guitar arpeggio emerges — soft, warm, human. It's a ripple of emotion in an otherwise synthetic world. And just like that, the figure in the hood begins to feel… real. Vulnerable. Alive.

The guitar doesn’t dominate. It glows — like a flicker of soul behind the metal, a thread of warmth woven through the digital haze. In that moment, we’re not just observing the figure. We see them. And they see us back.

The journey continues…

Next up is Bugging Out — and here, things take an unexpected turn.

While the cinematic textures remain, this track kicks down the door with flashes of hard rock aggression and underground club energy. There's a pulse of acid in the rhythm — distorted, twitchy, and alive — like some rogue frequency pulsing through a crowded back-alley rave.

But then comes the metallic clatter — sharp, deliberate, almost martial. It doesn’t just decorate the track; it punctuates it. Like the clinking of gear before a battle, or the nervous rattle of someone loading a weapon in the dark. It’s tense. Tactile. Alive with paranoia.

Bugging Out feels like a fever dream midway through the mission — when the city won’t stop buzzing, when identities blur, and every shadow might be a camera. It’s adrenaline and static, stitched together with flair. And somehow, it still fits perfectly within the overarching narrative: the lone figure, the fractured world, and the steady hum of resistance rising from underneath.

Meditation Ascension shifts the tone — not by abandoning the darkness, but by wrapping it in melody, memory, and a strange kind of hope.

This is one of the album’s most emotionally resonant moments. Subtle bursts of static, like distant rain on forgotten rooftops, wash over the track, creating a soft, ghostly rhythm. Once again, arpeggiated guitars emerge — warm, human, and quietly luminous — offering a fragile comfort amid the brooding ambient haze.

There’s a melancholic beauty here that might resonate with fans of modern emo rap — Lil Peep comes to mind — where vulnerability is dressed in distortion, and sadness finds a strange sweetness in the reverb. It might just be the album’s most melodic, even radio-friendly, offering. But make no mistake — it still lives firmly within the shadows.

Visually, we’re presented with a quiet, intimate scene: a sorrowful woman gazing out a window, caught in her own internal weather. The hooded figure reappears — now standing at the base of a ladder, the only structure between them. The symbolism is thick: the track is called Meditation Ascension, and everything — the music, the imagery, the mood — suggests an upward movement.

Not a literal climb, but a spiritual one. A slow, deliberate rising. Perhaps this is about the soul attempting to reach out — to connect, to heal, to be seen. Or maybe it’s about someone confronting the unreachable within themselves. Either way, it’s a moment of pause, of yearning, and of tentative light breaking through the fog.

The album closes with a quiet epilogue — a single reverb-soaked piano melody, delicate and unadorned, echoing into the void. There are no more beats, no more machines, no more cinematic crescendos. Just one figure, alone at the piano, silhouetted in silence.

We don’t know what comes next.

Maybe the journey continues. Maybe this is just a moment of stillness before another descent — or ascent. But after everything — the shadows, the pulses, the neon ghosts and distant memories — we’re left with something simple. Human. Open-ended.

And maybe that’s the point.

Net Runner was never just about where we were going — it was about feeling your way through the fog. One step at a time. One note at a time.

Thank you for listening.