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Gesaffelstein

Mike Lévy (French pronunciation: [majk levi]; born 24 June 1987), known professionally as Gesaffelstein (German pronunciation: [ɡəˈzafl̩ʃtaɪ̯n]), is a French music programmer, DJ, songwriter and record producer from Lyon. He has worked alongside artists such as The Weeknd, Daft Punk, Kanye West, A$AP Rocky, Electric Youth, Haim, Miss Kittin, The Hacker, Jean-Michel Jarre, Lil Nas X and Pharrell Williams.

Name

Gesaffelstein is a portmanteau of Gesamtkunstwerk ("total artwork" in German, also the title of an album by the American electro group Dopplereffekt) and Albert Einstein.

Career

Mike Lévy was born in Lyon, France, into a Jewish family, in June 1987. He started producing music at the age of sixteen when he first played an analog synthesizer. He released his first EP in 2008 through the label OD Records. In 2009, he founded the independent label Zone with The Hacker, Alex Reynaud and David Rimokh.

In July 2012, Gesaffelstein made the cover of DJ Mag with Brodinski. The same year, his track "Viol" was used by Citroën and Givenchy advertisements. He co-produced two tracks on Yeezus, the sixth album by American rapper Kanye West, including the lead single "Black Skinhead" and "Send It Up", both tracks produced with West, Daft Punk, Brodinski and Mike Dean. On 28 October 2013, Gesaffelstein released his debut album Aleph under Parlophone Records and OWSLA (in North America only), which had been recorded since 2011. His remix of "Shockwave" by The Hacker is featured in the 2013 video game Grand Theft Auto V, on the Soulwax FM radio station.

In 2015, Gesaffelstein released the single "Conquistador" in collaboration with Jean-Michel Jarre, which is present on the album Electronica 1: The Time Machine. He also produced the soundtrack for the French-Belgian 2015 film Maryland, directed by Alice Winocour. In early 2018, he produced the tracks "I Was Never There" and "Hurt You" from The Weeknd's My Dear Melancholy, EP.

Gesaffelstein signed to Columbia Records in November 2018, with whom he released the lead single "Reset" from his second studio album Hyperion in the same month. In January 2019, he released a collaboration with The Weeknd titled "Lost in the Fire" as the second single from Hyperion, and later in March 2019 released another collaboration with Pharrell Williams titled "Blast Off". Hyperion was released on 8 March 2019, to mixed reviews. On 3 October 2019, Gesaffelstein announced his surprise EP Novo Sonic System, consisting of 6 tracks, which was released the following day.

For Apple's October 2021 event, his track "Orck" was used as the pre-intro and outro theme music.

Gesaffelstein announced a collaboration with fellow Kanye West collaborator KayCyy. TW20 50, an EP containing 3 collaborative songs between the two of them, released on 11 March 2022.

On 6 March 2023, Skrillex confirmed that Lévy's third album had been finished.

KayCyy and Lévy's second collaborative EP, TW2052, was released on 26 May 2023.

On 9 February 2024, Lévy's third album, Gamma, was announced, with a release date of 29 March 2024 revealed six days later.

Musical style

Mixmag describes Gesaffelstein's style as being a "dark and threatening techno, though enchanting"; The Inrocks see it as "black, ultra-violent music, [which] revives the techno fundamentals, the intransigence of Underground Resistance, the mental and obsessive structures of Drexciya, the contemporary power and more". Megan Buerger from the Washington Post describes his style as a mixture of dark and underground music, and notes that a specialty of the artist is his use of silences to create a "tension" before a "raucous explosion of bass and percussion".

Rolling Stone magazine sees his music as being "a little more aggressive and punk-rock than normal".

Influences

Gesaffelstein cites Dopplereffekt, Kraftwerk, and new wave formations from the 80s such as D.A.F. or Nitzer Ebb all as references. He has also said Joy Division and The Hacker influenced his work.