French synthwave performer Perturbator -- aka James Kent -- has been making waves in the metal, jazz and electronic communities for the last decade with his unique meld of Krautrock, industrial metal and cinematic electronic sounds. He is heavily inspired by the cyberpunk community and genre-adjacent movies like Blade Runner, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and The Running Man.

In the early 2010s, Kent got his start by releasing music on Soundcloud and Bandcamp under the "name your price" model. He shared his first EP, Night Driving Avenger, in 2012, which he quickly followed with the Nocturne City EP (2012) and 2013's more disco-oriented Sexualizer EP. Kent quickly earned a reputation for being quite prolific, releasing his first LPs in quick succession: 2012's Terror 404 and I Am the Night, followed by 2014's Dangerous Days.

Kent expanded his audience when several of his tracks were featured in the 2012 game Hotline Miami and its 2015 sequel Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. As a thank you, Kent released the 2013 tribute song "Miami Disco," which showed up on his Sexualizer EP.

Perturbator Live in Concert

In 2016, Kent released another LP, The Uncanny Valley, which saw an expanded edition later that year. In 2017, he followed up with the New Model LP. In 2018, he shared two compilation albums, B-Sides and Remixes, Vol. 1 and B-Sides and Remixes, Vol. 2. In 2021, Perturbator released another LP, Lustful Sacraments, which he followed up with 2022's collaborative album Final Light (made with Cult Of Luna guitarist Johannes Persson).

In addition to his work with Perturbator, Kent has a side project called L'Enfant De La Forêt and runs his own label, Music of the Void.

In 2019, Kent appeared in the documentary The Rise of the Synths alongside fellow synthwave composers, including filmmaker John Carpenter, who also narrated the film.

"I think every album should be like a journey," Kent told Vice in 2016 of his genre-jumping mentality. "There's a beginning, there is an end. There are scenes and interludes. It makes sense if you listen to the album from start to finish, but yet you can still listen to separate tracks if you want to. It's the way I like albums in general. When I listen to an album, I listen to the whole of it. I just hope that Perturbator listeners do the same."