Sonny E. reinvents rockabilly for the digital age with 'Time'

Few artists embody the restless cross-pollination of subcultures quite like Sonny E. Emerging from the fertile chaos of late-20th century youth movements, his sound is less a genre than a collision, a high-octane dialogue between rockabilly’s primal spark and the machine-driven futurism of electronic music.

Steeped in everything from the sleaze of The Cramps and the unhinged psychobilly of The Meteors, to the synth-punk pulse of Suicide and the proto-techno experiments of Mantronix, Sonny’s palette was forged in the squats and clubs of Hackney. His teenage obsessions turned into practice: cheap guitars, hacked-together synths, and the kind of DIY ingenuity that would eventually morph into a lifelong pursuit.

The result is what Sonny dubs 'Cyberbilly': a genre as raw as it is futuristic. Imagine Hasil Adkins wrestling with Derrick May in a neon-lit basement, or a Teddy Boy catapulted into the rave era with nothing but a laptop and a stubborn sense of swagger. It’s rockabilly’s rebel DNA spliced with the circuitry of techno, nostalgic yet forward-charging, playful yet defiant.

This ethos was sharpened by Sonny’s immersion in rave culture and the Balearic melting pot of pre-superclub Ibiza. Tracks like Yello’s The Race became early sparks, while DJs Alfredo and Pippi offered a vision of dance music as something fluid, eclectic, and unbound. That sense of freedom remains at the core of Sonny’s work today.

Now, after decades behind the decks of the world’s most notorious nightspots, Sonny E. has stripped things back to their essence. 'Time' is not a gimmick but a culmination, the sound of three decades of nightlife distilled into something fiercely personal. It’s a one-man band for the digital age: raw rock’n’roll energy shot through with sci-fi beats, a genre collision that refuses to sit still.

Sonny E. isn’t just reviving rockabilly’s ghost, he’s wiring it into the mainframe.

Stream it now: