KING UNKNOWN 23–25

In 2023, I returned to my hometown in Puglia, Italy, entering a period defined as much by absence as by possibility, no work, little direction, and a growing sense of creative stagnation. Rather than forcing originality, I turned to remixing as a way to reactivate my process, not as reinterpretation, but as displacement.

At the same time, I found myself revisiting fragments of my childhood through classic Nintendo games, Mario, Zelda, and especially Pokémon. What resurfaced was not just nostalgia, but a specific memory, an early internet myth surrounding the Pokémon “Unown,” and the idea that somewhere within the game there existed a hidden “king” of this cryptic species. On Spanish-speaking forums, this figure had a name, “Rey Unown.”

This notion, of something unofficial, unverifiable, yet collectively imagined, became a framework. As the number of remixes grew, I began to question their status. They were neither original works nor authorized reinterpretations. Instead, they started to resemble something else entirely, artifacts without a clear origin, similar to the misnamed or corrupted files that circulated through peer-to-peer networks like eMule, tracks that mimicked familiarity while subtly distorting it.

King Unknown emerged from this ambiguity. Rather than presenting the music as an album or as part of my official discography, I chose to release it with the same naïve, decentralized logic of early internet forums, where authorship was blurred, information was unstable, and meaning was collectively constructed.

What began as a personal exercise gradually extended beyond its initial context. The project expanded into three mixtapes, and unexpectedly, some of these tracks found their way into DJ sets and tracklists across different scenes.

As a final gesture, I decided to curate a selection of my favorite tracks from the three mixtapes and release them for the first time on Nina Protocol and YouTube, including three bonus tracks.

Thank you for all the support.

Truly yours,
Tony