When an act never really goes away or goes silent in this always-on era, the idea of a new launch event – symbolically closing off one creative project and roaring into a new one – becomes a slightly more tenuous undertaking. 

Especially in the EDM world, where tracks roll out steadily and remixes (either remixing someone else or having someone else remix you) plug any gaps, the notion of a campaign reset is harder to define. 

Yet you can do this if your creative re-set is not so much about putting out new records/playing more shows and is more about building your own metaverse. 

This is what popular cake-jettisoning DJ and producer Steve Aoki is doing with the creation of what he, inevitably, is calling the A0K1VERSE (which looks like it should be either a website password or a professional footballer’s car number plate in the 1980s). 

The A0K1VERSE is presented as “a new ecosystem bridging real-world experiences with web2 and web3 by rewarding NFT collectors and creating new experiences for members”. It has also been described as a “tokenized social club”. 

What, you might rightly ask, does that actually mean? And what, you might equally ask, does it entail? 

There are, we are promised, tokens that will offer fans access to digital and real-world experiences, content and rewards from not just Aoki but also from the brands he works with as well as the people/companies he collaborates with on NFTs. 

These include tour tickets, digital and physical collectables, virtual metaverse performances as well as clothing and other wearables.

At the heart of the A0K1VERSE is the user’s passport (developed by NFT platform Manifold) that can be secured by gathering up A0K1 credits and, depending on how many points a user has, they can be exchanged for things like access to NFT pre-sales, tickets to personal appearances and more. 

No one can accuse him of jumping on the music NFT bandwagon late – he was one of the first to realise you could make millions quickly here in the gold rush days of early 2021. It is, however, a busy space and is not going to be for all fans, especially given that the hoops they have to jump through in order to get set up are numerous and convoluted.

As a launch, it was noisy. But making a lot of noise does not always generate a lot of excitement; sometimes it just gives everyone a headache.