The electronic music icon and visionary deadmau5’s label mau5trap has premiered “1 of My Kind,” a cinematic, AI-built music video by visual artist and futurist Sutu in collaboration with the anonymous electronic producer The XTTC. The project unfolds as a dark, speculative narrative centered on three masked vigilantes — X, Ruby Knives, and Lil C — who move through fractured systems of power, disruption, and rebellion. Built using AI-generated visuals and driven by hypnotic electro, seductive vocals, and club-ready energy, the video blends electronic music with immersive world-building and sci-fi storytelling.

The release appears on We Are Friends Vol. 12, mau5trap’s long-running annual compilation series known for spotlighting emerging voices and forward-looking projects across the electronic music landscape. Over the years, We Are Friends has served as an early platform for artists including deadmau5, Kx5, Skrillex, REZZ, Zedd, Chris Lake, and Madeon.

Watch the video here:

The full We Are Friends Vol. 12 compilation is available now via mau5trap.

Sutu, the visual artist behind the video, has spent over a decade working at the intersection of music, performance, and emerging media, from immersive virtual concerts for artists like The Weeknd and Jean-Michel Jarre, to large-scale XR storytelling shown at Tribeca, Sundance, Venice, and SXSW.

For XTTC’s debut video, the ambition was deliberately outsized: a vast mansion populated by dozens of costumed figures, ritualised chaos, fire, destruction, the kind of production that would normally require a large crew, significant capital, and substantial legal risk.

As a brand-new project with no capital behind it, downsizing the idea was never the goal. Instead, Sutu spent the past six months developing a hybrid workflow that allowed him to retain full creative control while realising the original vision in full.

Scenes, costumes, and characters were meticulously authored by hand in Photoshop, establishing a clear visual language before any automation entered the process. Performances were grounded in physical reality, with Sutu recording his own body movements and transferring that motion onto the virtual characters. “Embodying the characters is a big part of the process, and what makes it so much fun,”he explains. He looks forward to expanding on this ethos in the eventual live shows, by embodying virtual characters in real time.

AI was then used as a production tool to animate, composite, and scale imagery that had already been designed, directed, and authored. The result is a video that carries the scale of a high-budget production, but with the nuance and cohesion of a single creative voice constructing an entire world from scratch.

Alongside the creative work, Sutu is building repeatable workflows for long-term world-building. The aim is not only to grow XTTC’s universe, but eventually to share these tools with other independent creators.

As conversations around AI in the arts continue to polarise audiences, Sutu hopes the work is understood on its own terms. This isn’t about speed or cost-cutting for its own sake, it’s about independent artists remaining competitive in a landscape dominated by major labels, vast marketing budgets, and algorithmic visibility, without surrendering authorship, intent, or aesthetic control.

The music itself is entirely human-made. The visuals are an extension of the same philosophy: hands-on craft, physical performance, and storytelling, expanded through technology.