America’s most wanted man also reveals he’s a chiptune fan.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has collaborated with French electronic pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre on a techno track to be released this weekend.

The unusual team-up came about after Jarre was interviewed for the Guardian last year. He asked if he could be put in touch with Snowden, whose revelations about US government surveillance were published in the newspaper.

Jarre had come up with a “hectic, obsessive techno track, trying to illustrate the idea of this crazy quest for big data on one side and the manhunt for this one young guy by the CIA, NSA and FBI on the other,” he explained, calling Snowden “an absolute hero of our times”.

‘Exit’ features Snowden’s voice (speaking, not singing) and appears on Jarre’s forthcoming album of collaborations, Electronica Volume II: The Heart Of Noise, alongside tracks featuring Pet Shop Boys, Jeff Mills, Cyndi Lauper and many more.

The pair conducted a 90 minute conversation over Skype before recording the vocals, and Jarre later travelled to Moscow to shoot a video with Snowden.

“The whole Electronica project is about the ambiguous relationship we have with technology: on the one side we have the world in our pocket, on on the other, we are spied on constantly,” added Jarre.

“There are tracks about the erotic relationship we have with technology, the way we touch our smartphones more than our partners, about CCTV surveillance, about love in the age of Tinder. It seemed quite appropriate to collaborate not with a musician but someone who literally symbolises this crazy relationship we have with technology.”

In the video, Snowdon says he’s a fan of electronic music and even chiptune, saying: “The melodies I remember with the most fondness are from video games.” Wonder if he enjoyed our 100 greatest video game soundtracks?

Electronica Volume II is due on May 6.

 

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