Vaporwave diary

Vaporwave

Ever since I first heard the term Vaporwave, looked at some of the imagery that is associated with the genre and heard some of the music, I have been heavily intrigued by it. In my opinion there are no other genres out there right now where imagery and music combine so well together. In the case of James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual, the music conjures up the idea of a hyperstylized surface without any depth reminiscent of most commodities in capitalist society. Chuck Person's chop and screw take on '80s and '90s pop and R&B classics on Eccojams Vol. 1 primarily provokes a feeling of uncanny nostalgia. While Yung Bae's Bae, perhaps not completely vaporwave but nevertheless within the same realm, is simply twenty minutes of blissful, innocent joy. The following documentary explains clearly the origin of the genre and the way it will (or should) move forwards:

As the narrator mentions in the video, the strength of the genre lies for a large part in the way uncanny sounds, that reminisce mall muzak, pass through your ears as fleeting and ethereal sounds; sounds that you hear once and probably never hear again, an experience I can subscribe to. Nevertheless, what I want to do with this blogpost is bring these airy and fugitive sounds back to earth by taking a little time to reflect on what I hear. In this blogpost I will therefore annotate all the vaporwave albums I listen to, hopefully in order to get a better grip on all the intricacies and differences within the genre, while also taking the time to appreciate what is actually being made. (I will not make new entries as I do with films, but continuously update this post until it hopefully reaches something of substantial length).


Bl00dwave - U L T R A D R E A M (2015)
To me, this album conveys a midnight car drive through Japan's urban landscape where, despite the smooth surface of everything around you, you cannot escape an indeterminate feeling of incredible melancholy. Last.fm tags the artist as retrowave, which I guess make sense due to its reliance on retro vocal-jazz and R&B songs from the '80s that have been heavily slowed down, chopped up, or just generally creepified. Sometimes it includes the sound of a driving vehicle, a person browsing through different radio-stations, or the radio skipping, thus enhancing the experience of immersion in this melancholic midnight drive. All in all, an amazing and moody vaporwave album that despite its tones of melancholy also contains enough positive notes to balance out. My favorite song on here is '2 4 H O U R S', which samples Fifth of Heaven's 'Just a Little More'.

James Ferraro - Far Side Virtual

Chuck Person - Eccojams Vol. 1 (2010)

That this is a great release should come as no surprise once we know that Chuck Person, aka Daniel Lopatin, usually operates under the moniker of Oneohtrix Point Never, the ambient/plundertronics producer who has released a number of critically acclaimed albums and worked on the soundtrack of The Bling Ring. While this album is not as known as his later albums this is a crucial vaporwave release since it was one of the first ones to refashion nostalgic '80s tunes in a manner that become so ubiquitous in vaporwave nowadays. The first track of the album is a droney repitition of "hurry boy she's waiting there for you", taken from Toto's 'Africa', thereby setting the tone for the rest of the album. Uncanny, nostalgic memories of a past that we, speaking for myself here, have never fully experienced. Another highlight is the revision of JoJo's 'Too Little Too Late that transitions smoothly into Ian van Dahl's 'Castles in the Sky'. But basically every song has the same eery quality that makes this an enthralling release from start to finish.


Yung Bae - Bae


Hong Kong Express - HK


GNUSWVS - Itale Cisco Vol. 1

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