#and floral shoppe. but that's less obscure

[batemanofficial]

lesbians when the obscure vaporwave albums they love are sold out on vinyl

[7-4-8-7]

Vaporwave

Vaporwave is an Internet-born electronic-music microgenre that consistently divides critics and listeners alike its singularly strange aesthetic and guerrilla methods of production. Although it has its roots in avant-garde electronic pioneers such as John Cage and culture jammers like the San Francisco band Negativland, vaporwave as a proper genre and scene emerged only in the early 2010s and in just a few years it has prompted furious online debate. Largely ignored by the mainstream press, vaporwave started online making itself the first genre of music to be completely globalized. It began as an aesthetic that was popularized by an obsession with 80’s and 90’s subculture using glitch art, early digital graphic design, Roman busts, a fascination with tropical landscapes, Japanese Culture, Cyberpunk aesthetics and the redistribution of old 80’s elevator music inspired from funk, new age, and smooth jazz.

With the invention of the electronic musical sampler, gaps and remediation took new forms. Now, recorded music can be easily manipulated to create new pieces of music, and entire songs could be constructed solely out of audio samples shorn of context and reference. It started in 2010 when two albums with two distinctively different styles merged together to form what we call now Vaporwave. An experimental electronic artist, Daniel Lopatin, known by a pseudonym, Oneohtrix Point Never, released a mixtape online under the alter ego Chuck Person called Eccojams Vol. 1: A series of repetitive 80s hits that were slowed down and sliced apart usually repeating themselves on the same course throughout the entire song. Far Side Virtual, an electronic album created by James Ferraro using themes of globalization and internet culture.

These two styles merged together with a strange largely unknown release titled Floral Shoppe in late 2011. A strange synthesis of 80s soul and funk tunes, slowed down, chopped up and repackaged as a bizarre, eerie, droning sound that makes the listener easily uncomfortable. Floral Shoppe quickly popularized making the artist Vetroid under the pseudonym Macintosh Plus. One song, in particular, garnered a lot of praise in popularity and it was the 䝸サ䝣䝷ンク420 / 現代のコン䝢ュ䞊 (Computing of Lisa Frank 420 //Contemporary), which features a slowed down Diana Ross song “It’s Your Move”, drowning on the misheard lyrics of “It’s all in your head” repeated multiple times for the course of seven minutes.

Album Cover: Macintosh Plus; Floral Shoppe

Video: Macintosh Plus - リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー (Music Video)

One of the defining characteristics of vaporwave tracks is this element of repetition, which draws attention to the uncanniness of audio looping. Repetition means mechanical processes are underway. For the human, repetition spells a loss of humanity in favor of the machine. Its tracks foreground the glitch disquieting splendor, a glitch does not indicate a “collapse of the machinery” but instead cues us into realizing that “something is wrong”. Malfunctioning technology becomes unfamiliar, no longer an unquestioned extension of ourselves. Vaporwave is one artistic style that seeks to rearrange our relationship with electronic media by forcing us to recognize the unfamiliarity of ubiquitous technology.

The "Anonymous" Music

Obscure, bizarre, pieces of slowed down stolen music mostly made by adolescents in the basements of their suburban homes all across the world. It’s been described by some as a digital punk movement with ideals that counter most natural concepts of ownership by making Vaporwave an anonymous art for anonymous people. Vaporwave has often been interpreted as “a degrading of commercial music” in an attempt to “reveal the false promises of capitalism”. Music writer Adam Harper of Dummy Mag describes Vaporwave as “ironic and satirical or truly accelerationist”, nothing that the name itself was both a nod to vaporware, a name for products that are introduced but never released and the idea of libidinal energy being subjected to relentless sublimation under capitalism.

There have been a growing number of artists during 2012 and 2013 making albums that mimic the same sound of early Vaporwave but refraining from delving into the overused theme of capitalism and 80’s nostalgia. These artists were mostly inspired from a largely underground producer under the alias 骨 架的 (Skeleton), released his self-titled album in October of 2010. It was a collection of spooky slowed down songs that influenced a new wave of artists all of which challenged the preconceived notion that Vaporwave only had one style and one overarching goal. Infinity Frequencies, a Japanese producer who started making Vaporwave in mid-2012 with his first release euphoria is best known for his computer trilogy spanning from 2013-2014, “Computer Death”, “Computer Decay” and “Computer Afterlife”. The off-putting sounds reflect a sense of emptiness and stability: a reflection of a soulless existence of modern technology.  Eco Virtual, a distinctively anonymous artist made Atmospheres 第1 in January of 2013, a whole album that combines samples with completely original music that mimic the sounds normally heard on a weather channel. Using slowed drawn-out melodies that were meant to be groaning and uncomfortable for the listener. The album grew in popularity and the artist remains anonymous stating that the whole appeal of vaporwave is the use of remaining unknown.

Album Cover: Eco Virtual;  Atmospheres 第1

Video:  Eco Virtual - Atmospheres 第1 Full Album.

In a world where nothing is private, it is refreshing to find something that feels like it was found in the dumpster of a thrift shop, where it does not matter where it came from or who made it but only that it takes you elsewhere, somewhere distant from reality. Eco Virtual 

Hong Kong Express created a small Band Camp label with a 20-minute release titled 浪漫的夢想(Romantic dream). It is described by the artist as a mysterious romantic trip to the neon haze of a night in Hong Kong. A journey of subway carriages and fast cars, a love both lost and found and a connection between souls. It was created to be intentionally melodramatic and cinematic as well as being just a simple side project for a small time producer. This artist became the catalyst that changed everything about what Vaporwave was. Dream Catalog grew, a record label that releases music with the philosophy that designates vaporwave is not to be about irony or capitalism but about telling a narrative through music. This revolutionized the way in which concept albums are created and albums like 슈퍼마켓Yes! We’re Open by 식료품groceries in which we see a simple collection of sounds normally heard in a run-down grocery store but changed to tell a narrative of escapism and fantasy. Dream Catalog currently has over 95 releases all of which tell stories of melancholic dreams and escapism to a distant world, free of isolation and loneliness. The label helped a new wave of prolific artists that have been pushing the genre in a direction of positive growth, showcasing that vaporwave is not dead but simply reborn.

Vaporwave as an Art Movement

On August 16, 2014, Dream Catalog released a controversial album titled Floral ShopPE 2 by The Darkest Future. This album just seemed to push the boundaries of experimentation to te point of becoming unlistenable. Do people like this album because they are truly interested in such an inaccessible challenging and experimental music? This led to even further thought on the subject: how important is the aesthetic presentation to vaporwave as a genre to enjoy things more if it is presented with interesting imagery and less so if it is presented with something that is aesthetically displeasing? Vaporwave started to be converse in not a new genre but in an art movement in general.  

In 2015, Hong Kong Express, frequent collaborator and co-owner of the Dream Catalog label and telepath テレパシー能力者, known for his ethereal dreamy releases, created ２８１４, a dystopian concept album with all original music using drawn out piano chords, Blade Runner synthesizers, and a heavy bass track. This release has slowly become the essential vaporwave album taking over the role Floral Shoppe has dominated for several years furthering that vaporwave is not a joke but a legitimate art form.

Album Cover: ２８１４

Just as the 60’s had their counterculture, vaporwave in a sense, has become the musical art movement counterculture of the established music industry. An industry, which dictates what “is” and “isn’t” popular, including, who and what can and can’t be heard over mainstream media outlets. Generally favoring free, DIY marketing/creation methods with a “punk-mentality”. Sometimes using copyrighted (but legal under fair use and other legal safety nets) track bases and promoting an array of unorthodox and sometimes controversial topics and themes.  nano神社, 2016.

References:

Harper, A., 2012. Comment: Vaporwave and the pop-art of the virtual plaza. Dummy. nano神社, 2016. Vaporwave Manifesto 2016 // What Really is Vaporwave?. [Online Audio]. Available from: https://soundcloud.com/nanosmusics/vaporwave-manifesto-2016. wos X., 2015. Vaporwave: A Brief History. [Online Video]. 10 June 2015. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdpP0mXOlWM. Tanner , G., 2016. Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave And The Commodification Of Ghosts . John Hunt Publishing.