Vapor Vertebrae 10-2016

STΛQQ ƟVERFLƟ
Desolate // Dream

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"Synthetic emotions, synthetic life," that's the unique selling point of forest druid STΛQQ ƟVERFLƟ's underbrush-infested vapor veils. And indeed: although I love his nomenclature of apocryphal clicks and artificial fauna, this faux-nomological locale, while usually depicted in the green artworks, is not the only means of interpreting a song's endemic eclecticism. Desolate // Dream is a prime example of two entangled parallax layers: the titular desolation (1) within a dream (2). This is certainly STΛQQ ƟVERFLƟ's most strikingly serious construction which happens to mesh 90's Goa Trance with Ambient. In the epicenter: a crestfallen twelve-note piano aorta that is alloyed by pulsatile blebs and caustic gluons of deep immersion. Deliciously contrapuntal a force to this surreal state: a softly ligneous bongo beat — turns out that the poetic life of the forest protrudes even the greatest style-related distance after all.

Twitter: @StaqqOverflo

Dan Mason ダン·メイソン
Unknown Forest

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”An Eco Virtual inspired beat” Dan Mason promises, and we don't want it any other way. Isn't he a great presidential candidate? Whatever: the coppices and underbrushes of the artist also known as Akihabara Forest are translucent and chlorotic to begin with, but these attributes are just the spawning point. Unknown Forest supersedes these attributes by means of cleverly Trap-oriented dew-coated beats; situated between four-to-the-floor mannerisms and post-millennial breakbeat patterns, the 6/8ish nature of the rhythm is a gorgeous counterpoint to the lavishly languorous lure of the tropics. From cerulean synth strings over viridian piano cataracts to a wondrously glaucous snare-underlined dawn chorus at the end: Unknown Forest encompasses the benignant reticulation of the artist's nomological prowess. Download this forest so that you get to know it.

Twitter: @DanMasonVapor

Conscious Thoughts
Take Me Away

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You know you're in the right place when Glaswegian Future Funk producer Conscious Thoughts crosses your labyrinthine path via his altruistic aureoles, sure thing, but the gorgeously amicable and intendedly ultramafic luminosity of the very first Rhodes chords — as experienced in Take Me Away, ladies and gents — exudes an overwhelmingly colorful aura. The principal three-note scheme is ameliorated through softly caustic blips, sweeping cymbal cascades and looped vocals in pitched states. The dry guitar chords add not-so-contrapuntal moments of dryness amidst the blissful scenery. A club-compatible beat? Check. However, Chris's saturated synths regularly outshine the medulla-emptying kick drums. Maybe that's the reason Future Funk remains a highly relevant potion in a millennial's workout.

Twitter: @ChrissyCray1

Woolookologie
Out Of The Subway

<東京 LP>

Out Of The Subway is the first part of a duo of tracks, i.e. the other side of a single coin whose LP-grown proportion is known as 東京 which translates into a certain peaceful village called Tokyo. Woolokologie is the wizard, also known in Vaporwave circles as Tilvera, a further representation by the human(e) musician called Luis, himself frequently featured here at AmbientExotica. The other track of the dual sound protrusion is called Departure, but I have chosen Out Of The Subway instead due to its preludic innergy amidst an otherwise highly technophile setting. In lieu of millions of people in one place and the hectic frenzy of tomorrow, Luis chooses to ameliorate the Doppler effect-accentuated, service announcement-underlined anacrusis by a supracrystalline amalgamation of synth streams, scintillating clicks and wondrously peaceful, sanctuary-compatible macro moments of tranquility. The insight given in Out Of The Subway prospers in the adjacent Departure, but this equally enchanting epithelium is for the artist to know… and you to find out.

Twitter: @Woolookologie

Future Girlfriend 音楽
Shades Of Emotions

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Futue Funk and Japanese traits fit together quite well; it's redundant to articulate this insight in terms of Vaporwave, as the reciprocation between the Far East and bedroom synthesizers is a given. The lure of Funk, however, doesn't transpire as easily. Asuncion, Paraguay-based Future Girlfriend 音楽 begs to differ time and again, what with his colloidal flumes and synthetically cascading legato structures that make — and never break — a track. Shades Of Emotions, admittedly, is a lighter affair, more easygoing and aesthetically plastic, willfully so. Celebrating 5000+ followers and counting, the artist ventures into Tam Arrow-like sped-up bubblegum territory, subsuming archetypically Shinzō lyrics, coruscating J-Pop euphony as well as vestiges of Bronx (or was that bronze?) hollers. It's fast, it's hyperchromatic, it's emotions in an iridescent Funk corset, transitions included! 

Twitter: @futuregfmusic

Vaperror
Stranger Errors

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It's a cover of the Stranger Themes song. Nothing more, but most importantly: nothing less. Athens, Georgia-based Juke joker, Rave raider and veil vaper Vaperror comes along with a wee track that is an all-too-short prestidigitation, i.e. finger exercise for the well-versed producer. But what it encompasses in its short runtime of less than a minute is the certain knowledge that the artist manhandles every aural locale he creates, be it completely original or, as is the case here, a darkly simmering cavernous cyberpunk back alley he adheres to. Moog-oid eight-note helixes and rubicund-granular synth stabs of hatched/toned down elation invoke a diffeomorphism that might serve as an ancillary route… or the first adaxial column to Vaperror's moonlit solanum phase. Whatever the truism, make sure to cling to ya boi vape (exclamation mark follows)!

Twitter: @VAPERROR

Television Spectre
Pixar

<Phantom Software 2 LP>

Filed away under "New Age" — because why the heck not — is the amethystine beauty of Pixar by Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Television Spectre. Taken from the album Phantom Software 2, this analog abyss oscillates, gyres and coruscates adaxially through the ever-morphin ether. An Ambient piece at its heart, Pixar transfigures and diffuses itself and is hence in a state of permanent metamorphosis. From fuchsia flares over centrifugal glissando jitters to semi-celestial rhenium-infested stokehold memories complete with technocratic pipes, Television Spectre's track is a subset of ideas, pulsatile pastries/pastiches and diaphanous dioramas, united by the timbrical focus on vermillion hues and gouraud galactosamines. A stop-and-go cannelure, if you will, but an audaciously velveteen one at that. 

Twitter: @tvspectre

Vaporwave Review 164: Vapor Vertebrae 10/2016. Originally published on Oct. 6, 2016 at AmbientExotica.com.

Vapor Vertebrae 06-2016

Windows 98の
スレノディ - 建物が落ちる (OSCOB Remix)

<インターネット Tape>

One wouldn't expect the progression vaporlord OSCOB undertakes with his remix of Orlando-based multifaceted persona Windows 98の's  スレノディ - 建物が落ちる, but once the first endohedrical quercetin-coated cotton-wadded legato flume oozes into the not-so-faraway distant in order to make room for an eclectic gallimaufry of shuffling sprinkler shakers, ground loop buzzes and stylophonic corkscrew coils amidst a tastefully apocryphal Oriental timbre, you know you are in for a real treat. Taken off Windows 98の's インターネット (internet band) album as released in April on Ottawa, Ontario's very finest Lost Angles label, the gentlemen's agreement presumably comprised of one particular focal point: allowing both the original and the remix to be as diaphanous and translucent as possible while at the same time elasticizing and streamlining the prongs, spikes and edges of the crystalline entities. The result is genuinely heartfelt as OSCOB trades in his occasional tongue-in-cheek manner for an angelic-adaxial hydrazine within the interstice of Ambient and Vaporwave.

Twitter: @VirtualPlazaMax   @windows98wave   @lostangleslabel

Conscious Thoughts
Do You Feel It

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The day had to come eventually, even though his fan base has completely absorbed the Japanese-English synergy of the artist's name in the meantime; for what it's worth, Glaswegian Future Funk/Vaporwave luminary Chris gets semi-rid of his moniker コンシャスTHOUGHTS in order to embody and embrace his new life as Conscious Thoughts. Since this is luckily the translation of his former name and he has been called this way in podcasts, radio shows and mixes anyway, nothing changes, especially not the punchy immediacy of his tunes. Do You Feel It is prototypical Thoughts material, no doubt about that. Better still: it has no question mark in the title making the tune a rather appellative endeavor once again. From the Rhodes-flavored chime flares over the gnarly-dry but deliciously pulsatile bass melody to the cowbell-oid synthetism of the aureate reticulation, this instrumental locale breathes insouciance and carefreeness on a milquetoast, contemplative manner. As always, Chris allows intermediate gradients to grace his compositions, proving time and again that Future Funk is open for multinucleate meanings and ancillary paths in the wake of the next weekend.

Twitter: @ChrissyCray1

Dan Mason ダン·メイソン
In My Dreams Tonight

<Late Nite EP>

Let's move to Orlando, Florida once more — and it won't be the last time in this Vapor Vertebrae edition either — and include frequently featured artist Dan Mason ダン·メイソン in the circle of producers that travel between the poles known as Future Funk and Vaporwave. The former's sizzling immediacy is coupled with the latter's fuzzy immersion in the six-track EP (or mini album) Late Nite, released on Vito's DMT [REC] label, making the work Dan Mason's fifth release on the label overall. Considering the nocturnal theme, Dan Mason hits the sweet spot from start to finish. After a piano divebar anacrusis, our guy addresses the vintage vapor audience by adhering to the well-known standard of slowing down an R'n'B saprotroph. The vocals are over the top, i.e. soulful, polyphonous, silkened. They'd better be: In My Dreams Tonight is the outro of Dan Mason's EP, so a sumptous state of bliss is not only appreciated, but mandatory. 

Twitter: @DanMasonVapor

FRECCIAROSSA feat. Spunk Floyd
1-900-FREE-VST

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The project of FRECCIAROSSA hails from Florida as well, thus making me question whether I accidentally or not have featured the same person behind the majority of the featured monikers time and again in this here Vapor Vertebrae edition; you never know for sure in this handle-heavy cesspool we so adore. Whether this applies here or not, FRECCIAROSSA fraternizes with Spunk Floyd in order to deliver the most archetypal Vaporwave production of the month… and I mean that in a good way, believe you me! 1-900-FREE-VST is but a vintage vision that is based on Porches' Mood as the duo freely admits in the explanatory notes: the hi-hats are softened, the midtone range harmed — or rather: elated — by phantom frequencies and compression artifacts, the saxophone curiously tired. The good kind of loneliness and pondering is hence evoked, that moonlit aura, a feeling of innocence. Vaporwave has surely evolved, but it's still a boon that its humble beginnings, imagined or not, are taken into account. 

Twitter: @KevinSaysStuff   @spunkfloyd

Vaporwave Review 160: Vapor Vertebrae 06/2016. Originally published on Jun. 1, 2016 at AmbientExotica.com.