Vapor Vertebrae 04-2015 Part A

Nyetscape
Haze

<Single>

Annealed hi-hats, cylonic perturbations of toasting/burping throat-singing robots and a wonderfully lacustrine square syrinx melody amidst the fluid-processed chemotaxis: that’s the first sequence embroidered into Haze, one of Nyetscape’s latest singles. The duo doesn’t leave its dark-purple gem in this state though. Once the semi-mournful contemplation fades out, its magnetotail leads to a completely new barycenter. Now linking back to an umbrageous 80’s melancholia with histrionic synth choirs, Rhodes rhizomes and accordion polymers hued in a fittingly nebulous amalgamation of pink noise hiss, Haze has come full circle with its scintillating obliquity. Neither crestfallen nor superionic, both the remoteness and isolation feel strikingly mucoid and heavy, and whether that heaviness translates into a burden or redemption is anyone’s guess. Since the Vaporwave spirit is strongly detectable, the latter emotion is ipso facto the appropriate one. A vermillion locale.

Twitter: @Nyetscape

Phelix
Back In Time

<Memories EP>

The Hip-Hop-oriented superresonance of Phelix’s Back In Time functions as yet another instance that spawns multitudes of nostalgic macronutrients. A prominent part of the seven-track Memories EP released on Cory Zaradur’s Inner Ocean Records, Phelix lets the epigenetically hustling beats simmer and sizzle softly. In lieu of a pyroxene-cracking acidity, the soothing rhythm is actually the all-important boon and underlines the perianth-like bokeh of the gelid piano melody exquisitely. Laid-back and strangely distant, with its already reverberated afterglow echoing ever-further through the parallax peritoneum right into the cochlea of the bystander, the piano’s nomological asset is cautiously augmented by sunset-colored double bass interstices and seemingly synthetic leptons. Despite the retrogressive touch that is implied by the title, Back In Time is a decidedly earthbound affair, as Phelix plays with the concepts of frequency-related polarimetry and vespertine quiescence, making it a potentially unintended but undoubtedly competent Vaporwave vertebra after all.

Twitter: @flxgs_ @inner_ocean

Cyberlust
Paradise

<Single>

The sounds of Cyberlust aka Lola from Argentina usually comprise of a particularly perihelic puissance, and rest assured that this is also the case regarding Paradise which emanates the orthochromatic gradient of the genre… we wouldn't want it any other way. Clocking in at approximately two minutes, the track ostensibly targets an audience with a short attention span – aka everyone else but yourself – and good taste, resulting in audible boundaries that are painfully short but stringently crisp. Paradise is a belter whose chemotaxis flows toward luminescent insouciance. Whether it is the supravolcanic Rhodes chords that embody the whole melodic spectrum with a little help from a desiccate synth string streamlet, the insouciant all-male choir whispering enamored sermons à la "being with you" in-between aqua-ligneous beats, or the archetypal ventiduct into Jamaican Lovers Rock epithelia, Cyberlust proves that even such seemingly picayune peninsulas expel every last bit of portentous perturbation. Best of all: the soundscape isn’t promiscuously bedazzling but carefully toned-down, providing an apollonian, even-tempered plastic afternoon in, well, Paradise.

Twitter: @cyberlusttt

Stereo Tropic
This Place

<Corduroy & Silk>

 Hailing from Palm Beach in southeastern California, the project of Stereo Tropic involves the producers Dante Weems and Faint Waves who have chosen quite a few tags to aptly describe the freshly baked inaugural full-length amethyst Corduroy & Silk, calling their nocturnal flavor of the V-genre Late Night Lo-Fi. One of its polyfoil solanums, titled This Place, is a notably benthic-viscoelastic tryst of hoarfrost hi-hats, languorous guitar fermions and gorgeously mafic wind gusts of analog signals which oscillate around the aliphatic core of plasmatic lavabo lights. The duo manages to nurture, maintain and exceed the simultaneity of two distinct forces: velocity and petrification. Both conceptions don’t refer to the BPM rate though. I rather use them in order to fork the entangled aesthetics. On the one hand, the amount of strata and sinews is surprisingly dense for a self-proclaimed Lo-Fi track, comprising effulgent metropolis saxophones, cavernous announcements and frolicking chants, all the while the loftiness remains as prominent a part. On the other hand, one wants to stand still, watch the magenta void and become one with the multicellular phototropism. A sophisticated verglas tributary.

Twitter: @TropicStereo @FaintWavesMusic

Blackleaf黒葉
「Stand」

<Demo>

Demo material is usually de trop on AmbientExotica, but in the coruscating and fast-paced world of the V-genre, unfinished florets manage to exude certain scents and promises that may remain unfulfilled for eternity. The material of Osaka, Japan-based Blackleaf黒葉 does definitely belong to that category, with all its strings and trapdoors attached and firmly in place… which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As it turns out,「Stand」radiates the soulful tropopause of the three-headed 70's band Delegation’s You And I. That song is one of them classic Disco-oid glucans that have survived several reincarnations, be they four-to-the-floor Euro House wayside memorabilia or Prog Rock-infested overhauls. Blackleaf黒葉 obviously succumbs to the mighty V, and unapologetically so: the source material is slowed down to rev up the temperature, coming closer to the melting pot. The chirality – or chimera – of 「Stand」comes with the price of missing originality in favor of conformity, for the song is presented "as is," albeit in slower fashion and with short duplex syllables added by the producer. Why is the demo of value regardless? Because the homeostasis of the original becomes aurally visible for the first time in this elasticized state, i.e. the lilac chromophores of the strings and the moxie sleaziness of the electric bass. A pulp reinterpretation – the attached artwork really says it all.

Twitter: @blackleafvapor

◬rtifact
Feelinthis

<Single>

Emerald City’s ◬rtifact is an artist who tends to orbit around the bubblier spheres of Vaporwave, never neglecting euphonious melodies but still reaching out for the synthesis of cordial frenzy and hectic observations. The single Feelinthis is a great epicenter of this vitalic approach, as it showcases an uplifting, easygoing core entrapped in a pulsatile reticulation of punctilio vesicles. Launching in medias res, with all principal ingredients already firmly in place, Feelinthis comprises of gunpowder crackers, whiplash bursts and high-strung low frequency callisthenics on the beat side. This industrial metallicity is then united with a fusillade of ecstatically jittery wordless R’n’B vox and warm convulsions of chlorotic-carbonaceous synth explosions. The result, while distinctly vaporific, is also addressing the adjacent Glitch genre due to the aforementioned edgy-flustered physiognomy and bullwhip relish. However, the glacial abrasiveness of that genre is never even considered and only manifests itself in the stop-and-go complexion of the rotatory profusions. Flanked by cohesion and interpolated via stringency, Feelinthis is a sanguine sunburst whose rubicund aureoles reach beyond the cerebral cortex, shaking the glabella on a subcellular level. 

Twitter: @AM_Artifact

Ambient Review 424: Vapor Vertebrae 04/2015 [Part A]. Originally published on Apr. 1, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.