Vapor Vertebrae 08-2015 Part B

Bonus Fruit feat. Pepsiman
Pepsiland

<Single>

Pepsiland might be a joke. At the same time, it could be the most genuine thing that has surfaced from the beverage barycenter Atlanta for a long time. California's Deiter Hetrick aka Bonus Fruit aka Gオーブ meets the advertising juggernaut Pepsiman who is permanently stuck in the 90's. Let's hope he survives in that decade, for in the future, there have been Vaporwave producers who needed to drop their Pepsi-related moniker due to some non-bicarbonate pressure called copyright infringement or something. Anyway, back to the salubrious megafauna of Pepsiland: running for a bit over three minutes, both artists – or entities – place brass-infused jingles of yesteryear over an artsie-fartsy rhythm aorta which is mercilessly altered, pestered and harrassed by their arhythmic counterparts: barbershop wisdoms, bit-crushed sirens, laser interferometry, fibrillar fireworks and roaring applause become enmeshed in a phosphorous philology. The simultaneity of all ingredients make this a cesspool in lieu of a relaxing bubblebath. All hands on deck, plunderphonics ahoy, Bonus Fruit and Pepsiman to the rescue! 

Twitter: @modernsqueeze  @PepsimanForever

Faint Waves feat. Carl Ellement
Midnight Love

<Summer Singles>

Just because Los Angeles-based artist Faint Waves is primarily known for his reciprocation between lagoons and oases on the one hand and high-rise megacities filled with exciting architecture on the other doesn't translate into a self-fulfilling prophecy. He breaks the spell with the aid of synthesist Carl Ellement on a track called Midnight Love, a first teaser of the upcoming Summer Singles EP. I am not one to spoil anyone's fun, let alone a full summer, but Midnight Love is an alkalophilic, recondite affair, and that shouldn't surprise anyone: the track title gives this aesthetic adage away. Pressure and remoteness go hand in hand in this track, molybdenized bass guitar twangs twirl in close proximity to cryovolcanic wisps and a Capcom-esque melody that could have certainly appeared in a certain fighting game. Even though this is a collaboration, it is about a fight that has to be fought independently and alone. Devotion is infinitesimally emanated, few and far between the glittering punctilio. And that's worth a lot if you're otherwise swallowed by hatched entities!

Twitter: @FaintWavesMusic

Tilvera
終わり c r e d i t s

<Single>

Luis from Germany, also known as Woolokologie and Tilvera, has willfully placed himself as the newbie in the vapor community, but this is only due to the year 2015 being the origin of his journey. All poetic lachrymosity aside, you you won't notice the implied inaptitude. Luis doesn't even try to fool anyone: Tilvera is a promising project, with the single 終わりc r e d i t s being admittedly closer to a safe bet, and you know what that means: slowed-down vocals and plasticized hi-hats whose once-piercing clarity becomes a whitewashed haze. However, what this tune lacks in conceptual adventures, it more than gains in a cleverly stitched loop which is run ad infinitum. The formerly translucent MIDI brass fanfares are now suffering from sarcopenia and efflorescence, but this toned-down state still magnificently protrudes the semi-mournful mirage of nostalgia and memories. As the loop slowly fades away, a cautious layer of echoes augments the blackness of the background which cannot be caulked anymore. And so Tilvera gets me again, this time with a seemingly standardized Vaporwave track which captures the heart due to its catchy overtones and scintillating fermion flumes.

Twitter: @Woolookologie

ヒキガエル toadofsky
バーチャルロビー

<Single>

Philadelphia's ヒキガエル toadofsky brings us a dualistic diamond of diametrally opposite dioramas in his single called バーチャルロビー//Virtual Lobby 1996 which could have shaved off five decades or six due to its mercilessly retrogressive/antediluvian simultaneity. At first, one notices the adiabatic Occidental guitar whose Arizona-flavored porch romanticism evokes the sunset-colored wideness of the steppe, naturally in an elasticized, decelerated state, mind you. It is only later that the second stratum amid the self-schlepping hi-hats comes to fruition and attention of the listener, and that is the amethystine adaxial plateau of benignant synths whose thermal heat is an oneiric force to reckon with, somehow adding a pompous cinematography to the desiccated photometry. This is not to say that バーチャルロビー//Virtual Lobby 1996 is a sparsely-inhabited wasteland; now the opposite is the case, with the prolonged simmering heatwave becoming a nutritious elixir of life. One can almost feel the crimson skies…

Twitter: @_toadofsky

DEZMO
Quam Serena

<Single>

Tennessee's favorite vaporwaver Corporatemodel aka F R X N I aka DEZMO returns with a pastoral-sermonic offering of utter devotion, or so it seems. Called Quam Serena for a good reason or two, this tune invokes a stokehold dungeon of medulla-emptying low-freq runlets and spectral apparitions based on clandestine echoes and metallic projections. The later omnipresence of the Angkor Wat bells – whose ill-colored tawny radiation only extrapolates the already humongous mystery – is coupled with evening strings, dark matter chorals and a sudden rift at the end of the locale when fresh air meets the yearning of alto sirens. The whispering male choir makes this seem like a curssd ritual. Curiously enough, Quam Serena is a surprisingly synthetic, artificial affair. This is caused by the chirality or superimposition: the various frequencies are reflected, boosted, enlarged, with their original sources hiding in the background… or is it another dimension of Lovecraftian horror that overlaps with reality as we know it? 

Twitter: @corporatemodel

Vaporwave Review 119: Vapor Vertebrae 08/2015 [Part B]. Originally published on Aug. 20, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.