Vapor Vertebrae 09-2015 Part A
コンシャスTHOUGHTS
Saturday Night
<Single>
Ah, Chrissy, you hopelessly honest and straightforward diamond! His one-man project コンシャスTHOUGHTS oscillates between – no, protrudes through – the genres like Skeletor's drill machine through the pyroxite-filled caverns of Eternia. Saturday Night is an innocent-insouciant zoetrope of relaxation and only minor sequences of utter excitement, but that's perfectly alright. Based on Shakatak's Without You as the producer admits willfully as ever, the galactosamines ooze through the viscoelastic haze. Benthic handclaps strike through the amethystine titration, the singers ennoble the carefree paradise with their euphonious vocals, and Mellotron/Rhodes rivulets flow in the near distance. It's hard to describe the allure of Chrissy's cautious rework – hence the above SoundCloud option, duh – but it is all the easier to truly feel the half-nocturnal vibe of this sound-based cenobitism. Since コンシャスTHOUGHTS and Shakatak don't even try to create a cutting-edge artifact of utter coolness and party puissance, one can contemplate all the better within this lactal circumambience. Hard parties are fine and all, but this kind of Saturday Night is for the connoisseur who is still sober enough to elucidate the beauty of his or her surroundings.
Twitter: @ChrissyCray1
OSCOB
OSCOB SELLS OUT (TONIGHT)!
<Single>
OSCOB often laments about the genre's broader community which becomes more estranged and parochial the farther away one moves from the music-related epicenter. Vaporwave is ridiculed all over the net. This is certainly a plausible observation. Then again, Future Funk faces the same skepticism… only that vaporwavers now join the effort of the common man and declare the funky side of life as the poorer musical style, one which is much more in favor of vocal-based stereotypes and the ubiquitous four-to-the-floor formula than even Vaporwave itself. I for one happen to enjoy both genres, but for better or worse, and with more than just one intended pun, OSCOB names his scintillating Glitter Funk cataract ~☆☆☆OSCOB SELLS OUT(TONIGHT)!☆☆☆~. And one thing is for sure: you wouldn't connect this sunset-colored evening polysemy with Max's abstract darkness he is primarily known for. In lieu of washed out frequencies and blurred afterglows, he willfully succumbs to the Funk at first, gets rid of the kick drum, presents the classic "as is," with more than enough room for the uplifting feel like dancing wisdoms, sure, but then slows down the magnetotail, eventually reaching elasticized alluvial and ultramafic soils of a certain V-genre. Suddenly, phantom frequencies reach into the soundscape as it becomes fuzzier and fuzzier during its ever-soothing meltdown. Agglutinating Future Funk to a slowed down Vaporwave track? That's one heck of a sell-out, and me luuvs it!
Twitter: @VirtualPlazaMax
DELTA金TOPCO
MALLBREAKER 謎のファンク
<Single>
After the vocoded beatbox p(i)anorama Mary from the summer-inducing Artzie AM Volume ONE compilation, DELTA金TOPCO is back with a genre splicer that shuttles between Future Funk – as expected – and the filtered fantasies of Mallsoft. Make no mistake though: the track isn't called MALLBREAKER 謎のファンク by accident. Italo House pianos with a glistening glissando factor are the primary introductory element and remain in the foreground until the workout-compatible BPM rate fades out when all is said and done. "Get down!" chants, micro-jitters and related arhythmic blebs boost both the liveliness and immediacy of this life-affirmative mall. MIDIfied brass layers and a classic drum kit round off the electrifying feeling. So at the end of the day, this isn't your contemplative Mallsoft piece, but vestiges of this oneiric Vaporwave subgenre are reflected here and there, most often through the treble-emanating simulation of a transistor radio before DELTA金TOPCO's business focuses on the adventure and fun surroundings in close proximity to the listener. You want hasty catchiness and quick consumerism at once? MALLBREAKER 謎のファンク is your landmark.
Twitter: @HistoryMagicXYZ
ジェリー b ø n b ø n
帰るよ!
<Aware>
"I'm going home!" the final track of ジェリー b ø n b ø n's album Aware reads, and it sounds as if 帰るよ！carries quite a bit of spite and disappointment in its linguistic verve, but rest assured that the track itself remains immensely positive and a lacustrine-fizzling joyride from the first sip to the saccharified bottom of the aluminum can. What launches with an aquatic field recording eventually sees the light of Future Funk, first envisioned through a nebulous moiré, then in a fully equipped state with all frequencies firmly floating. A tenor saxophone is in the center of it all, and granted, we have heard that instrument before; add the super-sinewed rhythm guitars, and it seems as if ジェリー b ø n b ø n aka Jelly BonBon surfs the tide of sharks, only barely jumping them. But keep on listening, and you realize the alterations and amendments the artist has entwined. Similar to the playfully apoplectic frenzy of 悲しい ANDROID - APARTMENT¶, there is a fusillade of gridlock hi-hats, stop-and-go layers of MIDI brass and arthythmic percussion rhombohedrons, breaking the flow for microseconds by spicing things up. I'm going home indeed… the party continues at my place.
Twitter: @JellyBonBonn
ArtFluids
Agalychnis Callidryas
<Single>
Alexander aka ArtFluids lets the Vaporwave community taste a different linguistic flavor as one quick look at the title reveals. The majority of the community's participants and followers are painfully aware of the kanji, katakana and whantnot that transform into a set of polka dots before their eyes, and don't get me started in how to pronounce these titles. Apps and websites help with the pronunciation, sure… but can you remember the kaleidoscope of titles and their meanings over the course of, say, a month? ArtFluids comes to the rescue, as the letters look all very familiar, but the language itself isn't so much. Agalychnis Callidryas is the scientific name of the red-eyed frog and inspired by his friend David's animation of dancing frogs, linked below. And ArtFluids creates a cheese-induced corker that is Eurodance-meets-Chiptune par excellence, comprising of recondite Roland bass rhizomes and a towering Italo piano whose glissando oozes and slides through the wisps, whistles and square lead pads. The arpeggiated ribcage in the middle meanwhile reminds of the insectoid savoir vivre, whereas the final part provides a chord-induced sugar boost of freedom and wideness. Is this aerobic aeternum a n envigorating friend, foe, or flashback?
Twitter: @ArtFluids
JD Senuti
Apex Report
<Apex Report LP>
JD Senuti – stylized as JD SenuTi – enters the future reserve reticulation of AMDISCS and submits a 13-track album called Apex Report of which the above eponymous title is simultaneously the longwinded finale of an electrifying journey through epigenetic/abstract ventures. And what shall I say? Apex Report (the track) is a bomb of a track, enchanting with its mid-90's Eurodance organ which simmers in a Detroit-y fashion in the track's pericarp. Yes, I'm fully aware of the idiocy: Detroit and Eurodance combined? They're residing in different continents, and rightfully so. But no worries, JD Senuti has you the naysayers covered and grafts a punctilio of inhaling coquettes and similarly exhaling brutes onto an increasingly luminescent lariat/lozenge troposphere. Serene and deep on the one hand and with just the right amount of laissez-faire on the other, this endpoint works well even when it is detached from the endemics that reign within the album. This is no a Vaporwave track at the end of the day, I'll give anyone that… but neither is it an honest-to-goodness tower of any genre. It's a healthy cesspool, a chimera and superimposition of ethereality driven by a 4/4 rhythm, and that ought to be good enough for Dance aficionados.
Ambient Review 449: Vapor Vertebrae 09/2015 [Part A]. Originally published on Sep. 2, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.
Björn