Vapor Vertebrae 10-2015 Part C

VHS Logos
Night Bus

<The Vape Council Vol. 1 Compilation>

If the appearance of Brazil's VHS Logos graces your compilation, you did it right! It so happens that the artist's Night Bus is a prominent part of Elemental 95's Vape Council Volume 1, a humongous compilation spanning four tapes and several dozens of artists. One might think that quantitative aspects killed the vapor star, but no, VHS Logos is driving the aforementioned bus and knows how to drive your emotions. Fittingly visualized via a video of Artzie Music, the track can only grow further, but what's the basic gist then? First of all, VHS Logos flirts with the Moog-centered tendencies of Coldwave, and indeed, that 80's feeling is appropriately emitted by arpeggiated alabaster aureoles, alkaloidal chimes and a willfully feisty stature of the synthetic drums, most of them deriving from Frank Ricotti's Lonely Streets as the artist freely admits. All constituents – with the exception of said drums – are purposefully thinned and emaciated, but what they lack in terms of omnipresence, they gain in luminosity once they are stacked and able to influence the gradient of each other's sphere. The four-note fir-green base melody attaches to various prongs, triangles and vitreous veils like it's destined to do just that. A most refreshing entanglement. Usually, the front artworks of VHS Logos involve his trademark skull. I believe I can almost see a glimpse of it reflected by that wonderful moon, and Night Bus is my guardian of choice.

Twitter: @VHSLogos      Video by: Artzie Music

Nyetscape
World Edit//Channel Never

<Single>

Can you hear the purity of the Congo River, Nyetscape's tentative home? World Edit//Channel Never comprises a fluvial flow, a magnanimous magnitude of wondrously reverberated caverns complete with helictites and cave pearls. Rhodes rhizomes rotoscope through the pristine ventricles, moments of Glitch and static noise protrude the grove, but these instances are less noisy or incisive and much more uplifting, eventually leading to a slowed-down Dream Pop/Shoegaze thiazide that is thickly wadded in cotton candy. Spiraling jingles, neutraceutical square lead melodies and scattered aureoles make this virtual plaze a gorgeous one. Don't let the front artwork fool you: World Edit//Channel Never is most certainly not situated in a nullspace; it basks in a megafauna of salubrious verglas veils. A new album is currently in the working. I would approve of this corker's inclusion for sure!

Twitter: @Nyetscape

ジェリー b ø n b ø n
Nights Over Tokyo

<Single>

Moving on with the nocturnal vibe of this Vapor Vertebrae's first half, UK-based ジェリー b ø n b ø n delivers another coercive corker that is clearly Future Funk-oriented, but not necessarily fully pinpointable in terms of its typical constituents. Nights Over Tokyo sports a 4/4 beat, pitched vocals with additional gridlock punctilios and a constant flow between blurred bokehs and coruscating clarity frequency-wise… i.e. the very elements that make a Future Funk track. But I'm not giving up yet, as there's something dreamy in the air, a kind of positie doldrums flickering beneath the neon-lit concrete jungles and pancrystalline asphalt; the periglacial freshness of the electric piano not only depicts a moonlit moment of reflection, it also serves as the playfully antagonistic force to the rotatory foreground. I'm happy to say that this is not a mindless party song; ジェリー b ø n b ø n's tunes rarely are. No, this is a thermal immersion circulator that lifts you up while allowing you to focus and concentrate at the same time. This Tokyo is terrifically tempting!

Twitter: @JellyBonBonn

King Quartz
Coral Reefer

<The Vape Council Vol. 1 Compilation>

The second track of Elemental 95's Vape Council Volume 1 compilation is stupefying synth syncytium to reckon with, and it is delivered by our holy emperor from Easter Island, King Quartz. Cheekily called Coral Reefer, one shouldn't spend one single thought about the 420licious allusion, for the artist supersedes and augments these linguistic structures with a megafauna of strikingly crystalline floes of benthic physiognomies. What is the best thing of Coral Reefer? That's for the artist to know and the piss-poor reviewer to find out. Is it the gaseous ethereality of the seraphic choir that ebbs and flows through the cyan cave? Could it be the lanthanum-embodied metallicity of the sparkling hi-hat galore and snare complexion? Or should one focus on the vincristine syringa/pan pipes arabesques that flicker through the thickly wadded texture titration? If I only knew! Coral Reefer is a top notch outing, with its cerulean chromastructure running on all cylinders. It's comparatively upbeat yet dreamy and therefore compatible with the notion of the mighty V-genre. 

Twitter: @kingquartzzz

Stereo Tropic
Washed Up!

<Single>

The collaborative bond of Dante Weems and Faint Waves aka Stereo Tropic continues to prosper and run, and strongly so, what with the Palm Beach-situated orthochromatic colorscape the duo creates. Washed Up! offers a vantage point that juxtaposes the outer boundaries of the genres and styles, namely various expected Vaporwave vesicles, Mallsoft mica and Dream dioramas. The deliciously aqueous and echoey glissando of a guitar floats through the helical halide, an adjacent saxophone emits seemingly archetypal and thus all the more successful memorabilia, and let's not forget the constant ebb and flow, i.e. the presence and disappearance of the laid-back classic drum kit groove that offers a soothing reciprocation between oneiric motion and nostalgic notion. The micrometry and interdpendency between sound, sustain and quasi-silence as well as the agglutination of great textures to strong melodies let song title and soundscape work – and enthrall – in tandem. My kind of destination, the exclamation mark wasn't necessary. 

Twitter: @TropicStereo

Aritus
イェア!

<Single>

Ah, the archetypal beginning of a sun-kissed lake scenery, it's almost as cotton candy-fied as the attached artwork. Rest assured that イェア! by Future Funk luminary and Future Society Collective founder Aritus aka Henry White is nothing short of amethystine. From the blurry low frequency-fueled anacrusis over the scything brass flesh until the wah wah guitar backbones, he got us covered and throws additional cowbells into the soulful ring just to make sure that we enjoy the aeriform immersion this coruscating circulator offers. The various Yeah! chants (the Occidental simile to the Far Eastern track title!) and occasionally arhythmic punctilio offer great insights into the world. Granted: there's an apologetic insinuation embroidered in every Future Funk track due to its formula, and it is true that the rhizomes of イェア!  exude 4/4 rhythms and a battery of been-there-done-that isotopes, but that's what makes this genre a genre. We all see the same sun all the time, and yet it differs due to atmospheric and clima(c)tic conditions. If this phany arises due to the music of Aritus, worse thoughts could cross your mind for sure!

Twitter: @AritusMusic

Vaporwave Review 133: Vapor Vertebrae 10/2015 [Part C]. Originally published on Oct. 29, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.