Vapor Vertebrae 06-2015 Part B

Vantage
When The Love Is Real

<Horeazon Records Single 007>

Future Funk has a name: Vantage. The French producer knows how to beguile the listener with Funk critters that are surprisingly deep and profound, not just based on the old formula of having a good time at all costs. Granted, When The Love Is Real does indeed belong to the latter category, but in lieu of a lowbrow lizard, an amethystine amanita is revealed. Whether it is the four-to-the-floor-driven physiognomy, the funk guitar-accentuated Ibiza piano adjuvants or the catchy vocal hook that encounters a slowed-down and much dreamier segue in the latter half of the song, Vantage has entrapped the sun and put it into the waveform for us to enjoy. Further filters, flanger fusillades and a euphony that can’t be beaten round off the diaphanous megafauna. Whether you prefer the punchy gist or the decelerated diorama which carves out the colorful scinitillation of the backing synths ever further, Vantage's track remains a lavabo at worst and high-rise headquarters at best. Or better still: a beachside in aural form, that’s When The Love Is Real! 

Twitter: @VantageNoise

death's dynamic shroud.wmv
Plaza Winds

<Virtual Utopia Experience>

Tech Honors and James Webster form death’s dynamic shroud.wmv, this being but one of many monikers the two share, deploy and vindicate on their Ghost Diamond conglomeration of collected tracks. Plaza Winds, taken from their album Virtual Utopia Experience,  is an auspicious soundscape right from the moment its track title reaches the synapses of the vaporwaver. Released at the end of 2014 already and thus fittingly launching the pyrethrin-fueled arrangement with crimbo harness à la Jingle Bells, the duo soon takes the megafauna into the plaza, ameliorating the marble-covered ceilings and cornerstones with syrinx centrioles, crimson acoustic guitars, exotic bongo blebs and pulsatile synth fibroblasts which altogether augment the sunset-colored atmosphere. A Mallsoft sparkler that is less hazy than direct and immersive, these winds bring you Latinized insouciance and carefreeness aplenty. 

Twitter: @HCMJmagic @techhonors

「サンセット N e t w o r k ❾❶」
Awake (feat. OSCOB)

<Single>

Everyone’s favorite cyberpunk 「サンセット N ｅｔｗｏｒｋ❾❶」teams up with demotic gentleman OSCOB in a track that is pat of a split EP with Replica Federation. The depicted atmosphere on Awake is less clear-cut and vigilant than the track title lets you believe. An alto saxophone is entrapped in heavily reverberated breakbeat patterns, smokily flangered hi-hat helixes are entrapped in an engine room, every centriole feels metallic and dissipative, but the good mood eventually wins. An 80’s Synth Pop hymn simmers in the background, which is a strange remark to make, given that its physiognomy is actually the primary landmark of the track. But both producers make sure to tone down the impression of just listening to a slowed-down vapor version of an existing track. It is hence once again the applied filters, bent frequencies and blurred interstices that are the actual stars of this phragmoplast, not the original source itself. Artwork and soundscape form a unison: Awake really does feel like a glaucous arch brick-plastered back alley. 

Twitter: @cyberrpunk_ @VirtualPlazaMax

(Koi)コイ。
You Without Me

<These Feelings Of Mine EP>

Kanagawa, Japan’s (Koi)コイ。is back with an EP called These Feelings Of Mine, from which the above You Without Me is distilled. Chosen by me due to its fluttering stylophone-driven atmosphere, this song is to be cherished for a whole lot of additional reasons as well. Firstly, there is the rotoscoped lariat colchicine whose stacked synths and diamantine aureoles evoke clarity and haze at the same time. Secondly, the erected melody, while memorable on its own, is further augmented by handclap-accompanied snare punctilios, revving up the energy level without harming the warmly sizzling balance. And finally, phase three of the coherent song hides bubbling vesicles and aquatic halides in the photometry, thereby boosting the stratiform complexion to another level. Since the various layers are serrated beautifully, These Feelings Of Mine never succumbs to plethorically overproduced states, but rather keeps the pace, prevents the gravitational redshift with the aid of its orthonormal superstructure. Dreamy with a cutting edge, that’s the music of (Koi)コイ。

Twitter: @pondofkoifish

Blurynu
Electronic Distance

<Single>

"Another product of vaporcore," that's how Blurynu describes Electronic Distance in a nutshell. Given the high-chroma artwork that is attached to the song and its popping colors, chances are that there is more to this tune than a grinding beat. As luck has it, Blurynu has created a bubblegum vortex that has much more in common with Dutch Hi-NRG rainbow ditties of the 90's. Deliberately overpowered, industrially twisted staccato bursts, a tachycardia-causing tempo, pitch-shifted Rave vocals and harmonious chords force deep blue skies down one's throat, and that's exactly what we're looking for most of the day. There's an odd grainy filter superimposed though, one which seems to swallow most of the highs… only in last 20 seconds or so is the frequency-related gamut widened and then comprises a greater plasticity. Time for reflection is usually amiss in Future Funk, now think of this genre, triple the tempo, and give in to Blurynu's tunnel vision where palmtrees, hot-air balloons and rustic effulgence trigger the retina, and you know one possible truth about Vaporcore. An aurally induced fovea is included in the package. Loud and shrill but with a warm nucleus, Electronic Distance is a song for workout and jogging hours, less compatible with a reverie, but make no mistake: don't miss it!

Twitter: @blurynu

Ambient Review 437: Vapor Vertebrae 06/2015 [Part B]. Originally published on Jun. 10, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.

Vapor Vertebrae 06-2015 Part A

コンシャスTHOUGHTS
Onwards And Upwards

<Single>

One look at the dynamic range of the above SoundCloud graphic, and the realization immediately hits home: コンシャスTHOUGHTS’s aka Chrissy Cray’s vermillion-colored single Onwards And Upwards launches with a soft fadein phase. Even though everything remains silky and softly simmering – the basic gist of a good fadein – there are plinking MIDI brass ecomorphs firmly in place, ready to break out of the micrometry into the dawn of day. And once this is the case and the first clavicular bass droplet manifests its own existence in adjacency to electropositive guitar gluons, Onwards And Upwards reveals its actual physiognomy. This is a slowed-down Future Funk flume featuring fluorescent vox of a Disco queen. The droning synth reticulation is a gaseous halide of oneiric spathe, and the synthetic marimbalicious patch emits a dissipative floralcy that fittingly augments the stratiform purity of the scent. コンシャスTHOUGHTS is a well-known vaporwaver and releases approximately one song per day statistically speaking, and whatever he touches turns to aural aurum… attached with a lilting redolence of rhododendron and analogue warmth as a bonus. Don’t leave Earth without absorbing this tune!

Twitter: @ChrissyCray1

OSCOB
Champagne And Battlecries

<Single>

Wine and roses, love and compassion, greetings and blessings, heck, even a certain song called Onwards And Upwards depicts great pairs of similitudes. Torpedoing rapscallion OSCOB aka Virtual Plaza Max isn’t necessarily fond of harmonious apprehension, and so without further ado he comes up with the chromodynamics of Champagne And Battlecries, or as it is called in Texas, Mother’s Day. Every mother’s antagonist Max creates an antrum – or is that tantrum? – of over five minutes that swallows the spikiness of frequencies like a black hole. However, the ongoing ergosphere gives something back to us: washed out sound carpets, fuzzy on the inside, mite-covered on the outside. However, there’s no need for an acaricide, as OSCOB’s song is awash with elevator muzak helixes and the doldrums of apocrine Funk. A classic piano is in the epicenter, surrounded by thermal guitars, everything is alright, unless of course when things go awry. While the soothing p(i)anorama remains the principal leash throughout the song, an additional Cool Jazz labyrinth is superimposed onto this placenta halfway into the song, mercilessly apoplectic and convoluted. Spawning japanophile motions which are later killed off by the darker interferometry of staggering keys, Champagne And Battlecries is a mystic thing: luring and pondering. For fans of cotton candy-alloyed Mallsoft mica.

Twitter: @VirtualPlazaMax

J Λ V Λ . E X E
Reverse

<Sound Effects EP>

Synthetics are a major part of Vaporwave, amiss texture-wise in OSCOB’s above representation, but still noticeable by means of frequency-bending filters serving as moirés or séparées. I’m using these sophisticated French terms in order to bring you the savoir vivre of Vaporwave. In a related manner, the music of J Λ V Λ . E X E is based on these apocryphal fibers as well, but here the base frame is always a synth-fueled crystalline cytoplasm that evokes the magic of the 80’s time and again. Reverse is such a – self-explanatory, for a change – gemstone that at the same time functions as the endpoint to the caproic Sound Effects EP. The basic gist is quickly told, but ultimately falsifiable: Mr. EXE simply reverses a synthorama, thereby creating the infamous scything artifacts that bewilder the brain when a song is played backwards. However, this is only the beginning and doesn’t do the microlensing justice! In fact, J Λ V Λ . E X E creates a gorgeously salubrious elasticized state of lanthanum cymbals, matutinal drone dew and multinucleate sinecures of the quiescent kind. Looped ad infinitum until its time-related boundaries are eventually reached, Reverse sounds perfectly right and in order despite its retrogressive physiognomy, leading to the thought that not everything in here is actually reversed. This realization only augments the level of euphony. As I’ve written above: the basic gist is quickly told, but ultimately… elbaifislaf.

Twitter: @JAVAEXE

Cobalt Road
Josh's Aesthetic

<Single>

Florida’s Cobalt Road aka Jared is a gifted pianist, and more often than not the artist tries to integrate his unique melodies into the source material, making these melodies the nucleic aorta of a pulsatile track. That the above track called Josh’s Aesthetic doesn’t sport the artist’s signature instrument is not the reason for its inclusion in this Vapor Vertebrae edition, I’m no pianophobe! No, the actual cause for this feature is the mercilessly capturing amalgamation of hooks and baroclinic boundaries, both highly echoey Mallsoft macronutrients. Sporting a hi-hat metallicity right from the get-go, this ubiquity is later extrapolated by a three-to-four-note chimescape whose lucency points leeway and radiates fluid-processed colors. While the front artwork seems to be more inspired by Gary’s Mod, it is the mysterious Josh who is in the limelight, and whoever he might be, he is the phototropic puissance of this gorgeous loop. The reverb level is well adjusted, neither too plethoric nor overdriven, allowing an aqueous-industrial dualism to catch the listener’s excitement. The melody is aglow, admittedly open to scrutiny and so unlike Cobalt Road’s prestidigitation, but what the heck, Jared is versatile enough to serve the atmosphere of a song in lieu of the artistic vanitas, even if it means to deskill things. An orthogonal odeum.

Twitter: @jaredpianoclark

Shima33
Our Secret Hydeout

<Single>

Celebrating the milestone of 750 followers on SoundCloud, Erin Y. Shima aka Shima33 from the cyberspace parts of Bermuda comes up with a fittingly erinaceous corker in the shape of Our Secret Hydeout, a captivatingly Sunday afternoon-esque Vaporjazz/Future Funk morpho-nematode that moves from sun-dappled blue skies over four-to-the-floor polymers to the omnipresence of mutual amicability and uplifting tenor saxophones. While the attached melody would be somewhat cheesy and tacky in a beatless context, both the added oomph of the low frequencies and the granular Disco strings make this a wondrously paradisiac peritoneum that only knows the emotion of ebullience and sybaritism. It is a feel-good ditty alright, but not a soulless product! The agglutinated insouciance is real, the short soulful vocal section of approximately five seconds adds another human(e) touch, making this is a great song for workout purposes and jogging during sunny days. It lacks Vaporwave’s mysticism, true that, but it also lacks the solitude of Future Funk’s standardized corset (galactic guitars and Rhodes rhizomes), and it has to be cherished for denying the latter. A divine Funk critter regardless.

Twitter: @Shima33Official

GALAXIANオーブ
The Burns

<Unreleased 004>

And now for a dystopian finale, you know you want it: The Burns by GALAXIANオーブ is part of the unreleased archives which the artist so magnanimously shares with us, thereby letting these tawny outtakes see the light of day and get some fresh air. Indeed, The Burns doesn’t deserve this state of an unreleased experiment, as its multifaceted diffeomorphism breathes the basic intentions of Vaporwave alright, despite all artistic doubts expressed in the explanatory notes. But no, I happily disagree in this regard by referring to it as a proper Vaporwave track. I'm willfully succumbing to the glaucous homeostasis and appropriately thunderous complexion that this track inherits and radiates via the realms of grafted heterodyned parallax layers. The anacrusis is made of a stomping stokehold chirality, faraway storms rage across the megacity, sirens fill the mephitic air, people are screaming. Okay, this isn’t Vaporwave per se, but the forthcoming progression sure enough is: histrionic vuvzela-oid string orchestras and complemental semi-mourning piano scintillae caulk and cover the riotous mayhem that is going on in the distance. A soul-crushing crepuscular particle at the end of the depicted apocalypse, The Burns ostracizes the good mood and annihilates all remaining fermions, but the cinematic scope, the aural photometry and volatile simultaneity of the events make it a cyberpunk-compatible convulsion, Vaporwave or not.

Twitter: @modernsqueeze

Vaporwave Review 087: Vapor Vertebrae 06/2015 [Part A]. Originally published on Jun. 1, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.