Vapor Vertebrae 11-2015 Part B

Perla Blue x Sudo
Late Night Forecast

<Collab>

”You should be asleep," the explanatory notes reveal, and this exclamation is important in two ways: first, it is late. And in addition, you're watching the weather forecast. Derp. As is always the case, paradise can be found in the most disheartening places and times, and it so happens that vaporwavers Perla Blue and Jack Mazin aka Sudo team up in an effort to bring you the washed out memorabilia in the shape of sound-based VHS reels of the mind. The result is called Late Night Forecast, but it is a comparatively eclectic hybrid, not unlike Perla Blue's ode to the telenovela called テレノベラ (2015). Sure, you immediately notice the vapor veils flickering in the hypanthium, that is the oily lead guitar, the insouciant crystal arabesques and rain pads, with the occasional pitch shift and slowed-down vocal. If you desire this, Perla Blue x Sudo deliver. The same, however, happens if you despise these ingredients: Perla Blue x Sudo deliver in this case too! The reason is the invigorating percussion punctilio that almost crosses the threshold to Jungle patterns. Its afterglow and calcined aura ooze through the night, adding a lively, energizing counterpart – or contretemps? – to the cathodic cathexis. Well done, my guys!

Twitter: @PRLABLU  @MazinJack

Vincent Remember
Do You Love Me?

<Single>

Vapor naysayers will probably elbow Vincent Remember's question away, for who could possibly love a Vaporwave producer? But please, let's be civil for a moment or two, for the aurorally titled Do You Love Me? comprises all the right nuts and bolts of amour which are embroidered in a song that is archetypally genre-based. A slowed-down Synth Pop artifact is presented, presumably almost ”as is,” but the freq-related alterations are a thing to cherish regardless. Deep vocals, crystalline four-note nebulae and a fantastic battery of coruscating hi-hat/cymbal light sources make this a surprisingly metallic piece. Especially the molybdenized percussion rolls like thunder and causes a strange simultaneity of elasticized hurry: even though the song is actually slowed down, the punctilio of the cymbals puts it closer to Jungle territory. Vincent Remember delivers a scattered cocktail of fermions, so who am I to not verify the question that is posed in the song title?

Twitter: @VincentRemember

2047
12 Hour Drive

<Snow LP>

The metamorphosis of the artist known as Lyndon is a strange and ever-potentially quirky thing to analyze. The tweets and messages are full of witty remarks and convoluted aphorisms. The music, however, is a dead-serious, highly devoted, totally different world made of grandiloquent Ambientscapes, cinematic viewpoints and angular zoetropes. More Ambient than not, rooted in cyberpunk and ameliorated with nomological nematodes, our boy London turned from 2047 부드러운 아픈 over 2047 A.D. to now just 2047 or "twenty four seven" if you will. Rarely has the distinction between comic relief and crestfallen sounds been so high and mighty than here. 12 Hour Drive appears in the context of the artist's full-length album Snow, released on No Problema Tapes, where it appears as the fifth track. Clocking in at almost ten and a half minutes, 12 Hour Drive is an unexpected beam of light, a golden-shimmering elasticized macronutrient of amicability and mutual understanding. Metallic yet warmhearted synth streams encapsulate pointillistic beep melodies, classic drum kits meet and mesh with mild-mannered rubble earthquakes, and a rising square lead cannelure boosts elation and happiness further. This is but one life-affirming anthem of Snow. And it's made by 2047. Yes, this is an epiphany for all parties involved.

Twitter: @2047_sicksoft

Based Frequency
禅蒸気 ~ Zen Vapor

<Single>

Louis-André aka Based Frequency from Montreal is back on the Vapor Vertebrae train and delivers what he promises with his single 禅蒸気 ~ Zen Vapor. Basically, this song presents a mephitic stokehold granuloma that runs for over two and a half minutes, with the engineered dungeon atmosphere comprising equimolar amounts of droning recirculation pumps and helicoidal ocean waves. Both layers merge, become a plateau and form the base frame for a square lead syringa flute that towers above the increasingly nomological garden lavabo. Distant seagulls and a droning low-freq aorta round off the dichotomy of technology and nature, the ever-present pairing of antagonistic concepts. This is an Ambient track alright and therefore potentially serves as a red flag to those listeners who want the A and the V genre to remain apart. Maybe this smoke-and-mirror/cloak-and-dagger moiré is the actual inherent unique selling proposition of 禅蒸気 ~ Zen Vapor. If this were indeed the case, the lanthanum chromaticity and dithered-hatched diffeomorphism would have served their respective purposes.

Twitter: @basedfrequency

aests
Rising Sun

<Single>

Vilnius, Latvia-based (derp!) Lithuania-based Future Funk luminary aests is known for his femme fatales which he prominently agglutinates to the front artworks of his soundscapes. In the case of Rising Sun, the girl is called Suiren and epitomizes a particularly staccatofied cannelure of aureate rays and orthochromatic beams. You know the Future Funk formula perfectly well, and yes, its ingredients and literally mandatory constituents find their ways into the endemic epithelium as well: mellow fuzziness, four-to-the-floor erethism and female vox amidst guitar-and-synth arabesques. However, aests knows how to augment the incandescent beach scenery. Two particularly insouciant attractions come to mind. The first thing to notice is the merciless stop-and-go notion, the breakbeat-esque fusillade staccato fire realized by means of chopped vocals. While this effect is perfectly well-known too, it works flawlessly due to the revved up energy level. The second thing – and possible contrastive device – to cherish is the gorgeous pentatonic synth marimba or mellotron hybrid which iridesces and glitters in a delightful manner, feeling fresh and silky at the same time and potentially taming the chop-p-p-ed physiognomy of this paradise. Rise and shine, with a focus on the latter phenomenon.

Twitter: @aestsbeats

Vaporwave Review 138: Vapor Vertebrae 11/2015 [Part B]. Originally published on Nov. 17, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.

Vapor Vertebrae 11-2015 Part A

Rez x OSCOB x Digital Sex
三人組

<The Vape Council Volume 1>

Vaporwave is dead when artists that have gained more than just a bit of traction collaborate and iridesce between helluvalot of genres. This is what happens in 三人組, a benthic sporophyte that clocks in past the six minute (and six genre) mark. Featured on Elemental 95's The Vape Council Volume 1 compilation – the first but not the last time the longest of all Vaporwave epitomes appears on this Vapor Vertebrae roundup –, the tune encapsulates the sample-based prowess of OSCOB, the emerald smoke circulators of his real life friend Rez and the Wisconsinite mellowness of Digital Sex. The track title 三人組 is as close to the American idiom "Tom, Dick and Harry" as possible, the soundscape itself, however, is magnanimously varied in styles and congruous in terms of its purple haze. Starting with click-accentuated pulsatile manholes in Detroit, moving over to a staccatofied punctilio of slowed-down and flangered 80's Synth Pop presented in the style of glitchy Plunderphonics until the great finale takes place in the shape of Jungle-oriented aeriform Rave helixes, 三人組 is a gorgeous centriole which fulfills its intrinsic triptych at the very end when it becomes clear that it splices together three distinct parts, all of them highly compatible and expertly assembled. Ambient, Glitch, Detroit, Detroit, Drone, Plunderphonics, Jungle, Sheffield Rave, nah, that's only an empty collection of buzzwords, so let all of these instance be rightful constituents of… the mighty V.

Twitter: @DigitalSexual  @virtualhighrez  @VirtualPlazaMax

コンシャスTHOUGHTS feat. rxtlxck
I Forgot

<愛>

愛 means love. And the collaboration of Glasgow's コンシャス THOUGHTS and Fredericksburg's rxtlxck means Future Funk. I could leave it that, but there's much more to tell. Recently, Chris – who is the man behind the thoughtful moniker – created a cheerfully laissez-faire in-your-face account on SoundCloud called コンシャス MEMES which is about tongue-in-cheek riots and aural robberies. The artist's money quote: "ALL I DO IS STEAL SONGS HAHA." But no worries, he remains dedicated and attached to the interim stage of both the V-genre and FF-movement. I Forgot is the second track off his album 愛 which recently dropped on the Future Society Collective as envisioned and run by Aritus. Over the course of almost four minutes, the duo of コンシャス THOUGHTS and rxtlxck succumb to slower midtempo gro(o)ves plastered with electropositive piano gluons, treble-boosted ancillary intersections and MIDI-fueled brass blebs. In tandem with the mixed vocals and ocean waves, I Forgot feels like the genre's sunset phase, but the negativism of this thought is immediately annihilated by the fittingly conscious cathexis and dreamy micrometry: this is the out-of-body vision of a being that absorbs the slower, more soulful vibes of life, not the BPM quasi-tachycardia which the Future Funk movement is (also) known for, therefore making this amethystine beach a sound-based gemstone to cherish. Good work, gents!

Twitter: @ChrissyCray1  @rxtlxck

Windows 98の
New Mall Synthesis

<The Vape Council Volume 1>

The music of Windows 98の amalgamates constructions that gyre between Vaporwave and Glitch; as it should be, one might be tempted to add. However, the tracks of the Orlando-based clasically trained composer, drummer and musical infiltrator evoke a certain polysemy, a dubious twilight that lets the producer tower above the things he creates, winking and smiling in the wake of the general opinion which is then mobbed up. Windows 98の creates music for brains… which I happen to enjoy against all odds if you catch my drift. It is all the more surprising that New Mall Synthesis even exists, for it ventures into the flamboyant world of consumerism… or is it? New Mall Synthesis is a prominent part of Elemental 95's The Vape Council Volume 1 compilation, and yes, you can sense that paradisiac piano pericarp right at the beginning. But then the artist – true to form as ever – ennobles the bustling scenery with incisive Shoegaze guitars, medulla-emptying droning juggernaut frequencies and an increasingly overdriven peritoneum of static noise. Mallsoft and Windows 98の: for a brief moment, this pairing almost became reality. Then the snarky ambiguity kicked in. 

Twitter: @windows98wave

Dezmo
Nitetime Glo

<Single>

I recently asked Dezmo via Twitter whether her Corporate Model moniker would reappear some time in the future, presuming that it was replaced for good. I'm not entirely sure the above Nitetime Glo showcases the very moment of its resurrection. Said moment at least enshrines the best of both worlds: the artist of Nitetime Glo is set to Dezmo, the SoundCloud hashtag meanwhile reads #corporate model, so I guess the mentioning of both names is justified. Therefore we're good… and the track is good too. Almost passing the threshhold to the three minute mark, the glowing solanum exudes a strangely wondrous conglomerate of Rhodes pianos, a catchy ditty that could come straight out of a wooden musicbox, followed by a handclap-underlined mid-bass retinue. The tone sequences breathe Japanese lift erethism without the injection of any pentatonic timbre, and if the bass had been revved up, Dezmo would have crossed the paths to Future Funk. Even when the 4/4 beat does become a prominent part of the latter half, it is somehow washed out and deliciously fuzzy, less staggering and therefore more lactic and dreamy. Additional phases of blur, punctilio, smoke and mirrors consolidate the fact that this is as close to the Future Funk style as Dezmo is willed to get while constantly reassuring the listener that Nitetime Glo's bucolic, harmonica-finished unity is a Vaporwave pearl alright. As catchy as can be. Dezmo/Corporate Model knows best.

Twitter: @corporatemodel

Vaporwave Review 134: Vapor Vertebrae 11/2015 [Part A]. Originally published on Nov. 3, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.