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.

Vapor Vertebrae 10-2015 Part B

ArtFluids
Avoc Cado

<Proteus LP>

The glistening MIDI-fueled vapor ventiducts of ArtFluids never meant to cause havoc. But now they're causing avoc, or to be more precise: Avoc Cado, the second track from his LP Proteus. Released in October 2015 on OSCOB's Bedlam Tapes in a limited edition of 50 cassettes, the track serves both as a single and a teaser, an artifact to test and detest the listener's expectations. It is hard to pinpoint the allure of ArtFluids: is it the purposefully emaciated synths whose physiognomy and complexion suddenly rise due to towers of stacked polyphony? Is it the occasional ancillary route that leads to Eurodance-accentuated rhythms? Whatever the truth – which I can only approximate anyway – may be, Avoc Cado has you covered: retrofuturistic crystal droplets and rain pads vesiculate through rhenium-alloyed Roland bass drums which protrude the darkness in tandem with phylogenetic bongo-oid percussion devices. Timbre- and melody-wise, ArtFluids makes this sound like one of those early C64 or Amiga music demos; the spirit of 30+ years of sound processor wizardry is in the air, emulated of course, but still graspable. Coldwave meets Glo(w)-Fi, and while Avoc Cado does not encapsulate everyone's interpretation of Vaporwave, it all the more embraces and exudes the heritage of post-Kraftwerk computer music. 

Twitter: @ArtFluids  @BedlamTapes

Ecosynthetics
Two Cars Colliding

<Single>

It is quite the catastrophic title, with all kinds of portent or would-be considerations whirled away in the wake of a horrible situation: Two Cars Colliding sports an apocalyptic connotation, but Canada's Ecosynthetics, otherwise known as Ghosting in Vaporwave (and Dream Catalogue) circles, makes the horrible situation his moment and unleashes adiabatic rotoscoping punctilio waves of Glitch that jitter and pulsate through the recondite darkness. Once the scything spikes, stereo-panned afterglows, screeching magnetotails and short visits into underwater-like hymnic halides run on all cylinders, the vignette showcases a beautifully condensed diorama of glacial globs, (hol)arctic isles and fluvial floes. There are people out there who may neglect any presence of Vaporwave whatsoever. But in the end, these jittered fractals and apoplectic bursts show the micrometry of bliss, moments of incisive clarity and cerulean hue. An overarching theme to hum along to is unrecognizable, but not completely ruled out; it is the textures and their Detroit-y nature of profoundness which altogether make this sound-based helictite a caproic crash. 

Twitter: @ghosting_tv

私Kyasuto
Visionary [ウイルス]

<Single>

To be honest, one look at the front artwork, and the thoughts of 私Kyasuto's home base Daytona Beach in Florida are annihilated, what with the olive-green/saffron-yellow grid and the cybernetic culture. The soundscape itself, however, leads back to sun-kissed lands and lores: Visionary [ウイルス] is a clear-cut beach-compatible theme of sizzling maracas complete with reverberated classic drum kits whose chromaticity inherits the aura of the 80's. Add the basketball-like bass droplets, lascivious guitar coils and ophidian elements such as clicking claves and goblet drum vestiges to the shore, and you find yourself near a salubrious cove. Don't let the sudden epiphany of the last three seconds fool you: this is a life-affirming song, hopelessly auroral and rose-tinted, yet awash with prolonged moments of nostalgia and remoteness. Once the soundscape is blurred and toned down, it doesn't seem like the oldest trick in the book anymore. Instead, the focus shifts, parallax layers are added, and everything is undeniably peachy. This is Vaporwave à la Florida, the sunlight remains surreal, the mood is slightly crestfallen, but the listening subject is in control of its fate. Feels good!

Twitter: @KyasutoMusic

Tilvera
わたしは p i s a n g

<p i s a n g w a v e 2 0 0 0>

German boy Luis aka Tilvera makes it clear right from the get-go: the ｐｉｓａｎｇｗａｖｅ２０００EP is a joke, and if you don't get it, no worries, all is fine. If it only were that easy. For starters, it's a rough world out there, and Vaporwave itself is considered a joke by many, so in the end, Tilvera only encapsulates a joke within a joke so that you can laugh while you laugh. But what if we – you and I – try to absorb some sort of postive aura from the above sparkler わたしはｐｉｓａｎｇ, would this be so wrong? "Yellow on the outside, white on the inside," Jin Hackman raps in a voice that's deeper than Tay Zonday's famously debonair soul, and while his toasts are agglutinated to sun-dappled acoustic licks and further ameliorated by steel guitar twangs, it becomes all of a sudden quite a bit possible to bask in the soothing insouciance that is altered by Tilvera. The staggering punchiness of the lo-freq bassline only augments the liveliness. Pisang embodies the magic of the banana. Peel and repeat.

Twitter: @Tilveravapor 

Rad Dan
Feature Presentation

<Blockbuster And Chill EP>

Vaporwave confronts Future Funk. Rad Dan versus Tubular Future. I against I. Our boy from Orlando, Florida is equally – and rightfully – at home in both genres, but this here Feature Presentation is a prime example of Vaporwave: slow as molasses, sticky as honey. In the opener of his seven-track Blockbuster And Chill EP/LP hybrid released on Pizzabox Society in October 2015, Rad Dan takes us back to a time where going to the movies was an exciting affair that you wholeheartedly embraced for all the right reasons, mainly the actors and storyline, the popcorn and soda, with the bae on your side. Rad Dan is in good company: his screen is somewhat akin to the aforementioned Ghosting’s Telenights (2014, Dream Catalogue) and the equally aforementioned OSCOB’s チャンネルサーフィン1978–1984 (2015, DMT Tapes), but much bigger, presentd in 21:9 and then some. Feature Presentation therefore prepares the listener for the grand things to come, enchanting with its washed out but hymnic Mellotron muons, apocryphal brass blasts and viridian conga centrioles. The anthem is nonetheless tawny and not fully shown in technicolor: the tone sequences aren't truly euphonious, there's something standardized and all too common in the presentation. Again, that is exactly the deal, it's only a feature after all, but undeniably drenched in the consumerism cathexis known as – wait for it – Vaporwave.

Twitter: @rad_dan_music  @pizzaboxsociety

Vaporwave Review 131: Vapor Vertebrae 10/2015 [Part B]. Originally published on Oct. 20, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.