Lane Visitor

of course. but that wasn't my point. making art in a vacuum is making art. but when it comes to taking it seriously and pursuing a career, which will further expand one's talents, and truly make "good pieces of work" in a professional and sustaining manner, they need to be able to survive and in order for it to actually make a legit impact, it can't be only worked on for 2.5 hours a week every other week. I know this is a popular sentiment in the indie music world, but i disagree whole heartedly that making art with the goal of financial rewards is a joke, (which is also an extreme simplification of the subject.) That's equivalent to saying "You don't need money to be happy". Because you're using THE goal, and not A goal. There's a difference. Person 1- single goal: make money from music. strictly business. (and i dont think there are actually even many ppl out there with this. even dbags who make music virtually only to get money and girls still usually like music to an extent) = nothing wrong with that even, as long as they don't force feed me the terrible results of their "craft". I'm not judging ppl's goals. If they wanna look at making music strictly as a business, than so be it. More the better for the real artists who make good stuff, so they have less to compete against in terms of quality. Person 2- dual goal (like most people id imagine): get fulfillment and either realistically OR hopefully make money (at some point) from creating music .... realistic. what I would imagine is 99% of the music-creators out there today. Person 3- single goal: only get fulfillment from making music, with no desire to make money from it... no desire. no goal. we're not talking (it's a pipe dream in the back of their minds somewhere, we're talking they do NOT DESIRE to make money from it. at all. = A smaller minority, probably as many as the first type of person. pure hobbyists, jammers, experimenters. i have nothing but pure love for these folks. and frankly, they are the kinds of ppl i get along with the most. but i'd argue that many of these peeps still have a very small "what if one of my pieces someday could reach many people. would i turn down money offered for my music? no, i wouldnt". No, I don't think every "artist" deserves special treatment. no one deserves special treatment, even great artists. every artist, good or not, must work hard to get exposure and then hopefully appreciation, if people feel it.

^ fucking this.

oooh wow.. very nice!

Also, on a further tangent rant... (Run-on spolier) Corporations like Netflix, Spotify, Grooveshark, and the gazillion other streaming channels that currently exist and will pop up where filmmakers, musicians, producers, engineers, actors, screen-writers, etc have no other choice but to be experienced through will be responsible for reducing those (mostly indie) artists' already meager paychecks if any at all until art istelf becomes nothing but a hobby for the rich and/or an undying (and mostly unrealistic) fantasy for the working, slaving visionaries that will never be rewarded for their visions unless they win the lottery. Of course, at this point, one may argue, that this scenario already exists as success in arts/music entertainment, and that this industry has essentially always been equivalent to "winning the lottery" already, but I'd suggest checking out David Lowery's brilliant letter to an NPR intern if you haven't yet. Great stuff. http://thetrichordist.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/ But what disturbs me, and I'm not bitter or nostalgic or stuck in the 90's physical copy era or anything, is that the very technology, gadgetry and channels made by Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, etc that's made to experience what us content-creators make, are selling in the trillions and happily to fanboys from here to Jupiter. The same people who tell me "Hey man, chill- it's just the way of the future.. The 'industry' fucked itself with over-priced CDs from Sam Goody, so now in the information age where everything can now finally be shared (hooray) and uploaded onto servers and available at the bat of an eye, we just have to accept that artistic content is going to be cheapened.".. "Artists just have to find new ways and create new streams of revenue." No. Struggling indie artists should not be "expected" to expand their already-extremely diverse pool of forced-talents (writers, graphic designers, promoters, social media pros, performers, tour managers, stage directors, music video-creators, etc etc etc etc), into even more realms of entrepreneurial brilliance all in between sleep and our 9-5 office jobs. We shouldn't now also have to be: reality tv show producers, kickstarter/fundraising professionals, charity/non-profit event promoters, reputation management/SEO gurus, ad agency owners, builders, electric engineers...... and on and on) Not that it's not great to have a wide array of skills and life experience. If I had the time and money, yes- I'd learn all of these things and get them down to a tee and run my own empire with multiple employees. But when current indie artists are expected to become each and every one of these "players", they have less time, energy, funds, and focus to create the very thing they are here to do- make music. When unsigned indie artists are forced to fill all of these roles, with the added knowledge their album they are making will be less than a shot in the dark, and that even great indie success and the backing of a label will get them to point zero as far as making a living off of creating songs (and we're not talking about playing live here), then what, i ask, what incentive will there be to make great imaginative, lush, well-produced, well-arranged, beautiful recordings? At this point, any aspiring musical artist would be better advised to simply train for American Idol or start an acoustic free form jam band. Sorry for the bickering.. and this coming from an admitted futurist, optimist, and digital-space loving music artist/web marketing person. But there seems to something very wrong with the way the artist, the album, single, ep, and recorded music are being looked at by tech innovators/corporations and us consumers alike. In other words, Friendly Foil and I shouldn't have to (and would never even know where to start or get the backing money) be museum curators and art gallery PR reps to promote our music. It's audio, not a painting.

all opinion/speculation on the musical content of wu-tang's new album aside, this is a pretty awesome idea imo, and a clear indicator that even successful artists are scratching at the bottom of the barrel to find ways to stand out and sell records. There are so many amazing artists and so much incredible music available not only at fingertips reach, but coming in to us at all channels on a regular basis, and 99.99999% of it will never have a chance of being discovered or simply streamed more than a handful of times, let alone bought. And so I'm tired of endlessly hearing the: "well, artists just need to adapt to new models outside of recorded music if they want to make money", or: "well, they just have to have to have really good live shows now and make their money from touring", or the worst: "it's actually exciting, cuz it's a revolution, and now finally music will return to where it came from- gypsy folk bands, troubadours, and orchestras touring around playing real organic music, travelling from town to town" not that that those first two points aren't incorrect, it's just that "hey buddy, wait to state the obvious while you sit down at your computer listening to spotify, because you expect your entertainment, ready-made, ready-found, and not only for free but AD-free in high quality format." i for one, think what wu-tang is doing here is inspiring to say the least. (:

in love with this little mallsoft ditty.. wish there was endless loop of it repeating.. [sc5]141384272[/sc5] catsystemcorp is super dope, and a cool guy too.. he put out one of my all time fav vaporwave albums, Consumer Recreation Services. love the album covers of his too

^ brilliant, with the distorted to hell karaoke track hahaha..

^ p.s. my buddy and i made this... curious to see what you guys think? is it waay over ppl's head's, even within vaporwave, or do you "get" it? showed to some people i know, and they were like aww that's cute or haha that's hilarious guys. lol i also tweeted it @BostonMarket to see their reaction haha thinking of trying it with other huge corporate brands too

Post-ironic vaporwave marketing / ambiguous corporate #crowdsourced fanboyism....

:D

lol! so true.. i was thinking same exact thing... would be cool to feature that skeleton horn player in the "stargazing with the company" music video (:

I just spoke with Donovan, and he has a new press release he wanted me to pass along to WATMM: :D A new corporate masterpiece from donovan hikaru: "Stargazing With The Company" from the upcoming "Free Market Foreplay" EP, TBA via Ailanthus Recordings.... Enjoy! <3 Thanks guys! [sc5]140152735[/sc5]

amazing; this could make for a good backstory to some fake vaporwave kickstarter or something hahahaha yes!

Just got THE most vaped out spam in my junkmail! Check it out: "Hello, This is the second time i am sending you this mail, Please can you help me re-profile fund? I am Ms Teresa Au, HSBC Hong Kong, head of corporate sustainability Asia pacific region. A sum of (USD$23,200,000.00) (Twenty three million, two Hundred Thousand dollars) Million was deposited by our Late customer who died without declaring any next of kin before his death in 2006. My suggestion to you is to stand as the next of kin to Fadel Ahmed. We shall share in the ratio of 50% for me, 50% for you. Please contact me via this e- mail: mrs_tere2@126.com. Thanks Regards Mrs Teresa Au."

lol

lolol ... ive actually thought it would funny to do some kind dubstep genre, where it was the type of styles, buildups, drops, nuances that exist in dubstep, but the instruments being used were not dubstep synths, but rather acoustic guitars, jazz drums, etc, maybe even a few horns... some sounds from a dx7 or whatever.. anything non dubstep like lol it would sound like a trainwreck!

A testament to your greatness

A testament to their greatness (:

hmm wow.. i wonder if anyone can find the source material? although i kind of like that i dont know where it came from and if it came from anywhere.. keeps the mystique. thats the problem with vaporwave lol with the good sample-based stuff, you dont really wanna know what the original source was, in order to keep it magical. strange dilemma...

Whoa.. crazy! Never noticed those are the same melody.. Hmm it's like a Prism Corp theme, tying both releases together.. haha that makes it even more awesome to me

I'm not 100% but I believe her work under Vektroid is all original, just from my own analysis.. Clearly, Mac +, Sacred Tapestry, Eco Virtual, prob Esc Ghost (or whatever it is), and that one with all the Japanese letters, are sample-based projects, but they seem to have layers of production through out that could be original. I'm still split over whether Prism Corp Virtual Enterprises is original or sample-based. Home and ClearSkies are so intricate, layered and so advanced in terms of jazz progression and instrumental nuance, that I find it hard to believe that it's not sample-based, or at least that the compositions were recontextualized and she "covered" the songs using cheesy MIDI sounds. Anyone know for sure though? I'm completely baffled, although there are a number of tracks on both Home and ClearSkies that have hip hop tropes and "internet" music stylings which would seem too current/relevant for them not to be original. I actually played the opening track from Home for a music publisher friend of mine, and he was almost sure he'd heard that melody before from some song from the 70's or something, but he may have been mistaken.

You just have to look around a little bit to find the good stuff.. Sure, there's lots of lazy vaporwave, but there's also a lot of good stuff. It's more about curation though, and how the material is tied together, treated and conceptualized imo, whether it's sample-based or not. There are also non-sampling original projects out there like Blank Banshee, Eyeliner, Donovan Hikaru (sorry, shameless plug!), and many of Vektroid's stuff. Not everything vaporwavey is labeled as such anyway. I hear you but don't confuse curation with creation. The concept of edits and mix tapes that reassemble old material into new vibes are nothing new obviously. The only difference here is that this culture gives zero credit...what is the point. Just post the originals and edit them if you want to be a curator. The whole notion of some philosophy behind this was not relevant for 90% of those involved. They latched onto it as an excuse to steal and get internet love. That is becoming even more obvious now. Again I think there are some doing interesting stuff with the concept, but this 'genre' has by far the worst ratio of good to bad music. I think that speaks to how poor the core of the culture is. I know it is on its way out but it was always unsustainable in that form. I actually have to agree with you in that I think all artists regardless of genre should mention the source material and credit the creator. That may be my main gripe with the heavily-sampled vaporwave. However, I think it's so niche at this point, that it's more of an oddity. Regardless, it would be nice to see that evolution of using crediting of sample-based vaporwave in the future. Hopefully, that will also weed out the completely unoriginal "vaporwave artists" who just post other ppls tracks and dont even do anything to em.

You just have to look around a little bit to find the good stuff.. Sure, there's lots of lazy vaporwave, but there's also a lot of good stuff. It's more about curation though, and how the material is tied together, treated and conceptualized imo, whether it's sample-based or not. There are also non-sampling original projects out there like Blank Banshee, Eyeliner, Donovan Hikaru (sorry, shameless plug!), and many of Vektroid's stuff. Not everything vaporwavey is labeled as such anyway.

my review: That Mirror Reflecting pt 2 track is gorgeous.. an amazing mixture of macabre, fantasy, sinister, and wonder... it sounds like an endless rabbithole of darkness, but not a despair or hopelessness kind of darkness, rather, a vastness of a world beyond.. the outer limits... nothingness and everythingness and the terrifying fathoming of just how strange and foreign those outer limits are/could be when a glimpse might be caught of it... an endlessly puzzling adventure, like falling down a seemingly never-ending pit, and realizing the magnitude of endlessness, the mindboggling nature of that endlessness along with the beauty of the realization that if theres a seemingly endless pit of darkness, there also must exist the opposite of that... and maybe it's from the same source.

lol.. i wanna go to that expo so badly.. i mean just look at that font/layout on the billboard of the photo of the expo center!