Lane Visitor

From the Donovan Hikaru Facebook page I set up a while back: ---- "Donovan Hikaru is a renowned professional who organizes many high-caliber and ultra-exclusive events in the world of underground conceptual thought. Through the use of exclusive third-party concepts, Hikaru remains at the forefront of the cutting edge. Whether it's a Fortune 500 charity event, a lavish swinger party, or a charming corporate Christmas party, Donovan is there, unscathed and brooding with unabided charisma. Mr. Donovan Hikaru is a five-time winner of the Platinum Serenity Awards, Event Coordinator for the United Nations Prose and Poise Committee, and Chairman of the Board for FACT (Foundation for Abstract Conceptual Thought), as well as Personal Consultant for movers-and-shakers like Christopher Johnson, Roland Oneal, and Yusef-Amhed Amir. After spending great lengths of time in the rainforests of the Huragi region, near the outskirts of southeast Asia, the world is now ready for Hikaru to exert his rare excellence. Hikaru, with a steadfast and stealth sweep, grabs life by the horns and artistically breathes fresh unconcentrated air into the life of the party...the party that is to be experienced. No frills, themes, or concepts in this one...Just you, your guests, and a white-hot fire of passion- Passion for life. This is your party...This is Donovan. Donovan Hikaru Presents..." https://www.facebook.com/donovanhikaru

Check this scene out from the movie Disclosure starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore:

lololol that's incredible!

that's a pretty awesome idea. first we gotta come up with a swanky cool name of the comp.. "Washington Mutual?" or WaMu... "We Are The Movers and Shakers" (lol)... "Polygon Shopping Mall"?... "Joyrex Holdings?" "Joyrex Industries Incorporated?" im sorta half way joking btw, but it could be fun to come with some kind of cover art or something just for kicks I can dub 25-50 cassettes to sell if we setup a bandcamp page. No joke, I have a plethora of cases and C90 tapes and I'm planning to order C60s anyway soon. I have never participated in EKT comp, just listened to them, but this one is very appealing to me. Nice! I'm down if ya'll are.

that's a pretty awesome idea. first we gotta come up with a swanky cool name of the comp.. "Washington Mutual?" or WaMu... "We Are The Movers and Shakers" (lol)... "Polygon Shopping Mall"?... "Joyrex Holdings?" "Joyrex Industries Incorporated?" im sorta half way joking btw, but it could be fun to come with some kind of cover art or something just for kicks

This is amazing, that slideshow is perfection. This has the same vibe as Ferraro's Far Side Virtual which was also MIDI and not sample/pluderphonics based. Thanks man, glad you dig (: It was fun to make. Been working on some more ideas too.. possibly a whole EP with a corporate stock music theme once i have time haha.. started working on something last night called "Business Plaza Rock", it's kinda new jack swingy lol.. that Far Side Virtual album was awesome. ill post more vids once I make more stuff.. i wasn't sure if i should post in the EKT or in here, but i figured it called for being in this thread. excited to hear anyone else experiment with some vwave type stuff too.

i think this genre and its associated styles are super fun and imaginative (: hopefully people keep making more and more of it. the world is full of absurdism, capturing it in art form is what it's all about.

lol sweet- at least i was able to make and upload a vw track to yt before the trainwreck happens! score!

haha! Glad you got the feel that i was going for (: Thanks man, I appreciate it... Yeah, I write and produce an eclectic array of music- mostly synthpop/hip hop/indie disco stuff, but i like to mess around with different styles. so anyway, yeah, i was just meddling around on my midi controller, reaching around for chords and melodies that would fit that theme of workplace success, team building, moving forward, etc etc that you'd hear in some lame corporate training video from 1989 or something. I'm definitely planning on making some more Donovan Hikaru material... I already have an idea for the next track/vid.. I think I'll stick to the similar tired theme of the corporate workplace.

my first vaporwave track as my moniker, "Donovan Hikaru Presents..." Donovan Hikaru: Moving Forward In The Company

okey dokey i just made my first vw track... it's short and hokey and simple.. somewhere between late 80s sitcom music and inspirational corporate muzak... all original. just made a fitting youtube video/slideshow for it. Any interest in me posting it onto this thread? (:

oh MY. That is gorgeous!!! Yes! Love it!!!

I dunno. I can easily support myself working 15h a week at minimum wage. At that rate you don't have much lying around for partying or fancy food or whatever, but if you're balls deep in making tracks it doesn't matter so much. Or, looking at the flipside, a person can work 40 hours a week & then spend another 40 hours making tracks & sleep 6h a night & live off canned beans, if they're mad dedicated But honestly, I think it has nothing to do with time spent. I see guys out there, beatmakers usually, who brag about how they're in the studio most of the time, & their stuff's just kinda boring to me...I don't mean "meh, not my taste" boring, but "jeez there just isn't much to this" boring What it really comes down to is putting as much of yourself into the music as possible. Full-assing it, so to speak. Like, I don't know much about playing piano but the only time I feel like I'm doing it right is when I convince myself, "okay, you're about to die, & this is the only tool you've got to express all that stuff you think about but never say". That's the mindset, I think. But you've gotta work it a lot, like a muscle, so it goes from 'youngin with stars in his eyes' to 'damn dis man be spittin fire' Yeah, I hear you. That's what it's all about. It's simple. Hard work. Good old fashioned. The other sad, but true fact: A. Music B. Job C. Girlfriend/Boyfriend/Family Pick 1 and with hard work and dedication, you can be outstanding at it. Pick 2 and with hard work and dedication, you can do pretty good at both of them, or really good at just one, or really good at the other. Pick all 3 and with hard work and dedication, you'll either be mediocre at all of them, bad at one and average at 2, or really good at one, average at the other and really bad at the other. lol Now that I completely derailed this 16 page thread, sorry everyone, im notoriously fantastic at derailing watmm threads. Anyway, back to vaporwave... ~~~~~~

I feel you. I always have to remind myself that us artists are our own worst enemies when it comes to self-validation, being proud of our work, getting noticed etc. I would imagine even top selling artists have issues where things just aren't how they envision them, or theyre not appreciated in the ideal way they want to be. As far as the constant gold rush of music to be discovered on the web/youtube/soundcloud, I couldn't agree more, and here's what I can't process: How there are these what seems like endless amounts of innovative artists with reeeally good melodies, really groovy beats, and really great production, sound design, AND mixing... AND it's all mastered at really competitive levels while still retaining dynamics. But that's not the part that I can't process- It's the fact these songs are put out by what seems to be bedroom producer kids with NO label, NO funding (that Im aware of), probably not tons of experience considering their younger ages and rookie-ness to the music scene, AND no time (unless they're trust fund babies or lottery winnners), to properly execute an immaculate production. I just don't get it. Do these guys not have to work? Albums and singles don't sell anymore, so unless they're getting money from licensing or touring, I don't understand how they're supporting themselves fully on just making amazing music. Are they working from home part time on their own schedule and making enough to get by? Even with that, I can't imagine having the resources and time to make a commercial-grade (in terms of production/mixing/mastering) package in such small amounts of time, out of nowhere. And then these videos, don't even get started. Oh and then on top of all this PROMOTING it all and reaching wide range of indie music circles?!?!? I'm baffled. Unless there's some kind of hidden formula here that I'm not aware of-- (presets, patches, loops, and sound design that they just open up folders of and click and then done, a certain video director who charges like 100 dollars for a pro-grade highly creative video, and some kind of special VIP pass of access to every influential indie music blog... but I don't buy that.)

POST-POST-POST-META-AMBIGUOUSLY IRONIC-VAPORWAVE... (By brain hurts from the never-ending exponentially meta-ness of this concept)

Brilliant. All it takes is 1 second of getting lost in the moment and that second can feel like a blissful eternity.

First rule of vaporwave. You don't talk about vaporwave. That said, I think the whole reason people are so into it is because it represents this feeling, when you are staying up late watching informercials or whatever, I guess people actually do that, but you get in that zone where you keep thinking that you are missing out on something. What I'm saying is there is this implied social element somehow, so ubiquitous is the theme of lounge/plaza/waitingroom, but the people actually in those places aren't thinking of things that way. If you go to a lounge it will be nothing like this idealized version. The idea has been bugging me for years. I have this idea of actually having fun hanging out in a lounge, but the reality is that they would probably be playing lady gaga and everyone would be drunk and/or have their hearts aimed out----> and not in <-----. The idea of living happily in a moment, with someone else too, in this self contained lounge world, but the simultaneous nostalgia/depression that it is a bygone era, or it never has and never will actually exist, that the extent of it is that production room and it is only perceived through a screen, or in a purer way--through a speaker. Wow, well said. I think it's these idealized versions of the images and concepts that keep our imagination afloat, and our minds wandering into all kinds of possibilities, dreams, etc. I've had the same idea about having fun hanging out in a lounge, the same idea I have about going to a shopping mall to get pizza and window shop, and even the experience of going to a movie at a theater, or renting a dvd from a rental store (the ones that still exist)... All the idealized/nostalgic/symbolic versions of those experiences pop out at me when I think about doing those things, and usually when i do them, it's not as satisfying, for one million reasons or another- I would say the main culprit being the constant internal dialogue in my head as I'm experiencing them, whether they be limitations, self-imposed judgments of myself and others around me, timing (am i wasting time? should i be busy being productive right now?, why is everyone "these days" staring down at their phones? what's up with our generation? am i ever going to have the career i dream of? is this pizza im eating right now going to give me a heart attack in 10 years... or on the flip side, is this salad i just ordered have enough leafy greens to actually be of nutritional value, or am i just eating water-comprised and wilted lettuce and celery strands submerged in balsamic? etc etc etc etc etc. of course it doesn't help that we're all attached to our nostalgic pasts, and that it seems that the current generation is very detached from improvisation and physical engagement, but i think at the core, it's all these judgments and limitations, it seems, that keeps us from submerging into the moment. enter Internet Club, Saint Pepsi, Ultra... a meditation on those environments and feelings of being submerged into a particular atmosphere and the comfort of that familiarity, with a dash of mysteriousness and adventure.

Official Vaportwave Rules: 1. The song that's sampled has to have been heard in the past by no more than 200 million people, but no less than 50,000 people. 2. It cannot by any means include music from the following artists: Michael Jackson and Rick Astly -- as they are too often referenced in pop culture and/or have too many Youtube memes about them already. 3. In addition to pitching the sample down, there must be reverb applied to the sample with no less than 50% wetness, and no more than 71% wetness. 4. There can be no political lyrics. 5. You must be laying down on your side with your head resting on your hand while your laptop/ipad/pc mouse is in the other while creating the track. 6. You may NOT tag it as vaporwave on YT, or else the true VW labels will scorn at you and you will be shunned by the entire community. Note: You may use "post-pre-vaporwave", "bear-core", or "aggro-chill-wave with hints of vapor" or other similar tags as a safe alternative. and most importantly, 7. You may not, under any circumstance, be thinking about the genre while you attempt to make it. In fact, the more you seek out to create a "vaporwave" track, the less it becomes official Vaporwave, and your potential vapor wonders will vaporize into digital nothingness.

ooh that's nice... so much amazing material in this vein has come out of Japan, and continues to come out. It blows my mind.

Oohh, haha- it's Generation Band- Call of the Wild (: there's some real stellar stuff ive been checking out on the label this album is on- "tba records and tapes", may wanna check em out if you have the chance. .. here's one from the label: Here's Generation Band: http://youtu.be/XfWJxE6bRic

Haha thanks- most definitely.. The artwork I created? More like bad clip art (mostly businessmen and tennis players), and heart drawings everywhere. with titles like "I Loved You, I Love You, And I'll Always Love You" lol

Dude, fantastic! How does it sound? That cover goes deep... Found this CD in my grandpa's workstation/cassette/cd/rack-- He was so vaporwave when he was alive it's not even funny.. He's got demos of wedding bands from the mid-late 90s, dollar bin gems and all kinds of oddities- he wasnt even trying, he just liked good music/electronic equipment bargains and happened to end up choosing some very cheesy random stuff lol: ^ ive been jamming to this album since i was in high school as i found it at my grandparents, and was like wtf is this??? you could only imagine what it sounds like based on the artwork haha.. straight 80s/elevator/hotel/waiting room throwaway tracks verging on LA fusion porn grooves... some is actually pretty cool though. started singing weird cheesy shit over it with my friends, and created an entire moniker. came up with a bunch of albums and cheesy over the top love song titles, with album art made on MS Paint using lots of clip art and stuff. I think this is part of why this whole Vaporwave thing hits me so hard lol ill have to dig up some of the fake album art work i made and post it on here sometime (: p.s. that must have been a rad show.. so cool you got your hands on a prismcorp tape! lucky lucky...

There's a new tape by Luxury Elite called 'TV Party' here: http://www.orangemilkrecords.com/luxury-elite---tv-party.html Dude, thanks for the head's up! I was digging the stuff I had previously heard by Luxury Elite.. Just purchased that cassette from the label. That stuff sounded lush. Looking forward to some yummy weirdness.

wow, where to begin. i know im late to the game here, but i just stumbled into this vaporwave stuff a week ago and ive been fucking hooked ever since lol. ive always heard about it before, but never bothered to look into it, as i figured it was just another brooklyn-bred hype for journalists, combining hyphy and shoegaze or like neo-folk with surf and acid, or something that id imagine reading about on pfork. but to my surpise, it's in fact mysterious bizarro pitched down and chopped 80s/90s pop/soul/muzak/disco/smooth jazz ran through shitty tape recorders and stuff. This, imo, is EXACTLY what music needs right now. Things in music have seemed so serious lately, that's the culture has sort of lost it's charm and fun in many ways. For a while, I thought I was a little burnt out on both mainstream and indie music worlds with all of it's youtube saturation, but surprisingly, creative minds have started using youtube for revolutionary and highly imaginative purposes, in a diy fashion. found materials, infomercial samples, terrible corporate mood music. all combined into a track, used as instruments, themselves. fucking brilliant. i know it's really not anything so new (as sampling, chopping and screwing and collages have been around forever), but there's something about the way in which this little genre is being done- the whole package, asthetics as well, that really speaks to me. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I've had so many weird conceptual ideas that I've wanted to work on in the vein of Ultra, PrismCorp Virtual Enterprises, LaserDisc Visions, Saint Pepsi, etc etc since I was in high school, and seeing all this stuff coming out now kinda gets me excited. it's the perfect response to our over saturated consumer culture. regurgitation of the absurd elements of past and present pop culture so tastefully done. This shit makes Girl Talk and those hyped acts sound like Hanson.... (in a non-vaporwave hanson way :D) p.s. ive been searching for some actual cassettes of prism corp, ultra, laserdisc, etc, and can't find any for sale. if anyone knows where i can buy them or is looking to sell their copy, id def be interested)