Vaporwave

[Nebraska]

have you guys heard of this (new?) genre? basically, sound files from 80s television or cd roms featuring both library or soft jazz elevator muzik with minimal cut & paste, loop or mash up edits packaged as cassette tapes.

 

http://youtu.be/os8J-EBPVk0

 

http://beerontherug.bandcamp.com/

 

http://newdreamsltd.tumblr.com/

 

http://vektroid.tumblr.com/

 

anyone wanna make an album of this stuff? i feel like i can be the new mozart of this genre

[patternoverlap]

in before gmanyo

[Cryptowen]

Based on the title I thought this would be a genre based around albums that never actually get released, but the creators release 10 second samples every 5 years or so & millions of fans maintain that this one'll be a game changer as soon as it's out

[vamos scorcho]

can't believe they make money from this stuff

 

what am i doing with my life

[vamos scorcho]

i love all of it

 

it's all good

 

$ stars out of ✔街☯

[sergeantk]

in before gmanyo

 

lol

 

also, in before gmanyo

[Nebraska]

can't believe they make money from this stuff

 

what am i doing with my life

 

i think the people making this muzik made this exact comment as soon as they saw the people making witch-house quitting their day jobs

[joshuatxuk]

I stumbled upon this on lastfm awhile back.

 

Just looks like cut and pasting of retro ads, music, and visuals with some Japanese characters (Dig those bookmark symbols this dude used in his names.) Or witchhouse but neon. Seapunk but with electronic appliance references.

 

Pure meta-oriented nonsense.

 

The lastfm description has to be pure trolling. If not, there's no fucking way this will become anything but a bunch of 20-somethings who don't actually remember the 80s or 90s taking a piss but trying to make it seem like some kinda "deep" post-post-post-post-post-postmodern artsy muzak. Like chillwave or witchhouse maybe (a huge maybe) some good producer will come out it and do something else, though honestly sounds like something plenty have already done (and re-done, and re-interpeted, etc) by earlier hauntology musicians: Lopatin, Ferraro, and Ariel Pink stateside and of course Ghostbox and others in the UK

Edited November 29, 2012 by joshuatx

[BCM]

fucking vapourwave

[Cryptowen]

man this stuff sucks it's just looping one weird old tape samples forever, as opposed to the good kind of music that loops the same 3 monophonic synthesizer notes forever

 

(but for seriously this is one of the best album covers i've seen in ages)

 

[joshuatxuk]

^yeah I'm seeing some neat images browsing this stuff, no lie.

 

Sonically there's probably some bits in there I like too, it's just the whole circle-jerk aspect of it - recycled aesthetics and sounds. I dunno, if there wasn't some grand hip presentation of this "genre" it would simply be cheesy 90s sounding instrumental music. Any blogger hyping it now, with very few exceptions, wouldn't give two shits about this stuff if it came out 5 or 10 years ago. There's some nostalgic appeal to this obviously, but beyond that it's all hyped pretentious bullshit or pure irony. It's really only the constructed name and "ethos" that annoys me - it's so inorganic and manufactured. It's like computer software that isn't going anywhere or will ever be released as intended... wait.

 

Edited November 29, 2012 by joshuatx

[Cryptowen]

I find as time goes on I care less about how much effort/emotional honesty was put into a piece, & more about the reaction it provokes in me. Like, if there was some guy who just took a bunch of top 40 songs & clipped 30 second samples out of them, & put them in sequence without any editing, & people were calling him a genius, I'd probably still give it a chance if the results sounded interesting

 

Based on the few samples I've heard I...kinda...like this stuff. I mean, some of it's a little too dry & sampley for the sake of it, but there's some nice tapey weirdness hidden in there as well

[joshuatxuk]

The tapey stuff is what I like as well. I've been digging that sound/technique a lot lately.

[logakght]

it's pretty cool

[vamos scorcho]

circle jerk is the method of the virtual age

[skotosa]

This sounds like Boc being mass produced by computer algorithms that take wave samples and auto mixes them.

[Cryptowen]

Listening to http://beerontherug.bandcamp.com/album/timetimetime-time right now & digging it pretty well

 

So, was Replica responsible for the current wave of weird ultra-minimal sample loop music, or just one of the more prominent releases of the sort in the last few years?

[Vilwx]

I laughed when I first heard the term. I'm not convinced the appeal has anything to do with aesthetic. It's a branch of the continuous indie movement, ironic references to culture during the audience's childhoods. So much retro going on here I'm beginning to believe that people really are running out of ideas. This is certainly glued together scraps from the bottom of the recycle bin. However, this does remind me of Oneohtrix Point Never's tape loops, which are not unlike vaporwave in concept. There are some that I actually really like:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OcMocEoqQE

 

This example is also a slowed down loop of an 80s pop ballad, but somehow I hear something more relate-able than the original

[Salvatorin]

I'll listen, but just....please....please....please please please don't make me pay for this shit

[joshuatxuk]

^duh.

 

I laughed when I first heard the term. I'm not convinced the appeal has anything to do with aesthetic. It's a branch of the continuous indie movement, ironic references to culture during the audience's childhoods. So much retro going on here I'm beginning to believe that people really are running out of ideas. This is certainly glued together scraps from the bottom of the recycle bin. However, this does remind me of Oneohtrix Point Never's tape loops, which are not unlike vaporwave in concept. There are some that I actually really like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OcMocEoqQE

This example is also a slowed down loop of an 80s pop ballad, but somehow I hear something more relate-able than the original

I love that track, that's a great example of what I know has already been done that's similar in concept. OPN definitely was the first to achieve a lot of recognition recently. Those tape loops and similar projects (1991 for example) and and to a lesser extent, stuff like VHS Head I find very moving. Same with better "chillwave" - Memory Tapes, Washed Out, etc. And before that, BoC, various IDM and even trip-hop/downtempo artists. The whole idea of salvaging samples of things society more or less threw away into new, yet very familiar music is neat. It's different than simply making retro sounding music if done right. That's what I find interesting and potentially promishing about vaporwave, it's really just the influx of bandwagon artists that came with witch house, chillwave, etc that make me so skeptical.

I dunno, I also have to remember that genres like d'n'b, hip-hop (turntablism especially), and dub extensively recycle motifs, samples, and references to an almost absurd level. I suppose the trade-off is those genres had scenes that developed slowly over years, and such re-hashing was purposeful and almost out of respect for their peers. So the whole "circle jerk" thing really isn't new, it's just such vastly different context right now - so much faster, easier, and often impersonal. I guess the great challenge I have as a listener is sifting through the mediocre and lame producers to find the best artists. Edited April 7, 2018 by joshuatx

[vamos scorcho]

POP ART IS OVER GUYS CHOOSE ABSTRACT ExpressionISM

[gmanyo]

in before gmanyo

 

lol

 

also, in before gmanyo

lol

 

edit:

[hipster]2 or 3 years ago I would stay up late watching the public access channel that was only text and MIDI tunes to the point where I knew all the songs. I told my friend that we needed to record the music from the public access channel or make music like it, and I vaguely remember feeling like it would be the next thing and that I needed to get in on it before it happened. I'm mildly annoyed I didn't actually do it now that vaporwave is a thing.[/hipster]

 

edit2:

This video:

 

 

Edited November 30, 2012 by gmanyo

[webby]

One thing that the young people are not better at is being grumpy.

[joshuatxuk]

I know this has been discussed before but surely I'm not the only one to have been turned on by pitching things waaaay down. I had a dual cassette deck as a kid and I figured out that if you applied just the right amount of pressure to the pause button of the recording deck, it slowed the motor down. I did it with the intro to "Eutow" and it smeared it out into a gritty, saturated 4 minute bit that really captivated my imagination. The minute I found GoldWave, all tracks got the "0.70 test" to see if they struck me. I only had 30 second clips of Hangable Auto Bulb for a long time so what started out as a cheap way to get closer to a track length wound up making me prefer "Laughable Butane Bob" and "Everyday" at 60-70% speed. It's all nostalgia fuel but it's funny to me that both the kids and get-off-my-lawns are seeing eye to eye on this one.

 

I have a Sony dual deck with 30% +/- pitch control. It's amazing, I haven't seen anything else like it. Couple brands have 8 or 12% max. Before that I used the pitch and speed options on audacity all the time.

[Guest Gravity]

I know this has been discussed before but surely I'm not the only one to have been turned on by pitching things waaaay down.

 

You're definitely not alone. Ever since I first got my hands on editing software years ago I've been fascinated by the way things sound slowed down. It can go from just being a new perspective on an old track to making something jaw droppingly beautiful.