Vaporwave

[LimpyLoo]

The Macintosh Plus LP is pretty stellar IMO.

 

[Guest pixelives]

As I said before I don't know why I like listening to this stuff. I probably shouldn't and I'll probably have a chuckle about it in due time, but I find myself listening to it mostly at night when I want to not think very hard about what I'm listening to. I'd say about half the LP is good, the rest not so much. It's basically like aural xanax and I do have a soft spot for glassy DX styled synths. Screwed? Even better.

[Salvatorin]

The Macintosh Plus LP is pretty stellar IMO.

 

why you gonna judge, the music's FREE

'数学' is really a nice piece of sound

I'm liking the ethos here more and more, it's essentially taping together a mixtape of background music from overlooked sources, so you can share with the world the true fun of said bgrnd musik

Edited December 30, 2012 by Salvatorin

[Salvatorin]

it is funny reading my skeptical posts from a month ago because i hadn't really gotten a good idea of what 'vaporwave' was. at all. I was expecting it to be another fad genre with a bunch of a bad first attempt electronic musics. Now that I'm sitting down and really listening, what I'm finding is that 'vaporwave' this can barely be called a genre and more like an odd socio-cultural statement. it's removing kitsch from it's selling point! It's taking the often ignored background noise of commercial media and removing the advertisement...

clearly the hype causes a confusion about artistic merit, but if you look at not as 'music' and more ambigiously as a 'collection' of soundbytes, it makes more sense

 

I like this stuff, but I feel like I shouldn't in some way. I can latch onto the postmodernism, late capitalist, throwaway culture elements within, as well. Personally it feels like watching The Weather Channel's local weather broadcast in the 90's (for all you US peeps), but in a K-hole.

 

Weirdly I used to watch The Weather Channel all the time as a kid when bored.

 

 

I used to do that too! There was something so calming about the music and the slow shifting diagrams of weather and sich

Edited December 30, 2012 by Salvatorin

[gmanyo]

It's like watching that channel on the telly that shows text about community events and plays MIDI tunes.

edit:

also half of it is in the visuals

http://youtu.be/ISkLPemK9oU

Edited December 30, 2012 by gmanyo

[Guest pixelives]

I hear a lot of similarities to this stuff in Larry Heard's mid 90's album "Sceneries Not Songs, Vol 1." Minus the pitched down elements. All glassy, jazzy atmospherics.

[LimpyLoo]

it is funny reading my skeptical posts from a month ago because i hadn't really gotten a good idea of what 'vaporwave' was. at all. I was expecting it to be another fad genre with a bunch of a bad first attempt electronic musics. Now that I'm sitting down and really listening, what I'm finding is that 'vaporwave' this can barely be called a genre and more like an odd socio-cultural statement. it's removing kitsch from it's selling point! It's taking the often ignored background noise of commercial media and removing the advertisement...

clearly the hype causes a confusion about artistic merit, but if you look at not as 'music' and more ambigiously as a 'collection' of soundbytes, it makes more sense

 

I like this stuff, but I feel like I shouldn't in some way. I can latch onto the postmodernism, late capitalist, throwaway culture elements within, as well. Personally it feels like watching The Weather Channel's local weather broadcast in the 90's (for all you US peeps), but in a K-hole.

 

Weirdly I used to watch The Weather Channel all the time as a kid when bored.

 

 

I used to do that too! There was something so calming about the music and the slow shifting diagrams of weather and sich

 

I'll give it another chance.

[Adieu]

Some of the music isn't horrible, but it does seem pretty trendy. I won't dismiss something on those grounds alone, but it does make it harder for me to take it serious.

[Guest Social Spastic]

some cunts taking the piss

[joshuatxuk]

I like this stuff, but I feel like I shouldn't in some way. I can latch onto the postmodernism, late capitalist, throwaway culture elements within, as well. Personally it feels like watching The Weather Channel's local weather broadcast in the 90's (for all you US peeps), but in a K-hole.

 

Weirdly I used to watch The Weather Channel all the time as a kid when bored.

 

 

I used to do that too! There was something so calming about the music and the slow shifting diagrams of weather and sich

 

 

I remember 90s tv bumps fondly elsewhere too: Nickelodeon and PBS had some cool ones - swear I saw Aphex's On video played on Nick. When I was 9 we moved to an airbase in Okinawa and for awhile we only had the local AFN (Armed Forces Network) channel which would show cheesy PSAs, 3D animation bumps and play muzak during it's blocks of local wanted ads/information programming. Sci-fi had some good ones too:

http://youtu.be/FZubjK7_VCs

I feel like the 90s has so much throwaway pop-culture and aesthetics, even beyond what vaporwave has touched on. Not just the neon glo-fi stuff I remember as a kid, but all the then-trendy designs of the early 90s. I think back to how waiting rooms and office buildings looked and felt, how food and beverage products were packaged, clothing, etc: the way new homes were designed - all white and beige, with occasional splashes of soft colors. It was like continuing the futuristic designs of the 80s but with this pseudo-natural angle (like how people started wearing baggy clothes, or the world music/new age fad). Everyone fondly remembers things like grunge or the 60s and 70s throwback stuff in pop culture (Britpop, the New VW Beetle) but I feel like the actual styles and aesthetics of the 90s are only salvaged by noticing the backgrounds of old tv shows or finding old ads in magazines or vhs tapes. I have surreal thoughts of thinking about a future where everyone conformed to those designs sometimes. That's why I feel compelled to check out things like vaporwave or any hauntology in general.

Edited December 31, 2012 by joshuatx

[joshuatxuk]

'数学' is really a nice piece of sound

I'm liking the ethos here more and more, it's essentially taping together a mixtape of background music from overlooked sources, so you can share with the world the true fun of said bgrnd musik

 

This is great, I've heard other loop stuff like this but nothing this layered.

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

Enjoying the Pizzawave sub-genre at the moment:

 

http://strangepizza.bandcamp.com/album/wat-r-u-thinkin

[Salvatorin]

a couple years ago I had a wave of inspiration and wrote a stream of consciousness report on some hazily remembered aesthetics of my 90's childhood, and the questionably mind-numbing uniformity of corporate interior design. ball pits and colorful wall to wall carpeting...paintings of flowers, pastel printed dixie cups...

OCT-O=0.doc

Edited December 31, 2012 by Salvatorin

[Salvatorin]

Enjoying the Pizzawave sub-genre at the moment:

 

http://strangepizza.bandcamp.com/album/wat-r-u-thinkin

damn I like where trak 1 goes in the second half, wonky territory

edit: this is a fun pizza

Edited December 31, 2012 by Salvatorin

[Guest Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald]

a couple years ago I had a wave of inspiration and wrote a stream of consciousness report on some hazily remembered aesthetics of my 90's childhood, and the questionably mind-numbing uniformity of corporate interior design. ball pits and colorful wall to wall carpeting...paintings of flowers, pastel printed dixie cups...

OCT-O=0.doc

 

 

Fantastic essay! I guess I should try and articulate my thoughts on this and the relationship with vaporwave (forgive me if any of this is incoherent or pompous, I've just finished off a bottle of wine...)

 

For me 90's culture symbolised a very innovative yet limited aspect of individual creativity. Whilst technology was certainly at a point where we were able to create art that we beforehand could not have even have comprehended, the technology still reflected an alternate reality, one which distinctly presented the creators imagination as opposed to a near imitation of reality. What I mean by that is that even though we felt like we were looking at the future, it was still obvious the future looked nothing like the present; the sounds and visuals of the 90s could be easily distinguished from reality, relying on our imagination to fill that gap to answer the question 'What would this be like in reality?'. To me that's a real advantage; the ability to grow up in this high speed advancement of technology, whilst having the real life exploration and human interactions of the tubes and the ball pit described in your essay, allowed a real, emotional connection with both fantasy and reality

 

What I feel separates these times between now and then is that relationship with our imagination. I remember imagining how cars were made as I was young and making these incredibly naive diagrams of how they were constructed. The important thing wasn't that I was right, but rather I was using my imagination. Nowadays a child of the same age could simply Google it out of curiosity, accept whatever is told to them as fact, then forget that fact the same day as something more important comes along. Technology is so advanced now it's easy to forget those limitations we had before and how they controlled our creativity (of course, there's a counter argument to be made how technology today has advanced creativity due to exposure of so much information to research).

 

Now in the context of vaporwave, I feel the genre is largely about subscribing to those limitations of the 90s; the cheesy instrumentation, the vapid commercialism, the naive and child like lack of self awareness in regards to social status. Whilst I can appreciate a genre focused on the frustrations on how limitless possibilities have hindered creativity rather than enhanced it, I can't help but shake off a feeling of pretentiousness about the genre. The ideas of making a political statement and criticising aspects of society somewhat irk me, mainly as it doesn't actually call for any sort of action or present the problems in a negative light that needs to be changed; in a way the political aspect feels just like clutching straws to keep the music relevant in these times of constant change. If vaporwave is to last beyond a flash in the pan Pitchfork genre of the month, the artists involved really need to emphasise the emotional aspects of their music rather than making something that fits in the genre, then trying too hard to make it seem politically relevant.

 

Edited because the new quoting system sucks :(

Edited December 31, 2012 by Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald

[joshuatxuk]

a couple years ago I had a wave of inspiration and wrote a stream of consciousness report on some hazily remembered aesthetics of my 90's childhood, and the questionably mind-numbing uniformity of corporate interior design. ball pits and colorful wall to wall carpeting...paintings of flowers, pastel printed dixie cups...

OCT-O=0.doc

 

I know exactly what you mean - like I have an unconscious connection to those memories and those of others that grew up with those surroundings. It's funny to think of all the places (schools, offices, even old homes I lived in) I experienced those aesthetics either don't exist or have been renovated since - it's all lost and no one cares. A lot of it was when I lived in Abilene, TX and now with very, very few exceptions that town seems completely foreign to me. That's partly why things like youtube videos of old commercials and vintage toy and ads are so appealing to our generation. It's a nostalgia for things that burned out fast and likely have a limited and uncertain revival possibility. What's to revive and call retro in a romantic sense when it was so quickly and purposely discarded?

 

Also, on a grander scale I suppose earlier generations grew up with whole neighborhoods and towns that would either stay stuck in time or slowly morph or disintegrate - now our generation and younger mostly grow up in cookie-cutter suburbs and exburbs or in ironically uniform gentrified communities. Even homes from the 60s and 70s are being quickly replaced with McMansions and new development. The whole idea of "seeing where you grew up" with an attached sense of era and vintage association seems less and less realistic. (I was also a military brat so it wasn't that relevant to me anyway - but I do feel that way about my grandparent's homes I grew up visiting, both of which were vacated and sold years and years ago)

[joshuatxuk]

For me 90's culture symbolised a very innovative yet limited aspect of individual creativity. Whilst technology was certainly at a point where we were able to create art that we beforehand could not have even have comprehended, the technology still reflected an alternate reality, one which distinctly presented the creators imagination as opposed to a near imitation of reality. What I mean by that is that even though we felt like we were looking at the future, it was still obvious the future looked nothing like the present; the sounds and visuals of the 90s could be easily distinguished from reality, relying on our imagination to fill that gap to answer the question 'What would this be like in reality?'. To me that's a real advantage; the ability to grow up in this high speed advancement of technology, whilst having the real life exploration and human interactions of the tubes and the ball pit described in your essay, allowed a real, emotional connection with both fantasy and reality

 

What I feel separates these times between now and then is that relationship with our imagination. I remember imagining how cars were made as I was young and making these incredibly naive diagrams of how they were constructed. The important thing wasn't that I was right, but rather I was using my imagination. Nowadays a child of the same age could simply Google it out of curiosity, accept whatever is told to them as fact, then forget that fact the same day as something more important comes along. Technology is so advanced now it's easy to forget those limitations we had before and how they controlled our creativity (of course, there's a counter argument to be made how technology today has advanced creativity due to exposure of so much information to research).

 

 

Wow, I've stumbled around articulating this, at least succinctly, and you nailed it. I feel like we're between two very different eras of human social history. Some have argued that are brains are being re-wired to be less attentive and in-depth with our absorption of knowledge because of the internet, though in some sense it's like humans are returning to a state we were in mentally as hunter-gathers, not post-industrial revolution intellects. The article I linked to is part of a book Nicolas Carr wrote, he also penned a related article called "why the internet is making us stupid" which was less of a broad conclusion and more of an attention-getting title.

 

The cynic in me wants to declare that cultural novelty and uniqueness is dead, or at least exhausted in our current forms of media (awaiting digital-to-brain interfaces) but it's really just the fact that the novelty lies in how we recycle, re-appropriate, and re-envision existing art and music. Genres like vaporwave are just more niche and focused than previous movements - hip-hop, d'n'b, dub, trip-hop, house, IDM - and even those had their memes and over-used references (Roland drum machines, breakbeats, set tempos, etc). As I said earlier, in some sense it's liberating to see so many varied micro-genres and scenes. I'll take the superficial aspects and the copycat side-effects over the previous state of things: imagine how many electronic artists never committed anything to recording because they didn't have an audience or they needed to sell records.

 

I still think that kids will be just as creative and curious as they were in the past. The only thing the internet has more or less shattered is the novelty of mystery and the degree in which I used to seek information - it's odd being self-aware of all available resources online and then wondering what's still out there to be found in old books never digitized or with a conservation of an senior citizen regarding their memories of places and people that no longer exist. I remember exhausting certain encyclopedias, re-watching movies, re-reading magazines, listening to certain albums over and over, etc. and now I try to do the same instead of skimming over online media daily.

 

Lastly, I find the whole barrage of retro fads and references a bit overwhelming, but it too is nothing new. Even as a kid unaware of any style or fashion trends or any musical movements, I would personally find myself fascinated with certain vintage media outside of my generation: 70s sci-fi films, 50s jets and aviation, 60s toys, tiki culture, among others. All of those were things my parents or grandparents enjoyed and I experienced second hand by going through their things, and I look back at those obsessions with the same nostalgia as the things I grew up with in the 90s.

 

The ideas of making a political statement and criticising aspects of society somewhat irk me, mainly as it doesn't actually call for any sort of action or present the problems in a negative light that needs to be changed; in a way the political aspect feels just like clutching straws to keep the music relevant in these times of constant change. If vaporwave is to last beyond a flash in the pan Pitchfork genre of the month, the artists involved really need to emphasise the emotional aspects of their music rather than making something that fits in the genre, then trying too hard to make it seem politically relevant.

 

I didn't quite focus on the political/social commentary thing either, it seems a bit forced imo too. That's my gripe with musicians in general who talk big but espouse vague or even hypocritical views - nothing like that strikes me when I hear vaporwave though. If it's purely satire or just a purposeful reference I can get behind it. I like the Distroid tracks - at least the hauntology aspect of it. I remember the futuristic aesthetics of 80/90s military toys and video games coupled with allusions to the then current events. Contra is the most extreme but it's been referenced extensively. Games like Desert Strike as a muse to Fatima Al Qadiri is very relevant to me. It's fascinating to look at things like that or say, the accuracy of early 90s micro-machines camouflage and technology to that of Gulf War. The GDI versus NOD plot of Command and Conquer. Or how much 80s cold war hypothetical fighting morphed into so much pop culture.

 

meh, just skip my rants and enjoy this:

 

Edited January 3, 2013 by joshuatx

[vamos scorcho]

track 2 on Macintosh Plus is one of my favorites this last year, no joke

Edited January 4, 2013 by vamos scorcho

[Salvatorin]

http://www.arribamusica.com/2012/12/28/trash01-trash-daemon-trash-daemon/

http://www.arribamusica.com/2012/12/30/trash02-trash-daemon-trash-daemon-2/

http://www.arribamusica.com/2013/01/03/trash03-trash-daemon-trash-daemon-3/

[beariksson]

music equivalent to graphical design in msword?

Edited January 6, 2013 by beariksson

[Nebraska]

Enjoying the Pizzawave sub-genre at the moment:

 

http://strangepizza.bandcamp.com/album/wat-r-u-thinkin

 

i love the ol' skool pizzawave stuff personally. the new shit just isn't up to par

 

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

Do you think maybe the Olsen Twins Slowed videos are one of the main origins of this aesthetic (..well for Pizzawave joke-genre it obviously is but I mean for slowed Eccojams in general)?

 

[Cryptowen]

Do you think maybe the Olsen Twins Slowed videos are one of the main origins of this aesthetic

I think there's a good argument to be made for how a lot of current niche electronic genres are evolved out of Youtube Poops & other weird internet jokes.

[Nebraska]

I remember 90s tv bumps fondly elsewhere too: Nickelodeon and PBS had some cool ones - swear I saw Aphex's On video played on Nick. When I was 9 we moved to an airbase in Okinawa and for awhile we only had the local AFN (Armed Forces Network) channel which would show cheesy PSAs, 3D animation bumps and play muzak during it's blocks of local wanted ads/information programming. Sci-fi had some good ones too:

 

this is exactly what initially attracted me to this genre.

 

.

 

[Nebraska]

Do you think maybe the Olsen Twins Slowed videos are one of the main origins of this aesthetic (..well for Pizzawave joke-genre it obviously is but I mean for slowed Eccojams in general)?

 

maybe, and also some references to the ronald mcdonald movies