Vaporwave

[joshuatxuk]

 

 

 

Where do you folks go to hear about this stuff? I’d like to try and get into following more closely. Is it a reddit scene?

 

Reddit scene is there but I can't navigate it anymore, a lot of it is shit and people talking out of their asses. That said there's still good stuff: some of the other guys on here who produce and follow vaporwave can tell you what's up. I've been lost since like 2015 or so.

 

 

 

What is exciting and infuriating in equal measure is that the scene naturally keeps dividing and morphing into ever more obscure niches. Vapourwave doesn't really exist anymore.

 

 

Yeah it's achieved this state I can't really judge or cast an opinion on it. You are totally correct in that duality, and I often feel like I can't complain when so many new people are participating in it. I've seen other genres get co-opted or redefined (dubstep is a good example) but in the case of vaporwave you literally have fans and artists steering these drastic shifts, all in a underground online community to boot, which is novel.

[ManjuShri]

[ManjuShri]

Really digging 24x33.

 

[Lane Visitor]

 

 

 

 

This is some of the best material ive ever witnessed. put me in a total vapor trance almost from the start. thanks for sharing.  

[Alcofribas]

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=104&v=wDvEc5troQo

This is some of the best material ive ever witnessed. put me in a total vapor trance almost from the start. thanks for sharing.

I quite like his ability to construct his own commercial universe like that. it seems like a clever spin on the genre to re-acreate an alternative audio-visual commercial space that vaporwave appropriates. are there other vaporwave artists that do this?

 

plus lol @ the slowdive cover/falafel commercial

[Lane Visitor]

 

 

 

This is some of the best material ive ever witnessed. put me in a total vapor trance almost from the start. thanks for sharing.

I quite like his ability to construct his own commercial universe like that. it seems like a clever spin on the genre to re-acreate an alternative audio-visual commercial space that vaporwave appropriates. are there other vaporwave artists that do this?

 

plus lol @ the slowdive cover/falafel commercial

 

 

Exactly, really quite brilliant and some of the best examples of that kind of thing that i've seen. 

 

The closest i can think of to the whole imaginary late night tv thing in a vaporwave interpretation might be some of the things oneohtrix point never has done with various web assets, promo vids etc, but really only touching on some of these aspects. A lot of James Ferraro's work is based around this idea entirely in terms of both the audio and visual-- imaginary universes constructed out of pieces of media from various sources, with a lot of recontextualization, narration, high concept elements, brand name dropping, etc, in turn giving the listener the effect of watching some sort of bizarre pirate tv station from 1991. 

 

 

 

On the more corporate/Utopian side, one of Vektroid's projects, PrismCorp Virtual Enterprises, along with a host of other vw artists like lenscorp intl, nouveau life, play into that to an extent, but not a multimedia level. 

 

 

 

A movement that's also notable is the whole metrosong sound--essentially vaporwave, if it existed 25-30 years into the future, with the audio sample/visual sources being today's corporate stock imagery and media. (imagine ukelele's, whistles etc with cut up automated voices, hq foley and the like paired imagery you'd see on modern-day infographics and producivity software websites. 

 

 

i actually contributed a hokey little originally composed/recorded take on metrosong to this comp under the alias/marketing persona I created "Julie Winters", made a cookie cutter corporate dadaist vid to go along with it:

 

 

there are also a host of other artists doing the midi / office wave stuff - an often overlooked sound in the genre, hugely inspired by Internet Club, Luxury Elite and other monumental acts (which majorly inspired my own work under Donovan Hikaru).. artists like eyeliner, and newer guys like elite geographic, metaprise apps, power lunch label and many more.  The 90s multimedia / corporate themes run thick in this realm. 

[Alcofribas]

nice dude, lots of shit to check out there. nice lol @ Julie Winters, it’s like some shit you’d see and hear in a kickstarter promo. that’s definitely in the wheel house of what i’m curious about here. i’m intrigued by the idea of constructing a kind of alternate televisual-scape that could be almost like a variation on what we experienced in the 80s and 90s. in those palmbomen videos he’s very skilled at recreating the aesthetic of a certain era while spinning it with eclectic references and uncanny compositions. in the other video collection he has from this series there are advertisements for products named after cocteau twins tracks and occult terminology and stuff. I like this kind of building a world from the ground up like that.

Edited December 7, 2017 by Alcofribas

[Lane Visitor]

nice dude, lots of shit to check out there. nice lol @ Julie Winters, it’s like some shit you’d see and hear in a kickstarter promo. that’s definitely in the wheel house of what i’m curious about here. i’m intrigued by the idea of constructing a kind of alternate televisual-scape that could be almost like a variation on what we experienced in the 80s and 90s. in those palmbomen videos he’s very skilled at recreating the aesthetic of a certain era while spinning it with eclectic references and uncanny compositions. in the other video collection he has from this series there are advertisements for products named after cocteau twins tracks and occult terminology and stuff. I like this kind of building a world from the ground up like that.

 

Totally man, agree with your takeaway on the palmbomen stuff. i will have to check those other ones out, that first one just blew me away. felt like somewhere between being 8 years old again, hypnotized by the hazy vhs / late night tv vibes and some sort of absurdist david lynch realm--which to me is almost an ultimate pinnacle of the elements that resonate with me--somewhere between vaporwave, hypnogogic pop and surrealist art.  thanks for the words on the julie winters piece, lol @ the kickstarter promo vid reference- i can see that for sure. having done work in marketing for the last 6 years, it's fun for me to take little slices of these modern and dated branding styles and concepts and try to tie them into a unique take on the genre. i really think the utopian/corporate styles of vaporwave are underrated and not explored enough. so much potential there to really create wholly unique universes and atmospheres.

[Alcofribas]

yeah for sure. the corporate television model is fascinating for a lot of reasons. it’s interesting to consider the structure of the format, like the concise AV realms of logos or just the flow of a late night talk show with some fake trees, a strange nocturnal city backdrop, the moody lighting and everything cut up by commercials which often attempt to convey a conceptual identity through color and sound and some kind of artistic take on it all to wildly varying degrees of success. to try to compose something like that within the umbrella genre of vaporwave is super interesting. this is also part of my fascination with library music, listening to how composers from that era tried to capture moods and movement for all this, even down to little jingles and “idents.” i’m picking up on something in this from some of your stuff for sure. btw you can check the other vid collection here:

 

https://igetrvng.com/shop/bis031-2/

[fumi]

Some stuff in the Eccojams vein.

 

https://blvckceiling.bandcamp.com/album/b-o-a-r-d-w-a-l-k

[fumi]

[joshuatxuk]

 giving the listener the effect of watching some sort of bizarre pirate tv station from 1991. 

[joshuatxuk]

This Palmbomen II stuff is incredible. I was familiar with his stuff with Betonkust on 1080p but I had no idea he'd venture into vaporwave. Legit as fuck vaporwave too.

[playbynumbers]

the new Esprit album (200% electronica) is the bomb

 

in general I have to say, Vaporwave is the only genre that I've actually been excited about in the past few years

[Lane Visitor]

 

 giving the listener the effect of watching some sort of bizarre pirate tv station from 1991. 

 

 

oh HELL yes. really liking this, thanks for the link man... yeah i could listen to this kind of vibe all day every day lol, so soothing. 

[Nebraska]

https://youtu.be/F15EkC34MdA

Edited December 15, 2017 by Nebraska

[funkaholic]

 

 giving the listener the effect of watching some sort of bizarre pirate tv station from 1991. 

 

this is very buff and nice, lots of good stuff on this threar

 

hhhmmm, making think of a song i wrote that the idea behind it was that it was to be used in a video for a property developer and when i played it to my ex, before i told her this, she said "sounds like a song for a property development video" i was happy

[Lane Visitor]

^ speaking of property development, this just reminded me how a few years back, i discovered these surreal animated industrial park concept videos (prob made by development/arch companies) in places like se asia and the middle east. Theres tons of them if you just yt search "industrial park". They all have great music with them, like ambient techno, downtempo etc .. One used Jarre in the background and it just blew my mind.. Most unintentionally vapory thing ive ever seen

 

Still looking for that one again but heres one of em, not as cool music wise but still neat

 

[Lane Visitor]

On a slightly different note, just stumbled into this excellence.. Its like pure Internet Club sample fodder. So many moments

 

[joshuatxuk]

 

 

 giving the listener the effect of watching some sort of bizarre pirate tv station from 1991. 

 

this is very buff and nice, lots of good stuff on this threar

 

 

one of my fav artists courtesy of WATMM no less - bunch of users pointed me to this guy

 

he had a handful of wonderful videos he's since deleted, wish i saved them

[fumi]

Some still here.

 

https://www.youtube.com/user/axelbackman/videos

Also this.

 

[fumi]

never a bad time to post more 1991.

 

 

And this sublime piece - a chase sequence from some made for-TV cop thriller on some late-night cable channel in the early 90s. All imagined, of course. Stunning.

 

[joshuatxuk]

 

few left up here, you can also see his favs, axel backman has some good taste

 

there's two videos in particular he's since deleted, one of a woman sunbathing in the ocean on a float and another that looked like a clip from a early 90s movie

[fumi]

 

 

there's two videos in particular he's since deleted, one of a woman sunbathing in the ocean on a float and another that looked like a clip from a early 90s movie

 

 

I've got those saved on a NAS somewhere. I got them back in 2012, I think.

[fumi]

 

few left up here, you can also see his favs, axel backman has some good taste

 

there's two videos in particular he's since deleted, one of a woman sunbathing in the ocean on a float and another that looked like a clip from a early 90s movie

 

 

He does have good taste. But it's his aesthetic that really nails it. Even down to the zipper sweater that kid wears on the cover of his debut album. It's the sort of thing you could pick up at a sports shop in a mall somewhere in the early 90s. Not designer gear but not bottom end either.