18 Carat Affair

[Terpentintollwut]

Seriously this guy

 

 

he needs his own thread in order for him not to slip under the radar.

 

He's got a few releases up on bandcamp for free.

Friends of Eccojams and 80s commercials, check this out.

Televised Tragedies was my goto-summer-album this year and last year. Easily my favorite of the "Vaporwave Movement".

 

http://18carataffair.bandcamp.com/

[chenGOD]

So it's like VHS Head done really poorly?

 

Ferrealz

This is garbage and you should be ashamed of yourself for liking it.

[Terpentintollwut]

Someone's enjoying their Holiday season it seems

[delet...]

I skimmed through a randomly picked album, 60/40. And there were some nice sounds on there. Question though, how much of it is just slowed down, pitch bent and reverbed to the maxx pre-existing synth tracks. If he's not making it himself but just using readily available tools to fuck with old sample, I'm not so interested. If he's doing it all himself though, including guitar etc. I agree with it being nice. Funny how i've become a sample nazi, you'd never know i was into hip hop. lol. Well especially when it's just a slowed down large slice of song, not just a stab here a hook there repurposed.

[chenGOD]

I was until I heard this.

Come on really? This album - the guy has taken some loops sourced from somewhere and used them as the whole track. Leaving them virtually unaltered - sloppy quantization (intentional for the lo-fi image, man!!)

Look at track 3 - Daytona Speed, track 7 - Home Box Office, or 13 - American Dream for examples. This is just bullshit laziness, not art. I'm willing to bet that you personally could throw a better collection of tracks together in less than a week.

 

But don't mind me, I'm old and crotchety and this vaporwave bullshit is all just bullshit to me. If this is the best vaporwave has to offer, then have at it.

 

delet - apparently the whole ethos behind "vaporwave" is to just chop and screw commercialized soundbits.

http://rateyourmusic.com/genre/Vaporwave/

[delet...]

Oh, how lazy. Lazyware. Lazyhipsterkudosfordoingnothingasisusualwiththesetypesofpeopleware.

[Terpentintollwut]

I kinda assumed it's mostly just sample collecting with slight alterations. Then again, his older "Spent Passions"-release sounds much more like original creations, some of it is less authentically old sounding versions of the same tracks, or versions with lyrics, so it's not unlikely he actually composed it all from scratch.

 

But either way, the guy is giving most of it away for free, and if anything, I like his selection of samples, so what's with all the hate ... especially considering how this didn't get flamed and a bunch of people on here actually bought it.

 

Anyway, I know there's some 18 Carat likers on here, so spread the love guys!

[chenGOD]

Didn't see the chuck persons thread, but i listened to most of eccojams, and while there was the occasional moment of goodness, it's just the idea of those singular moments being dragged out for 6 minutes that I find frustrating. I think Lopatin's stuff as OPN is much more original and shows some actual intellectual honesty, as opposed to the lazy shit that most vaporwave is.

 

Sorry for bringing all this negativity into your thread.

 

can we dock and make up?

[Nebraska]

Question though, how much of it is just slowed down, pitch bent and reverbed to the maxx pre-existing synth tracks. If he's not making it himself but just using readily available tools to fuck with old sample, I'm not so interested.

 

this is the problem i have with vaporwave in general. i like that they're able to summarize the nostalgia of the 80s-early 90s that they're going for in both sound and song titles, but isn't most vaporwave just loops of existing music? at least i'm not familiar with true vaporwave that's not made like this guys stuff.

 

also, another thing i hate about vaporwave is the presentation. personally, i like something that tries to communicate or extend what the music is about, and almost all vaporwave music covers are just as sloppy as the music.

[Dale]

I'm not ashamed to say that I do enjoy some of his stuff. Not all of it is sample based - you need to dig more into his most recent stuff to find original tracks. He uses a lot synth patterns from a particular Ensoniq synth (can't recall the synth model). Catchy, nostalgic melodic structures - i think it's great. Been thinking about creating a thread to promote his music but wasn't sure how big watmm was on this kind of musical style. Some favourites:

 

[Joyrex]

Bah, Neon Indian does it better IMO.

 

What irks me about these "retro" 80/90's artists so desparately trying to capture the vibe from that era is hardly any of them were even old enough to remember the 90's, let alone the 80's to appreciate it fully for what it was (and wasn't).

 

I was excited at first reading the OP's intro, but that photo (bet it's not even him), coupled with those achingly bad and contrived album covers, song titles, and uninteresting lo-fi sound made me jump right back here and proclaim this to be crap-o-la (yes, that's an 80's phrase).

[chenGOD]

I don't have an issue with the age of them (fuck that's a silly thing to critique someone on, it's not like Led Zeppelin were picking cotton in the deep south before they started creating blues-driven rock), it's just that it's creatively lazy (and intellectually dishonest if you want to take their whole political anti-capitalist ethos with anything more than a grain of salt). VHS Head makes use of much of the same sort of source material and creates entirely new works of art. Diamond Rings references 80s synth pop in a much more interesting way.

 

This shit is just boring to me. At least the album in the OP. Which makes me very disinclined to check out anything more by him.

[Joyrex]

I don't have an issue with the age of them (fuck that's a silly thing to critique someone on, it's not like Led Zeppelin were picking cotton in the deep south before they started creating blues-driven rock), it's just that it's creatively lazy (and intellectually dishonest if you want to take their whole political anti-capitalist ethos with anything more than a grain of salt). VHS Head makes use of much of the same sort of source material and creates entirely new works of art. Diamond Rings references 80s synth pop in a much more interesting way.

 

This shit is just boring to me. At least the album in the OP. Which makes me very disinclined to check out anything more by him.

Well I find it disingenious for these kids to adopt an 80/90's vibe and aesthetic and not have grown up in said decade - it would be as silly as Led Zeppelin pretending to be a 40-50's Blues band rather than simply be influenced by Blues and make their own works (ala VHS Head as you mentioned).

[Nebraska]

i actually like the fact that these kids adopt a vibe and aesthetic for a decade they didn't grow up in because then it's fantasized instead of just a replica of 80s music. imo- vaporwave and dreamwave/outrun is like the american hauntology so it's also not supposed to be an honest 80s interpretation but a fantasized one seen through tv/movies/music of the 80s rather than the actual climate of "living in the 80s"

[Dale]

guys it's just music. calm down.

[chenGOD]

guys it's just music. calm down.

 

i cast thee out, heathen!

 

nebraska: that's an interesting perspective for sure - and I'm down with it if the reimaging is done with some form of effort towards adding something new. That's really my main issue I guess - these are just clips thrown together and slowed down. That's nothing new - witness the vaporwave thread with countless people in there talking about how they used to pitch down tracks on cassette.

Hell my dad used to have beatles shit on reel-to-reel, I would always be fucking around with it. It's just that the ethos behind this is so goddamned shallow: http://www.dummymag.com/features/adam-harper-vaporwave

 

[/cantankerous rant mode]

[Hugh Mughnus]

"It's just music?"

 

sacrilege!

[Nebraska]

 

guys it's just music. calm down.

 

i cast thee out, heathen!

 

nebraska: that's an interesting perspective for sure - and I'm down with it if the reimaging is done with some form of effort towards adding something new. That's really my main issue I guess - these are just clips thrown together and slowed down. That's nothing new - witness the vaporwave thread with countless people in there talking about how they used to pitch down tracks on cassette.

Hell my dad used to have beatles shit on reel-to-reel, I would always be fucking around with it. It's just that the ethos behind this is so goddamned shallow: http://www.dummymag.com/features/adam-harper-vaporwave

 

[/cantankerous rant mode]

 

 

i completely agree with you. i actually think dreamwave does the "80s nostalgia" thing so much better than vaporwave mainly because it's made from the perspective of someone who was young during the 80s. the thing about vaporwave, that makes it fail for me, is they're trying to recreate library music with neither the understanding of what library music is and with zero music making ability.

 

http://youtu.be/fF7VoY6uucs

[Terpentintollwut]

Been thinking about creating a thread to promote his music but wasn't sure how big watmm was on this kind of musical style.

 

Now we know

 

 

can we dock and make up?

 

yeah, s'all good! Happy New Year!

[delet...]

I'm not ashamed to say that I do enjoy some of his stuff. Not all of it is sample based - you need to dig more into his most recent stuff to find original tracks. He uses a lot synth patterns from a particular Ensoniq synth (can't recall the synth model). Catchy, nostalgic melodic structures - i think it's great. Been thinking about creating a thread to promote his music but wasn't sure how big watmm was on this kind of musical style. Some favourites:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Couple of nice tracks in there.