vaporwave and deriative products

I walked around trump tower one day in late 2019 and found it very vaporwavey—the waterfalls, the brass, the sinister kitsch.

apropos of nothing I'd like to share this thought: my 6 year old son is really into Mario Party for the Switch, so the other day I figured I'd YouTube some of those minigame compilations from the first few Mario Party games. I was stunned by how horrible they looked...I remembered them looking way better. In fact I remember when the N64 came out having the thought that video games had entered the final frontier, the graphics were about as good as they'd ever be (I was 10 so yeah I was pretty dumb). Anyway as I get older and watch the nostalgia cycle refresh itself every 10 years or so it's kind of interesting to see this whole era kinda get skipped. 80's aesthetics still look cool, because computer graphics were so simple back then, all straight lines and neon colors...like, when I saw Kraftwerk all their 'vintage' graphics still looked modern and neat. But the era I grew up with was messy and so aesthetically unpleasing...all jagged lines and misshapen bodies and backgrounds with way too much shit going on at once. Even the best and most advanced video games like Mario 64 were full of glitches, arms would just disappear and objects would just float into space. Nobody would ever try to "replicate" the look and feel of 90's computer animation. The whole computerworld outlined in The Matrix would never come back. It's too ugly. That's why I like vaporwave, because it actually does try to bring this stuff back to life: the idea of a "virtual" world that's so jagged and underdeveloped that nobody would ever want to spend time there as anything more than a gimmick. I watched one of those George Clanton streams and it occurred to me, he's got to be one of the only people on the planet making stuff like this today. It's uh...pretty neat.

“it actually does try to bring this stuff back to life: the idea of a "virtual" world that's so jagged and underdeveloped that nobody would ever want to spend time there as anything more than a gimmick. “
Are you talking sonically or regarding the visual aesthetic?

mostly visually, particularly certain Vektroid covers and Esprit's virtua.zip, which very much has that broken Sega Saturn 2.5D look to it. that said I think the music imitates that as well - a lot of Clanton's stuff sounds like it's playing out of a 15" Hitachi TV and a bunch of artists purposely try to sample stuff commercials & movies that everyone else forgot about. I remember one of them talking about a compilation of early 90's commercials that someone had that wasn't on YouTube and how it was like a treasure trove for this kind of thing.

banger Lindsheaven set from the latin all-stars fest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huC2mV_0IhE

https://i.imgur.com/MP29xyc.png

Apparently Lindsheaven / Mt Shrine (Cesar) has passed due to COVID.

RIP Lindsheaven Virtual Plaza. Can't believe it.

— Gorgeous Lights (@gorgeous_lights) April 15, 2021

oh no! Rip

https://plasticresponserecords.bandcamp.com/track/t-e-l-e-p-a-t-h

https://i.imgur.com/6MbJoYK.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coCo3nbOusA

https://vav-31.bandcamp.com/track/soul-mates

https://cyberdream.bandcamp.com/track/lights-abound

Evening disclosure has been leaching out the best possible vaporwave for a couple years now:

https://eveningdisclosure.bandcamp.com/

This is really top-shelf stuff, and I'm sure someone more familiar with the myriad of vaporwave subgenres could properly tag it but I can't.

You have a recommendation from the catalog?

There are three comps that are good, all variations on "alone this evening":

https://eveningdisclosure.bandcamp.com/album/all-alone-this-evening
https://eveningdisclosure.bandcamp.com/album/all-alone-again-this-evening
https://eveningdisclosure.bandcamp.com/album/still-all-alone-this-evening

Someone speculated that some or all of the names on the label are the same artist, but I don't know. The comps don't distinguish the artists in any case, just "various anonymous artist".

Like this track from the second one: https://eveningdisclosure.bandcamp.com/track/--125

Be real
It doesn’t matter anyway
You know it’s just too little too late

https://noproblematapes.com/album/imaginary-pathways
Some of lindsheaven’s last work

https://telepathtelepath.bandcamp.com/track/--231

It’s gonna be night night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHk5Duip_7Q

https://i.imgur.com/UFoOScM.jpg

Going to listen to Lisa frank 420 and drink this shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJWksPWDKOc

Epic six hour reimagining of 1940s popular music molting into ambient atmospheres

The caretaker - everywhere at the end of time

^ not exactly vaporwave (not exactly good either...)

am i the only one that thinks most vaporwave out there only exists for musicbros to speculate over? that would explain why most vaporwave albums are sold at ridiculous prices on discogs and other second hand marketplaces, and why most die hard vaporwave fans in [current year] aren’t really into other music genres. so much for the capitalism critique or whatever.

like a buddy of mine has a vaporwave vinyl he bought for 30 bucks or something and right now it’s selling for +200 USD on discogs lol.

that's why I like the 100% Electronica label, they do a real good job keeping stuff available. tbf it's hard to blame anyone in particular for this happening (outside of the scalpers of course), not only is there a huge delay in manufacturing vinyl right now it's pretty much impossible to know how many copies anything is gonna sell these days

i also like 100% electronica, but vaporwave albums being sold at insane prices isn’t really a new thing and has been going on at least since beer on the rug. i don’t know why vaporwave in particular is so affected by scalpers.

side note: can you imagine a world where seapunk won over vaporwave in the internet-genre-wars? that’s a timeline i’d like living in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0AWgOnk67A

https://forestedrelics.bandcamp.com/track/mimi-e-no-ai

death's dynamic shroud has been flooding the market lately with fanclub-only stuff but I had a listen to the latest one called Faith in Persona and it's amazing. I think its just a Keith Rankin solo album too. I like it about as much as I'll Try Living Like This & Heavy Black Heart

Their marketing game is strong, esp after teaming up with Clanton

my child saw George Clanton and death's dynamic shroud do Halloween show down here, it sounds like it was a good one

would love to see them but they seem to really love just touring the South

https://noproblematapes.bandcamp.com/track/--341

Ooooooohhhh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coCo3nbOusA

Grab some Tele vinyl while it’s avail

https://geometriclullaby.bandcamp.com/album/--25

floral shoppe turns 10 today, released 09 december 2011:

https://vektroid.bandcamp.com/album/floral-shoppe

add this to the "insanely influential but not very good" thread

indeed - seems pretty clear that the whole thing was done on the fly, with 3 tracks in a row sampling off the same album. idk how it really holds up as an album but I do admit it touches a weird nerve that nobody's really been able to replicate

https://vektroid.bandcamp.com/album/dream-castle

She released this one at almost the same time…

yea once I got into her other stuff (back in 2012) it seemed pretty clear that Floral Shoppe wasn't even one of her five best albums. and she was only like 21 at the time

She’s an inspiration no doubt

https://i.imgur.com/3lhT2OX.png

seconding the "Faith in Persona" recommendation, wow!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EasnE6KGze0

https://i.imgur.com/fGVYltO.jpg

Today’s featured artist: Phoenix #2772
https://phoenix2772.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/phx2772
One of the OG fragmented friends (https://noproblematapes.bandcamp.com/album/--2), Phoenix is a classic vaporwave artist with an ear for 80s and 90s r&b. Recommended

“Keep you Warm”
https://phoenix2772.bandcamp.com/album/classic-cuts-vol-7

“Here I am”
https://noproblematapes.bandcamp.com/track/--341

“ＬＯＶＥ 私を忘れないでください” w/ telepath
https://noproblematapes.bandcamp.com/track/--350

https://i.imgur.com/yY4C7HB.png

https://elemental95.bandcamp.com/track/--104

Support Ukraine with this survey of the labels in the no problema orbit
https://noproblemadigital.bandcamp.com/album/--10

liminalgarden.bandcamp.com
dreamshoretapes.bandcamp.com
seasidetapes.bandcamp.com
noproblematapes.com
citymanprod.com
underwater-computing.bandcamp.com
thetidalcharm.bandcamp.com
uauhwow.bandcamp.com

https://i.imgur.com/LAlmi6y.jpg

VAPORWAVES NOT DEAD

was vaporwave inspired by mark fisher's notions of hauntology and capitalist realism or did it just grow out of the earlier music fisher was writing about? it seems very much an uncanny revisiting of an earlier moment of capitalism -- a false utopia or missed opportunity

anybody need a vaporwave album cover? just get KPT Bryce going on a 68k Mac in your browser: https://blog.persistent.info/2022/03/blog-post.html

Yeah this guy uses Bryce a lot, has had many cover commissions.

https://instagram.com/zer0rei_?utm_medium=copy_link