メモレックスVISIONAL – Lucid Cycle

Recommendation: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


[Originally posted to the SongSavers music blog on 29 October 2015.]

メモレックスVISIONAL’s1 Lucid Cycle is only vaporwave insofar as visual aesthetic: this is a very new agey, ambient release that clocks in at just seventeen minutes. The artist – who has only published music under this moniker since the beginning of 2015 – describes the album as “incorporat[ing] aquatic and airy atmosphere[s];” he or she uses the term “aquaphonics”2 to describe its diaphanous, ethereal affect.3 4

While not a bad album, Lucid Cycle is not particularly interesting. The microsong format does not do justice to メモレックスVISIONAL’s ideas; there is little room for any expansion or dynamic – of which ambient music can have plenty – so quite a few tracks contain neither zest nor significance. Tracks five through eleven are nigh-indistinguishable from each other, a problem that is compounded by their short lengths. Lucid Cycle has no horrible songs and is a pretty release in its own right, but it does have serious flaws concerning choices in presentation and dynamic.

 

Tracklist


1. Intro – (1:31)
2. Still Hear – (0:45)
3. See the Setting Sun – (3:34)
4. Glare (Vision) – (1:02)
5. Face of Morning – (1:15)
6. This Is Where I Leave You – (1:09)
7. Take It In, This Eternal Sunrise – (1:47)
8. Valentine – (1:21)
9. No Longer Remember – (1:18)
10. Stratosphere Sky-Tear in the Eye – (2:11)
11. This Is Your Place – (2:02)


 

1Translation: “Memorex,” so the full English eponym would be “Memorex VISIONAL,” stylized however.
2Which is kinda fitting, since “seapunk” is a niche term for some aesthetics of vaporwave that utilize aquatic imagery.
3Yes, “affect.”
4“Aquaphonics? : Vaporwave,” Reddit Inc., accessed 28 October 2015, https://www.reddit.com/r/Vaporwave/comments/3h1f37/aquaphonics/

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