18 Carat Affair – Adventures in Schizophrenia

Recommendation: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


[Originally posted to the SongSavers music blog on 28 April 2016.]

With the exception of a various artists compilation, Adventures in Schizophrenia by Missouri musician Denys Parker of 18 Carat Affair was the final release of Fortune 500 – one of the first professional vaporwave labels that sought to bring the genre outside of the realms of 4chan and message boards. This is no bombastic closer: Adventures in Schizophrenia is a downtempo plunderphonics album that bookends microsongs1 with white noise blips and imperfect editing, as if the listener is channel-surfing at witching hour through eighties music television. It’s druggy and intensely melodic in a chill-out room kind of way, with a preponderance of four-on-the-floor rhythms and simple electronic progressions (e.g. “Lying in Bermuda” and “Aladdin’s Lamp”).

Adventures in Schizophrenia is rather inconsistent due to the markedly different production levels per sample; it also suffers a common problem in genres that utilize the microsong, whereby in order to fulfill a self-ascribed run-time, there ends up being quite a bit of filler. It loses speed at the end, as if Parker were not sure whether he were producing a chill future funk album or a sound collage. Overall, not bad, but does not reward complete listens all that well.

 

Tracklist


1. Ferrante & Teicher – (1:06)
2. Aladdin’s Lamp – (1:36)
3. The Waiting Room for Tony’s Faggot Sim – (0:54)2
4. Promethazine – (1:21)3
5. Malibu Barbie – (1:14)
6. 10 Minute Makeover – (2:00)
7. Ups & Downs – (0:56)
8. Rock Hard Abs – (1:08)4
9. Kosmische – (1:54)
10. In the Mind of a Child – (1:20)
11. Extroverted Debutante – (1:42)
12. Bobby Fischer Kinetics – (1:58)
13. Lying in Bermuda – (1:18)
14. Front2Back – (1:14)
15. My Buried Wife in Nassau – (1:44)
16. Immaculate Jheri Curl – (2:22)
17. Consequence of Misinterpretation – (1:40)
18. What If… – (1:28)

 


1… characteristic of vaporwave subgenres such as broken transmission and late nite lo-fi.
2The fuck?
3Just another smooth jazz sample.
4Fun with tempos!

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