Schizoid – c a l i g u l a ドラコン
Recommendation: ☹
Aloe City Records has been releasing music since September 2015. One of their earlier albums is c a l i g u l a ドラコン1 by Schizoid, which was released on 15 November 2015. This album is twenty-six tracks of classic-style vaporwave in about forty-four minutes. The average track length should clue you in that this is true “classic” classic-style vaporwave, which often used short track lengths that featured jump cut-style production of extant adult contemporary and popular music songs.
c a l i g u l a ドラコン uses a lot of these tropes in spades. Many songs are constructed on a simple, slowly repeating melody that slows to half-time and then to quarter-time. Tracks occasionally skip, as if played from a CD or a cassette, with several skips often placed in a row and repeating the same theme. The samples are fairly nondescript, coming from the general blend of nameless instrumental songs from the 80s and 90s, although there are a few songs that use vocals as well (often short clips).
The choices of samples aren’t really memorable, and that makes c a l i g u l a ドラコン a rather indistinguishable album within the myriad folds of classic-style vaporwave. To Schizoid’s credit, that’s really difficult to do. Many classic-style vaporwave albums use such forgettable, corporate music as source material because that’s part of the purpose behind most strains of classic-style vaporwave. However, that adds another level of difficulty in actually making those albums shine instead of repeating the same old “slow down, skip, repeat” formula. Although c a l i g u l a ドラコン is not necessarily a bad album in the sense that it doesn’t commit any real faux pas, it is hard to recommend it based on the lack of distinguishable characteristics and production techniques that turn classic-style albums such as FLORAL SHOPPE by Macintosh Plus into earworms or ＮＥＷ ＶＩＳＵＡＬＳ by bl00dwave into cheesy goodness.
Tracklist
1. Gボックス – (1:06)2
2. my first time in a mako reactor – (2:30)
3. T I L E マーブル – (1:06)3
4. c a l i g u l a こともなし – (1:34)4
5. Hey! (Yeah!) – (1:31)
6. just me and my ＳＵＺＵＫＩ ＧＴ７５０ – (0:54)
7. c a l i g u l a こともなし (reprise) – (2:25)5
8. ＬＥＧＡＬビジネス – (1:16)6
9. ｄａｒｋｎｅｓｓ～ – (0:51)
10. i’m in love with you ❤ – (1:58)
11. ｄａｒｋｎｅｓｓ～ (reprise) – (0:36)
12. stomach bleeding warning – (2:16)
13. burning desire – (2:03)
14. store – (1:11)
15. Kill Everybody That You Know! – (1:04)
16. silverビート – (1:01)7
17. cold (ヘルレイザー) – (1:31)8
18. Sanopiaホテル – (1:48)9
19. TV それを取り戻します – (0:49)10
20. you can’t get away from me – (0:51)
21. g l a s s b a l l – (2:39)
22. 青天井 / lasting headache – (1:44)11
23. CHAMPAGNE – (1:28)
24. YOUR LOVE IS . . . – (1:50)
25. bleeding out – (2:17)
26. But I Am (i’m cool again) – (6:16)
1Japanese translation: “(Caligula) Dragon”
2Japanese translation: “G box”
3Japanese translation: “(TILE) Marble”
4Japanese translation: “(Caligula) Nothing”
5Japanese translation: “(Caligula) Nothing (reprise)”
6Japanese translation: “(LEGAL) Business”
7Japanese translation: “(Silver) Beat”
8Japanese translation: “Cold (Hellrazer)”
9Japanese translation: “(Sanopia) Hotel”
10Japanese translation: “TV (To regain it)”
11Japanese translation: “(Ochinai) / Lasting headache”