TOYOMU – 印象III : なんとなく、パブロ (Imagining “The Life of Pablo”)

Recommendation: ☀☁☁ [Originally posted to the SongSavers music blog on 28 April 2016.] [Editor’s note: although not strictly vaporwave, we feel there are enough parallels to the scene that this album should be discussed.] 印象III : なんとなく、パブロ (Imagining “The Life of Pablo”) is the perfect metaphor for the cultural zeitgeist of 2016. Produced by Japanese producer TOYOMU in response to […]

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Midnight Television – Midnight Television [EP]

Recommendation: ☀☁☁ Midnight Television is one of the original artist in the subgenre known as “late night lo-fi.” Contrary to (faux-)utopian, ECCOJAMS, futurevisions, and other such scenes, late night lo-fi utilizes a mix of musical and non-musical samples while presenting them in a distinctly apolitical light that contains little of the commentary or self-parody common within the scene. Albums here […]

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骨架的 – Reflections

Recommendation: ☀☁☁ Reflections follows much of the same styles of 骨架的’s previous effort Holograms. Tracks are almost entirely smooth jazz and easy listening samples with minimal processing, with the exceptions of minor pitch-shifting and delay. Track lengths range from the artist’s characteristic sub-minute microsamples (e.g. “subway,” “more memories”) to some of the longest excursions in 骨架的’s discography (e.g. the suitably-named […]

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Chinese Hackers – ░▒▓死▓▒░ [EP]

Recommendation: ☀☁☁   ░▒▓死▓▒░1 is the third release by Chinese Hackers, a New York City artist also known as クルトPropane. Self-described as “vaporgoth,”2, ░▒▓死▓▒░ is a mix of dark ambient, industrial music, and vaporwave. Each track utilizes the extreme digital-corruption aesthetic that is common within the vaporwave scene, but with a funereal tone that is similar to the post-Internet music […]

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.jpeg Artifacts – Ridin’ That (Information Highway) [EP]

Recommendation: ☀☁☁ [Originally posted to the SongSavers music blog on 31 March 2016.] .jpeg Artifact’s nine-minute extended-play Ridin’ That (Information Highway) sounds like – well – a JPEG artifact that’s been run through one-too-many Imageshack uploads and accidentally opened/saved in Microsoft Word. All four tracks are the lowest in lo-fi vaporwave, as if this album were made for listening at […]

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骨架的 – Holograms

Recommendation: ☀☁☁ [Originally posted to the SongSavers music blog on 31 March 2016.] Vaporwave’s association with kitschy pitched-down R&B is so intrinsic to the genre as to be memetic, and it all started with 骨架的’s Holograms back in 2010. Released around the same time as Chuck Person’s Eccojams Vol. 1 by Daniel Lopatin, Holograms ditched the “post-Internet” ethereal gloom that […]

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Datavision Ltd. – Vector Tables [EP]

Recommendation: ☀☁☁ [Originally posted to the SongSavers music blog on 28 March 2016.] Released two weeks into 2011, the Vector Tables extended-play by Datavision Ltd. is one of the earliest examples of the broken transmission subgenre of vaporwave, which samples late-night television, advertisements, and bumpers in typically lo-fi form through “garbage muzak” aesthetics.1 The project consisted of Robin Burnett and […]

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