懐かし２００２津波 – 涅槃への真のパス
Recommendation: ☀☁☁
涅槃への真のパス1 is an exceedingly long album. Like, 2.1 hours long. In about only eight tracks. While not quite DERELICTメガタワー-level, it’s still one of the longest releases in vaporwave, especially out of those released on a prominent label: in this case, DMT Tapes FL.2 The album comes from 懐かし２００２津波,3 who currently produces music simply as Tsunxmi. This album was released relatively early in the artist’s career, coming out on leap day of 2016.
Tsunxmi’s early works as 懐かし２００２津波 were notable for taking ambient vaporwave to an extreme almost untouched by anyone else other than telepath in the latter artist’s 仮想夢プラザ project. 涅槃への真のパス is primarily constructed out of short, heavily pitch-/tempo-shifted samples that are blended together to sound somewhat like mid-80s New Age music that’s extended for up to twenty or twenty-five minutes at a time. Naturally, this kind of release is only going to appeal to the fans of Brian Eno’s definition of ambient music as music that’s “as ignorable as it is interesting”.4 Most songs have some change partway through that introduce a new concept but stick to the main theme, such as some minor vaporhop on “ビデオテープスロージャム”. These changes are much more fluid than sister album DREAM蒸気TSUNAMI™, which had a cut-and-paste mentality that seemed disjointed more than anything else.
涅槃への真のパス has a few moments that break the mold of the album’s typical milieu. The first is on “TRITONトリトンは”, which features .mp3neptune, another ambient artist who adds a specific glitch element to the track, especially in its latter half. The second moment is at the beginning of “コマーシャルの時間”, which is a brief sample of Japanese television that comes out of nowhere and is rather shocking considering the previous hour of material.5 There’s a second feature, too: this time from Deep希望深, who adds a bit more of a distorted and dark ambient vibe to the final track. Additionally, 涅槃への真のパス will appeal to the same fans as the aforementioned telepath. Speaking of telepath (again), 涅槃への真のパス does have its occasional moments of slushwave, although Tsunxmi makes much less use of overt pop/R&B samplism than telepath did in his earlier works, as Tsunxmi comes firmly from the perspective of ambient and New Age music rather than dreampunk or slushwave – despite the genres’ similarities.
Of the 懐かし２００２津波 albums, this one is the strongest. Check it out if you enjoy ambient vaporwave that really emphasizes the “ambient” part.
Tracklist
1. ネオン無限大 – (18:27)
2. ビデオテープスロージャム – (20:21)
3. あなたを本当に愛しています – (25:46)
4. TRITONトリトンは (feat. .mp3Neptune) – (14:04)
5. コマーシャルの時間 – (5:05)
6. 夜に響き渡るビデオテープのヘイズ (Love Theme) – (12:50)
7. あなた一人じゃありません！ 強く生きろ – (19:28)
8. 壊れた涅槃 (feat. Deep希望深) – (15:18)
1Japanese translation: “A true path to Nirvana”
2Specifically as a part of their second season, DMT[REC].
3Japanese translation: “Nostalgia Tsunami 2002”
4Taken from the liner notes to Ambient 1: Music for Airports by Brian Eno.
5Although I guess it won’t be so shocking for y’all readers now. Spoilers!