Modern Penthouse Apartment – Test Run
Album information:
Artist: Modern Penthouse Apartment
Album: Test Run
Type: Extended-play (EP)
Release date: 8 October 2017
Label: TKX Vault
Format:
- Digital download (TKX Vault, 2017)
Recommendation: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
On 8 October 2017, TKX Vault released the six-minute EP Test Run by Modern Penthouse Apartment for £65.50 GBP. Fitting with the history of TKX Vault in screwing with the medium of music publication in addition to publishing experimental media,1 Test Run isn’t so much a release for the actual music as it is a statement on digital releases and downloads themselves.
The music is simple dreampunk with unobtrusive, chill percussion – nothing too different – but the price tag substantially increased the payment for the full TKX Vault discography, of which the Bandcamp platform allows full downloads at a reduced price. Many labels within the vaporwave community put up filler albums with a track only a second or two in length with a clear disclaimer not to purchase the album and that it’s only there either so the label can be granted pay-what-you-want digital downloads or so that the digital discography of label is available for a couple of bucks instead of a pre-set price. Test Run does exactly that, but without that disclaimer – and if there’s anything that one can see from the evolution of the label, it’s that the price tag comes with a heavy dose of sardonicism.
Test Run is also notable as a member of the “second run” of TKX Vault releases following the label’s re-opening in mid-2017 following a year-long hiatus. Many of the projects featured earlier in TKX Vault’s run were revitalized but with different names that hinted at corruption, such as Keito Shimuguchi becoming Infernal Demon Keito and Hong Kong Express becoming New Delhi Express. Likewise, Modern Penthouse Apartment is a corruption of Penthouse Apartment, which previously released the proto-ghost tech Y2K: New Millenium Nightclub2 and sample curation Trump – the latter of which has been deleted from the label’s catalogue.
Tracklist
1. Wake up in the evening. No desire to get out of bed. I vape. – (3:02)
2. Looking down from the top of the tower and I hate everything I see. – (3:48)
1E.g. Bleed by 暗い自然.
2(sic)