Donovan Hikaru – CRS 2.0
Album information:
Artist: Donovan Hikaru
Album: CRS 2.0
Type: Extended-play (EP)
Label: Adhesive Sounds
Release date: 24 August 2015
Format:
- Digital download (Adhesive Sounds, 2015)
- C40 cassette, edition 35 (Adhesive Sounds, 2015)
Recommendation: ✂ (“A Profound Life Experience”)
A salient aspect of vaporwave is in the appreciation of media and culture of bygone days. For many producers, this is expressed through revisiting childhood media or other works for which one has a deep affection. One example is Donovan Hikaru’s CRS series. “CRS” refers to the Consumer Recreation Services corporation, the fictional antagonistic entity within David Fincher’s 1997 film The Game. Hikaru’s CRS 2.0 EP is imagined as a new soundtrack for the film, constructed out of exclusively original material using digital synths and a drum machine from the mid-90s to “capture the sonic essence of the era and atmosphere of the film’s setting”. Tracks incorporate languid, muzak-esque melodies (especially on “A Profound Life Experience”) and brief samples from Fincher’s film. It captures the corporate aesthetic, although the surrealism of the film is lost, and CRS 2.0 primarily sounds like another classic-style vaporwave album instead of an analogous soundtrack.
Tracklist
1. Cursory Exam – (3:19)
2. They’re Watching us – (2:43)
3. Hotel Niko – (3:00)
4. Sutherlands in on It – (2:52)
5. The Fall – (4:05)
6. A Profound Life Experience – (1:57)