As I mentioned in the last post, I went out of town for a few days, visiting family and seeing high school homies. The trip had some good and bad moments, but could have been worse overall. I took two of my mp3 players with me; the FiiO X3 Mark III (with its not great battery) was used for the three hour trip to and from my hometown, and my Dodocool DA106 was used as I was driving around town and exploring. I have different albums loaded on each player, so I had a ton of new things to check out (and some to revisit). As always, links will open in a new window!
Cool Albums
Various Artists - DE PROFUNDIS - This dungeon vaporwave/synth/dark ambient release curated by The Expanding Earth brings various sounds and vibes together to create a really interesting and cohesive album. I'm actually on this one as 1-800-TONIGHT with a track that will appear on an album that will hopefully eventually be finished soon, and I feared that it would not work too well with the rest of what would be on the album, but consider me pleasantly surprised. One of my favorite moments of my trip happened as I was on the bypass, facing the sunset, listening to Aus der Tiefe, and it was the perfect combination. I actually ended up recording it on my camera, and I need to move it and the rest of my photos over to the computer to see how they all turned out.
ＡＬＩＡＳ ４０４ - Ｓｅａｓｉｄｅ Ｒｅｓｏｒｔ - I love a good summer-themed album, and it seems that this artist released quite a few of them that I'm going to have to check out soon! I really loved the sample choices and the loops and chops that enhanced some of these tracks. I was driving in bitter cold temperatures, and listening to this left me longing for a visit to the ocean. This album is super cute, check it out!
ｇｈ０ｓｔ - 喚起 - Unreal that this album is four years old now. I've loved this album since its release, but it'd admittedly been a bit since I'd checked it out. What a reunion! I found myself with additional favorites on the album (𝓮𝓷𝓾𝓯𝓯 𝓵𝓾𝓿 is hypnotic, and I had forgotten that 前回 is a sample twin with one of my favorite Topaz Gang tracks, so chills galore with that one once the sax came in), and I am still convinced that 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝒾𝓃' is one of the best late night lo-fi tracks to come out in the last few years, just perfection. I've really enjoyed ｇｈ０ｓｔ's albums, but this one is my favorite. Perfect use of verses, perfect chop use, perfect everything.
ｍｏｄｅｒｎ dream - FLYING HOME EXPERIENCE - I know that the album where it was released had some controversies a few years back (catfishing/fake identities, doxxing me as a humblebrag to somebody else), but I try to look past it and enjoy the releases that got caught in the crossfire and had nothing to do with the label owner's decisions. This album sounds like part synthwave album, part dreampunky, part 'tribute to Vangelis', and it's so, so good.
Ｓｐｏｒｔ３０００ - Ｃｌｅａｒａｎｃｅ Ｓａｌｅ - The first tracks sound like a love letter to the Kmart tapes that took the internet by storm many years ago, but as the album continues, you hear some songs experiencing the result of tape wear, or sounding like a skipping CD (something that ended up stressing me out mid-drive home, hahaha), and the last tracks go into eerie hums and noises, which I just discovered was an intentional choice meant to signify the death of a department store. I really liked this one!
//𝙡𝙮_ - //just_ - This three track EP with titles that say "just the other ____" samples popular jazz artists but incorporates a funk/hip hop vibe to all of them. My favorite //𝙡𝙮_ album still is a view down the valley, released on Dark Web Recordings and goes into insane looping that makes the original source sound totally unrecognizable for the most part, but I do love these quick //𝙡𝙮_ EPs that go into VHS pop territories. Hoping that Ally comes back soon!
👁🗨📲 - 👁点击と👁 - Though this album came out in December of last year, many quickly put it at the top of their "Best of 2023" lists, and for good reason. I have plenty of unsolicited hot takes about vaporwave, but one of my biggest pet peeves about some vaporwave is how I feel like people use full verses and choruses of original tracks way too heavily, almost like a crutch. Just recently, I heard an album that literally slowed down the entirety of Saturday Love by Cherelle and Alexander O'Neal and called it a day, and I was super pissy about it. I think that using large amounts of the original sample in a song can open up the possibility of vaporwave artists getting targeted by labels regarding copyright infringement/takedown notices, but in a creative sense, can also hinder the potential of what a song can transform into as a vaporwave song. Take Nobody Here as an example: he turned a love song about dancing with a lady in red and transformed it into an anthem of isolation and loneliness. I feel like, the less people use of vocals and verses, the more creative the transformation can be. All of that to say, and going back to actually talking about Eyeclick here, I feel like Will and Nathan do a great job of using vocal heavy songs, but they use them more as a component rather than a crutch. They chop the fuck out of the vocals, they paulstretch the hell out of them, they turn them into bizarre eccojammy sorts of things. It doesn't feel like the vocal is the forefront of the song, it feels more like the vocal is just a part of an overall theme they're going for with each album, more of a compliment or a cherry on top of what they're going for instrumentally. Do I sound snobby yet? Anyway, all of that to say, listen to this album, it's fantastic. I am the number one 台湾SWAG『Princess』外约网（k 7 7 9 9 . c n）遇到以前同班跩跩的校花 想干她很久了 见面一定要好好教训她 stan, just saying!
CyanBlue - Cyanide - Cyan's third album was excellent company as I drove around my hometown, taking photos in the bitter cold. I'd say this one's my favorite of his. He can do insane flips of already great 80s pop tracks and transform them into extravagant bops like it's nothing (click here for the perfect example), but there's something about this album that sounds...a bit more mature, maybe? Definitely elevated. Great sample choices as always, and it grooves and grooves. I will say that I was blown away by the track Over and Over because I really genuinely thought that all of the components of this song were from an original 80s track. It blew my mind when I discovered the verses were being sung by Lavera and Seth Nova. Def check this out.
And a quick shoutout to unknown settlement - autumnal gloam, something I discovered before I went on my trip. It's a short and sweet classical TV signalwave release, the tracks sounding like they were ripped from old late 70s/early 80s sign-offs of some sort. It's gorgeous!
Additionally, some New Releases, of which there's not many. I'm sure folks are waiting to start releasing albums in the new year. But here are a few!
I'll be heading out of town for a few days, so I figured I'd make a quick post before I went radio silent. I'll be back in time for Pad Chennington's Ugly Sweater Party on Sunday (something that I'm a part of!), and hopefully I'll be back with some albums to shout out in the next post. This one won't be as mega as the last post, but it'll still be a goodie. As always, links will open in a new window. Here we go.
Cool Albums
LAST CEREMONY - Sunsets & Late Night Drives - I've listened to quite a few LAST CEREMONY releases in the last year or so, but this one's my favorite. The title track is a gorgeous introduction to this appropriately named album, of starting your drive at blue hour and continuing well into the night time as passing cars are fewer and fewer, and turning off your car in the driveway at 2:00 a.m. with bleary eyes and clarity. Kinda reminds me of how I try to organize my Late Night Lofi tracklists a bit. The only complaint I have about this album is minor, and a bit of a compliment: I wish it were longer.
TCR-4 - Ｍｏｓｔｌｙ Ｃｌｏｕｄｙ - A short but sweet signalwave album (that gives me hints of barber beats with the sample selection) that's inspired by the Pacific Northwest. It's relaxing, it's cozy, it's quite pleasant.
ｙｏｕ ｓｔｉｌｌ ｆｅｅｌ ｔｈｅｍ ｏｕｔ ｔｈｅｒｅ， ｄｏｎ＇ｔ ｙｏｕ - 最 後 に 永 遠 に - Admittedly, slushwave can be hit or miss for me. Whether it's the sample selection, what is being sampled in the song (I feel like you've seen me say more than once that I wish people didn't use full versus and choruses as a crutch and get a little more creative in what the song is sampling, which may be a hot take), but this album from YSFTOTDY is BEAUTIFUL. Great sample selections, and the tracks take me on a hell of a journey. I usually see a 26 minute song and think "why in the world does a track need to be this long", but 木 の 誕 生 / 竹 月 worked fantastically, reminding me of the end of one of my favorite Deerhunter songs in how both tracks make you feel like waves are crashing around and over you. While Little Kids by Deerhunter leaves you feeling disturbed, 木 の 誕 生 / 竹 月 provides nothing but tranquility.
Various Artists - SΞCRΞ+ ΞXPLORΛ+ION PROGRΛM [Vol. 1] - Vįr+üål Åįrßñß did an incredible job in curating this release. There's not really a spoken theme, but the cover makes me envision an alternate universe where the Boston Dynamics robots took over the earth, and the effects of global warming are reversing itself as nature overtakes what humans built. All of that to say, it's really pretty, and half of this compilation is appearing in future Neon Nights* episodes.
死夢VANITY - lavish memories - 死夢VANITY has returned with another lovely late night lo-fi album that could be the soundtrack of a luxurious date night, or a soundtrack of a top notch spa experience, or a soundtrack to shopping for very expensive jewelry. It's very rich sounding, kinda borderline barber beats-y as well with the sample selection, and I love it. Welcome back, homie.
* Neon Nights is my online radio show that airs biweekly, every other Tuesday, at 10:00 p.m. eastern. I play a lot of what gets highlighted in these posts, and I sometimes like to do themed episodes, too. A new episode is actually airing tonight, if you'd like to come in and check it out! Here's the link to the show. Also, fun fact: the next episode after this one falls on New Year's Eve, and it will be a two hour 2024 Neon Nights retrospective, a.k.a. Late Night Lofi VII (which I previously highlighted on the blog), and tracks that fit the vibe of the LNLF mix. It'll be a beautiful episode. If you're gonna tune into any of them, choose that one.
Good evening! Sorry for the silence. I've been working on URL sets and getting three episodes of my online radio show, Neon Nights completed since December's gonna be crazy eventful for yours truly. This will be another megalinks post of Cool Albums and New Releases. As always, links will open in a new window! Here we go.
Cool Albums
clust.r - ever chance - River has been killing it, first and foremost. Between running a killer label, releasing twoalbums on my favorite label of all time, and the album I am linking here, he's been absolutely fucking killing it. clust.r is def not a typical vaporwave album and is more of a cool experimental, glitchy pop record. It's catchy, it's pretty, it's chaotic in the best way.
Atlas Cries - Night 露 - Enraile's third and latest release on the Shatterfoil label under his slushwave alias is most certainly a gorgeous album. Sure, it's a bit more simplistic in the samples, primarily using J-Pop material, but he has killer taste in sample curation. It kept me great company driving home in the middle of rush hour traffic, a soothing balm to the stressors of shitty drivers around me. Give it a listen!
Real Player 7 - Opportunity - I downloaded this album years ago and finally listened to it recently. I'm unsure if many of you are familiar with the label Crystal Magic, but this was once upon a time a label based in New Zealand that hosted quite a few indie/electronic/early 2010s internet music, and a bit later, shifted into releasing vaporwave and vapor-adjacent releases from Power Nap, Eyeliner, and Real Player 7 (a project by the person behind the label himself). Unfortunately, he deleted the Bandcamp page many years ago, but if you'd like to read about the history of this label, a lovely homie by the name of Michael Brown has you covered.Fun fact: Michael is also doing a 33⅓ book on Eyeliner's Buy Now, which you can pre-order here. Anywho, all of that aside, Real Player 7's Opportunity, released in 2013, was so far ahead of its time. I feel like, in a different world, it would be just as esteemed as Eyeliner's releases, or the PrismCorp Virtual Enterprises releases. It's midified corporate muzak at its finest, with titles such as Officechair Meditations and Outlook 2013 that sound exactly how you'd think they'd sound. Also, highlighting the track Inner City Reflections, because it merges vaporwave and drum and bass in a way that would be extremely appreciated in present day vaporwave. Since the album no longer exists online, it seems, I've uploaded it to Mediafire. Enjoy!
International Telecom - Новый Мир - You may remember my post about the immaculate ３ａ.ｍ.Ｓｉｇｎａｌｓ, but don't go into this album expecting a sequel. Instead, go into it expecting the cousin of one of my favorite signalwave albums of all time, Synthetik/PROGRESSIVE REGRESSION by Ｋａｎａｌ Ｖｉｅｒ & FUJIWARA INTERCOM. Filled to the brim with late 90s/early 2000s commercials that take you back to the days of ads toying with futuristic imagery and everything being transparent or translucent, this album is short but very sweet. I need more albums like this, and I truly hope somebody takes on a project like this and really expands on the looping so these tracks don't end as abruptly as they begin. (See: FUJIWARA INTERCOM - FUTURE IS HERE, from the album linked above!)
Incarta '95 - ON THE RUN - This album, based upon a fake movie about a missing man who appears after 30 years and sends a letter and CD to a news station about where he's been, shifts from vaporwave to synthwave, even into house music a little bit. Another short but sweet album that I'm glad I checked out. I may have discovered it through a Retail Archaeology video, since this one came out shortly after my computer croaked. This is an interesting concept album with some bangers, especially the track Open Road.
g h o s t i n g - 2D FUN AT GRID WORLD! - GodfuckingDAMNIT, THIS IS STILL SO GOOD. I hadn't listened to it in years, and after hearing it a few days ago, I knew I had to include this and possibly introduce or re-introduce you all to this hypnagogic pop classic. I know many of you know g h o s t i n g for his fantastic vaporwave and broken transmission albums, but this album takes what Telenights started and goes full zany, using commercial blocks in this album to enhance what already sounds like music inspired by 80s Saturday Morning Cartoon blocks. It's incredible. If you're into Boy Snacks, Punks on Mars, or James Ferraro during the On Air and Night Dolls With Hairspray era, give it a listen. If you have no idea what any of these references are, listen to g h o s t i n g and then click on those other links.
Late Arcane - Prestige - This was going to be in the New Releases section, but after hearing it a few days ago, I knew I had to include it here. This is a fucking fabulous follow up to Extravagance, with songs that are signature Late Arcane at this point, but also tracks sampled from 80s italo disco and funk, some AOR sprinkled in there, even something that reminds me of 90s R&B my sister used to listen to. It's a really fun listen. If Late Arcane chooses to upload his set from this past weekend's album launch stream, check it out for Little White Flower alone, and see how crazy his fingers go on that one. If you don't find yourself headbanging to that track btw, I don't know what's wrong with you.
Florida Rains has been quite prolific in 2024, releasing 17 albums in eleven months. I'm slowly catching up on checking out their discography, but between Downtown Tampa and the album I'm discussing in today's post, I'm really enjoying what I've heard of their output. Named after a Rainfall Amounts segment on The Weather Channel, Florida Rains is another artist I've found whose Weather Channel-inspired releases have not been the same ol' formula that many other meteorologically themed vaporwave albums have followed in the last decade, choosing to go more into a late night lo-fi territory and using some really lovely lo-fi jazz samples. There's some excellent curation on Trop, and if you don't come out of hearing this album feeling extremely cozy, idk what to tell you. It was hard to choose a single track to upload to YouTube, but the track Joyce is just...SO FUCKING CUTE. I didn't realize until just now that the titles are the names of baseball players from their local team. Another reason why this album is so damn charming! I'm excited to hear more of what Florida Rains puts out in the future.
You can find this album digitally at the link below:
Blogspot removed everything I typed up after the links, what the hell! My apologies that not everybody in the New Releases section are in the tags due to the character limit. And an additional apology if my writing in this post is coming off clunky; I slept like pure garbo and I don't think this caffeine will ever kick in.
A quick shoutout to another music blog out there posting about vaporwave and other cool underground music, listencorp. Make sure to subscribe to their emails, as they go very in-depth in them in a way that I find to be super cool. Check them out!
This post is gonna be a bit different than some of the others you've seen! It's part album highlight post, part cool albums post. Let's do this.
DJ VIOLENCE - VAPORMEMPHIS FORECAST 2
This release gave me flashbacks to Video 2000's Midnight Ride and to this incredible Kodak Cameo x Clipse mashup by Reverb Lite, two absolute masterclasses of mashing up rap and hip hop elements with vaporwave, as well as strip_silence's killer marty_memphis mashups (that hopefully he'll release officially sometime soon). DJ VIOLENCE really fucking elevates it here in a way that is fresh, fun, and truly exciting. Though some of the samples he used on the vaporwave side have been used repeatedly throughout the years, the way he uses them is just...chef's kiss. Magnificent. This 18 year old kid from Russia who wears his love of Memphis rap and phonk on his sleeve (I mean, look at these Pen & Pixel-stylized album covers) really blew it out of the water here, and I am really looking forward to checking out more from his discography and hearing his future output. It was hard picking a favorite here, so so so hard. But here's a goodie:
Find the album in full digitally and physically at the link below:
Though this is another album from The Expanding Earth, this one veers into familiar and lovely signalwave territories, with its tracks sounding like rips from nature and meditational VHS tapes with an occasional clip or two from a commercial break. All of these tracks are pleasant, borderline classical at times, borderline medieval/dungeon sounding in others (and despite the sonic differences, overall it sounds cohesive). I also have to give a quick shoutout to how Video Interface effectively changes and slows the pitch in some of these tracks, much like in ways that ショッピングワールドjp/shopping world jp used to do. I've heard some folks do pitch changes mid-beat that...some can do it right, many don't. Wanderer in Time and Ancient Inscription are two tracks that really do it correctly. This album really hit during a drive around town on a gray day, but I'm sure it's peak beauty if heard in the middle of a walk through a strolling garden.
You can find the album digitally and physically at the link below:
This album just turned ten years old this year, and still remains a underrated hypnagogic pop classic. Torn Hawk's output was always a bit polarizing for me, but Through Force of Will is a powerhouse of an album, and it still remains as one of my favorites of all-time. When this album came out, I was in the middle of reliving my 90s video rental/Sneak Prevue nostalgia in full force, and this visual teaser of the album consisting of datamoshed movie clips spoke to me (along with what is still one of my favorite track titles, Damaged With Jeremy Irons, too fucking good). This was also during what I consider to be Not Not Fun's peak, where the label was releasing banger after banger album, and once again they knocked it out of the park with this one. I'll probably eventually talk about another NNF release here pretty soon, since I actually also affiliate my 90s video rental nostalgia return with another one of their releases and I kind of think of the album as Through Force of Will's second cousin. Through Force of Will is part pop, part shoegaze, part psychedelic, part "this sounds like a riff from a Billy Idol track", it's everything.
You can find this album digitally at the link below:
Life has been busy lately, with IRL things going on while trying to work on multiple URL sets and Neon Nights to boot. I'm hoping to get back into the swing of posting a bit more frequently again, but bear with me!
Good evening, friends. As I promised, here are plenty of cool albums that I've found in the last little bit that deserve a nice little shoutout! As always, links will open in a new window.
unconscious observer - 2 a.m. - A gorgeous release sampling lots of jazz noir. Think Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks soundtracks, or Bohren & der Club of Gore's discography. In my previous post about International Telecom, I'd mentioned the late night drives and how much I desired experiencing my already sleepy town at night. This album fits that sonic fantasy for me, of walking through a very empty downtown area, nobody on the road, just you and the buildings and alleys around you.
radiant memory - new dawn - This album and the unconscious observer album almost feel like sisters to me, in that where 2 a.m. is the commentary of walking through downtown at night, new dawn is like walking during the day in a very empty downtown setting, but I imagine it less like the album cover and more in a "what the city looks like after the events of Night of the Comet transpire". The album is a very lovely listen and feels extremely lonely. I believe that this is a video forum side project, so it is definitely no surprise that they've delivered once again on an excellent release.
monument XIII - windy I/O - I was thrilled to receive a copy of this album on CD when I met Robin at FlamingoFest last year (!!!), but I finally got around to checking this out a few weeks ago. Wowowowowowwow. This album is more abstract than other things I've heard in IC's discography, but I absolutely adored it. Golf Swingers was one of the artists who came to mind as I checked this out, but more like "if Golf Swingers went hella maximalist" sort of way. Some of the tracks can be quite jarring and intense. Some, like the track digipaint, feel soothing, like you're in the eye of the chaos. Idk, I loved it.
Dreamweather - WeatherView - Admittedly, I've been feeling like Weather Channel-related albums have been played out in the last few years, as somebody who sampled Weather Channel things very early on and as somebody who has seen a fuckton of Weather Channel-based albums/projects. A lot of them use the same sample material, or do very similar concepts that don't really make each individual album or project stand out in particular. All that to say, though, this Dreamweather album samples some Weather Channel work that I actually haven't heard or didn't recognize off the bat, and not everything included a sample of a meteorologist speaking about the weather conditions or a fast moving storm system. It was a very comforting album to listen to, and definitely one of the better Weather Channel-themed releases I've heard in the last little bit.
Doomsday Video - Hypnopedia - Goddamn, I really enjoyed this one. I saw the name of the artist and expected the album to sound more like a "music for preppers"-type of signalwave album, but some of it sounded like the more traditional late night lo-fi sound (see: Spiral dream), and some of it went into a goooooorgeous Pure Moods-sampled territory, like my standout track, Blue horizon. This one is most certainly worth a listen.
vintage intimate - digital ocean - This Nyoka Shoje side project taps more into the experimental side of vaporwave and broken transmission, which absolutely tracks and also, absolutely hits. This album in particular is really interesting to me, as the tracks were ripped from a VHS tape, put into reverse, and sampled and looped from there. It's quite charming, really.
karaoke vhs - sympathetic vhs - One of the first things I learned about Thor was their love of Orchid Tapes and of Ricky Eat Acid (and his 34547578378 side projects). Listening to this, his love of early 2010s internet music, of the days where everything was lumped in together as chillwave or as witch house and nothing else, really shone through. Some tracks sounded like things I would have heard on an early Teen Suicide album, some things made me think of early Oneohtrix Point Never or Emeralds (which, on that note, listen to Dan Lopatin/Mark McGuire's lone Skyramps album if you've not already)...it all feels like a love letter in a way that really took me back to scrolling through some of my favorite old Blogspots. If Dayvan Zombear still existed, he would have loved this album.
GUILD MERCHANT - Morning Meditation - I'd been meaning to check out this side project from Bounty Ballad for a minute, but finally got around to checking out this album in particular while waiting in line for early voting. I really enjoyed all of the numbered 明呪 tracks, but all of them really flowed well together and created a very lovely and cohesive barber beats album.
modest by default - South Cougars Jazz Ensemble - On the topic of barber beats: modest by default is once again appearing on a Cool Albums list, and I think he's one of the best curators in the genre from what I've heard of his work. This album really resonated with me after a series of bad days and gloomy skies, and it gave me some much needed tranquility.
All right, I think that about covers it for now. A special shoutout to Alyx of Vaporwave News Network and Pacific Plaza Records, who gave Brief Commercial Break a very sweet shoutout in his October 2024 Round-Up post. Thank you thank you thank you! One day, I'll figure out how to do a blog ring type of thing on this blog, linking to the various folks promoting artists and posting about the scene.
