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 two albums 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 ＫａｎａｌＶｉｅｒ & 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.

Other cool albums I recommend you check out are Bathroom Plants' Garden of Accrescent Vistas (which is absolutely BEAUTIFUL) and 「黒田坊」Kurotabō's 布団の音響タイムライン '81-'93 (classic vaporwave album that does sample a lot of 80s mainstream pop and synth music, but it's fun!).