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:
https://theexpandingearth.bandcamp.com/album/vapormemphis-forecast-2
Video Interface - Visual Anthropology
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:
https://theexpandingearth.bandcamp.com/album/visual-anthropology
Torn Hawk - Through Force of Will
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:
https://valcrondvideo.bandcamp.com/album/through-force-of-will-decade-anniversary-edition
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!
