Cool Albums for April 28, 2025

Hello hello! I'd meant to post this on Easter, but that day ended up being far busier than I'd anticipated! I have quite a few albums to share that I hope you enjoy as much as I do. Each link opens up in a new window, as always. Also, please pardon the unusual formatting, somehow it got so fucked up in Vivaldi (which uses Chromium, which has been apparently having Blogger-related issues since the summer of last year?) that I chose to briefly reinstall Firefox and see what happens here. It kinda worked? Kinda? Hopefully this somehow fixes itself before my next post because jfc.

Cool Albums

溶けた壁 - collected signalwave improvisations 1968-2092 - Have you ever listened to a radio station that starts changing as you get closer to another city or town? There's a local radio station here that, as I get closer to the border of my neighboring town, the station begins to get scrambled and I'm hearing half college rock, half religious sermons. It's like they're fighting each other to see what will successfully take over. This victory over death side project reminds me of that experience, but instead of radio stations, it's miscellaneous commercials (including Right Now by Van Halen, a Crystal Pepsi CLASSIC) and it's all compiled together in a way that could be classified as noise, but to me, I found the release to be amusing and very soothing.
Kratzwerk - Ｖｉｄｅｏｔｅｘｔ ｆüｒ ａｎｄｅｒｅ - I walked around the park to this album on Easter Sunday and got to witness a group of kiddos in peak church Easter dress attire run around looking for eggs, which I found to be absolutely adorable. This album has been seen and described as melancholic, but there's something about the music used that reminds me of the 70s syndicated television I gravitated to as a child, and so I find it to be happy and cozy!
Claude Lavender - After Lunch - This sounds like the type of music one would hear in a TV sign-off, and for that alone, I love it. I can't remember for the life of me how I found this one, but godDAMN is it good.
CAPE CORAL - BLU NOTTE - An album that straight up reminds me of Video 2000's Midnight Ride in the best way. CAPE CORAL chooses to go into a mixtape-type of vibe instead of his usual bordering-on-future-funk, kinda instrumental kinda not thing, and it's really fun and the samples used against the acapella hip hop and rap tracks are hella creative. I was pleasantly surprised!
love affair - mood intense - Not trying to sound like an egotistical asshole here, but this sounds like a Lux album that was also inspired by 蜃気楼MIRAGE, 死夢VANITY, and a bit of waterfront dining. I just think it sounds really cool and done in a way that reminds me of Rose Quartz-era me and I liked it a lot. Late night lo-fi awaits you if you click this link. 
desert sand feels warm at night & days of blue skies - Perli tal-Passat - MY GOODNESS. THIS ALBUM IS STUNNING. Beautifully curated, great samples, absolutely perfect. Frammenti alone is a chef's kiss moment. I love love love this album.
INTERNET CLUB - DREAMS 3D - I remember a time where WWW CRUISE autoplayed after every vaporwave track for a while. I'd say that lasted for nearly a year. Admittedly, I've had this on my external harddrive for so long, but I never listened to the album in full. I know, I am shocked at myself for it. Though my favorite is and will forever be UNDERWATER MIRAGE, DREAMS 3D is a gem in Robin's discography.
HYDROPLANED INTO A FALSE REALITY! - boardwalk - This album is a hell of a chaotic banger. Elements of breakcore, elements of Jersey club, an insane moment where I realize at the end of the track that I'm hearing an insanely sped up Thriller sample, it's a very fun album to listen to.
national network - night-time television service - This signalwave album by TV2 made me emotional listening to it; it's so lovely and cozy and there's just something about it that just brings a lump to my throat. I can't quite pinpoint it.
International Telecom - ＩｎｔｅｌｓａｔＫ - I'm unsure why it's no longer on IT's page, I fear it may have been due to copyright, but I've linked to the Archive page. If I need to take it down, IT, let me know. This one is another International Telecom release filled with cozy signal-y gems that goes by way too fast. I really loved this one! 

I tried to make my descriptions not too long to ensure that this post of 83242499 links wouldn't look too overwhelming to search through. I think I've given up on trying to keep up with new releases to post, but know that I download as much as I can! 

Links post for December 9, 2024

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 - Н​о​в​ы​й М​и​р - You may remember my post about the immaculate ３​ａ​.​ｍ​.​Ｓ​ｉ​ｇ​ｎ​ａ​ｌ​ｓ, 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.

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!).

New Releases

Lunar Data Garden - Dawn I/O - Released December 1, 2024

victory over death - When at last I awaken - Released November 21, 2024

DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Sorcery - Released December 6, 2024
HYDROPLANED INTO A FALSE REALITY! - t q - Released December 6, 2024

super going - Patience with super going, Asleep and Not, and Digital Transmission Soundtracks - Released December 6, 2024

Afterdeath Television - Mater Natura - Released December 4, 2024

<VARIOUS/ARTISTS> - Intervals - Released November 30, 2024
y o u r d i s c o v e r y - HUMAN | MACHINE - Released December 3, 2024
video forum & identity crisis - ethereal unison - Released December 7, 2024

visions音と光 - Waves of static - Released December 9, 2024

Guild Merchant - Organica - Released December 6, 2024
░▒▓新しいデラックスライフ▓▒░ - ▣​世​界​か​ら​解​放​さ​れ​▣ / SPEED DIALER ! - Originally released in 2012 and 2022 respectively, but reissued on vinyl by Geometric Lullaby on December 6, 2024

猫 シ Corp. - Palm Mall - Originally released on October 2, 2014, but reissued on vinyl by My Pet Flamingo on December 5, 2024

Holy shit, that was a lot. Sorry again to all of the artists I couldn't tag due to the character limit. Talk again soon!

International Telecom - ３ａ.ｍ.Ｓｉｇｎａｌｓ

 

Summer 2011: I downloaded Laserdisc Visions' New Dreams LTD. I wanted so badly to understand it, but I felt more confused than anything, especially after being so enamored for months with the perfection that still is Vektroid's Telnet Erotika. At this point, we were still a year and a half away from the first use of 'vaporwave' as a genre name, and all I knew about whatever I was hearing from New Dreams LTD. was "this sounds...different." Nonetheless, I downloaded everything I could find of the other Beer on the Rug releases, and what made me fully get whatever this newfangled genre was, was Midnight Television's self-titled album. 

A decade before, I was looking longingly out my window facing the second busiest street in my hometown at 1:00 a.m., seeing people drive by and wondering where they were going, why they were out so late, what my town even had to offer at night. If I wasn't staring out the window, I was surfing online, looking around for Incubus-related media and thinking about how I wanted a shirt from T-Shirt Hell. My choices. Or I was in my bedroom, flipping through the channels, either stumbling onto color bars or George Foreman Grill paid programming, eventually settling on The Weather Channel as I got ready for bed. All of that to say: Midnight Television, within a ten minute album, hit every mark and sent me back to my early days of high school and the memories I mentioned above. Since then I'd chased and looked and downloaded so many albums in the broken transmission/signalwave genre for an album that would hit me in a similar way, or at least have a similar vibe, and I'd say International Telecom's ３ａ.ｍ.Ｓｉｇｎａｌｓ hits pretty close. 

Nine tracks and four bonus tracks of music you'd hear or wish to hear as you channel surfed in the middle of the night, damn well knowing you're not going to find anything outside of paid programming, color bars, Girls Gone Wild commercials and phone sex ads, and uninteresting classic movies. Knowing you need to go to sleep but being too stubborn to do so. Wishing that you could go explore your hometown at night as you saw others do but lacking the courage and a driver's license. Originally released in early 2023 via TVVIN_PINEZ_M4LL's label, B O G U S // COLLECTIVE, this album later got a cassette release via Aexion's label, Enterprise, which sold out. I am jealous of all of you who have this one on tape, truly. This album has some top notch sampling choices and provides the most comforting vibes that I'd last experienced with 猫 シ Corp.'s NEWS AT 11. I don't know if these comparisons will help in enticing you to check this album out if you've not done so, but LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM. Just fucking do it. 

You can find the album for free at the link below: 

https://intertelecom.bandcamp.com/album/--32