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Whither Vaporwave...?
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Lugia
970 posts

Edited Sep 24, 2018, 01:47
Whither Vaporwave...?
Sep 24, 2018, 01:47
As of late, I've been rather interested/preoccupied with this genre (or microgenre, although I think that's a rather twee term). Some of it doesn't strike my fancy 100%, especially in its 'Future Funk' range. However, there's a large chunk of this that seems as if it fits squarely into the 'Unsung' realm.

For those untutored in this genre, 'Vaporwave' is actually a rather broad category of music that encompasses everything from artificially-constructed J-pop to weird, dub-as-filtered-thru-a-shopping-mall-PA, to sludgy, audio-damaged reworkings/manglings of existing pop, to pure digital glitchiness akin to Oval et al. It seems to have an emergence in the early 2010s, but despite many people claiming the genre is 'dead', it persists...and continues to fascinate. Overall, it relies on 'plunderphonic' methods: wholesale thievery of existing audio sources, which then tend to get reconstructed into strange, familiar-yet-not works that often have the feel of somnambulistic, narcotically-drugged Muzak with something not-quite-right about it. Often calming AND unsettling, all at once.

Sort of like, say, "Zeit" or "Cyborg"...if they were being experienced as music-on-hold or on the background music at the dentist's.

It is VERY underground. As far as I know, only a few projects have ever surfaced in physical media in short runs, snapped up PDQ by an eager listener base. Much of it exists on sites such as Bandcamp and Soundcloud, and given the sketchy copyright issues involved, it's often available for free (although paying if you feel like it is an option).

And given all that, it's also quite obscure. Some have claimed that Vaporwave is the first 'post-music' genre, seeing as how it's purely DIY, with no industry involvement save for the occasional copyright takedown, since the main industry is the normal source of the snips and bits being de/reconstructed, and that it requires no studio, no instruments, no musicians...a litany which starts to sound a bit like the liner notes of "Metal Machine Music".

Even when the genre vectors over toward dancey zones, there's still some underlying strangeness present...as if one was listening to an android version of Chic that's quite incapable of passing the 'uncanny valley' test.

Worth exploring? I think so. True, there's duds in amongst the finer points, but overall I think Vaporwave is an emergent sonic underground, with a lot to be recommended to the HH set. Go forth, then, and experience! And if anything interesting pops up on your radar, make mention, of course.

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