I'm sure you might be aware that my last episode was a delayed bummer by the end of it, so I'm really just gonna start writing these episodes on the days once again to hope for a better outcome with them. My days without work are already over as soon as they began and because of work yesterday and a knockout bout of hayfever today, I'm gonna have to turn this into another double episode because I've hardly listened to enough on both days. Still though, let's have fun with these
We got some more content warnings on this one, albeit they're minor in comparison: Do watch out for a short but immediate mention of suicide as well as a reference to sk*nning that even I can barely tolerate most of the time.
ℍUM♥ℕIGHTM♥RE – 宇宙の認識 (2016)
Do pardon the unicode that comes packaged with this artist's name, but this is HUMANIGHTMARE, a once young & up-and-coming vaporwave producer who tragically lost to suicide in 2020. I caught ear of this particular album during a commemoration livestream on Vapor Memory and it allured me enough to want to seek out and check it out back then. I thought it was a very good album at the time and to this day, I still think the same way, though it leans very much into greatness at a good handful of points. This was a super meditative take on the growing slushwave sound of the time along with some hypnagogic drift tunes and I think the results should not go overlooked by fans of those genres. Tracks like the opener 宇宙の誕生 as well as 脳の網 are absolutely gorgeous, while the track that hooked me in the first place, 宇宙との関係、is so captivatingly strange to me in a way that I can only adore and fascinate about. If you're already deep into vaporwave, I highly recommend this one.
7.5 / 10
Highlights: 宇宙の誕生、宇宙の盛り、宇宙との関係、宇宙の夢、脳の網、復活
SURFING – Emotion (2019)
Up next on the trans agenda is the third and most recent album by vapor & chillwave duo SURFING. Their 2012 debut is one of the most iconic works of the genre and rightfully so, because it perfectly blends original instrumentation & singing with dense, hazy and deeply nostalgic vaporwave samples. So I have no idea what brought in them the need to forgo that entirely, as 2018's Incubo was still sample-based but nowhere near as dreamy and this one fully submerges into the stylings of chillwave & indie rock with none of what made them so excellent before. That said, with that expectation in mind, while this is still their least good album, it was at least better than what I was anticipating after the first couple of tracks. Visions is the song everybody turns to and for good reason, because it does bring a newfound energy to the band, but my favourite moments were still where they leaned back into their dreamy & hazy sonic roots. It's still a good album and if you're a fan of dream pop, I'd give it a shot. Just don't expect anything particularly dense.
6.9 / 10
Highlights: Visions, Crazy, Hearts, Enough, Give You Up.
Chat Pile – Remove Your **** Please (2019)
I'm going to say it now, this is among the worst EP titles I have ever read. I know that this band was deadset on making intensely dark & grim stories through noise rock & sludge metal, but if it wasn't for me keeping an open mind, I would've steered clear of this record entirely even despite the loving reception this got back then and even now. Which is a complete shame because I ended up enjoying this one more than any other Chat Pile record so far, even God's Country (which warrants a relisten at this point). I even found my current favourite Chat Pile song through this record in the form of Davis, weirdly enough. The drums just sounded much better on this record than I had previously heard, sounding way less blurrier and more burrowing, though that might just be attributed to my headphones being replaced months ago. Couple that with the noise, the energy, the vocals and especially Davis's melodies and despite the horrible name, I'd recommend this one to fans of dreadful rock music. I still don't love them as a band, but this gives me hope that whatever they cook next, I might be able to start clicking with them.
7.2 / 10
Highlights: Mask, Davis
netbooks.WRLD – loosies '19-22 (2022)
Speaking of EPs, I don't know how many y'all heard this up-and-coming talent named netbooks.WRLD? Dude's pretty local in the online vaporwave & electronic music communities and his discography is about as fresh as the next lemon you will ever buy, but real talk? I think he's by far one of the most promising artists to pay attention to! I was initially a dumb stupid dumb skeptic back when his debut album ENDLESS STAIRCASE popped up in 2021, but upon the last couple of months, revisiting that album, tuning in to his brand new single, checking out his Skylive performance and now coming over to this EP of loose cuts, I have fully turned into a believer! The dude makes some downright excellent post-industrial plunderphonics and vaporwave tunes all over his catalogue and I think I found some of my favourite tracks he's ever made through this EP. Sure, they were mostly featured in other places and that's counting the bonus tracks, but god, I've been hooked to them completely in the 24 hours since hearing this. My only sticking points against it are the volume of the high frequencies being a little too harsh for my personal headphones, but I know that's by design considering his aesthetic. Other than that, holy shit, go check out ENDLESS STAIRCASE and this EP at your earliest convenience.
8.3 / 10
Highlights: pipes song, shook shook, RAGDOLLS
Vįr+üål Åįrßñß – ▚ ▛ ▜ ▟ ▞ (2021)
It's the second day and one of the best discoveries I've made last year was this random but completely ethereal-looking and unpronouncable album by a young Virtual AirBnB and I thought to relisten to it for the morning. Spoiler alert: This might just be one of my favourite vaporwave albums. This record is compact, but it is so gorgeous and stunning! It flawlessly blends together elements of mallsoft, new age music, I believe sophisti-pop R&B vocal samples and just overall aesthetics of beauty, nature and the future. Almost every single cut here is downright heavenly. Listening to them all from front to back is one of the most soothing, relaxing, beautiful and often transcendent experience I've personally had with the genre and it's so criminal how overlooked this album is so far. High recommendation to the absolute heavens. Just put your headphones on and let the rivers drift you away.
Saiba '98 is an enigma to me. I don't think, even in the vaporwave scene, this short-lived alias got any of the credit it honestly deserves. The music's not excellent, but for a vaportrap artist, this guy managed to craft some of the unique, jarring and abstract material in this form. Upon relistening to DIGITAL FOREST for instance, I found it absolutely fascinating in how the tempos are sporadic and unformed, the beat instrumentaion is basic and minimal and the backing ambient atmospheres are ghostly and dark. This culminates into his last album under the project, RENDERED FANTASY, and while I can't tell you in good conscious that I love it or that it's completely great, this is honestly the best release of the few still publicly available. More than any other album I've heard from them, this album is glitchier, darker, more ominous, eerie and experimental than ever before. I almost completely admire the way he was seeing through his vision on this one. If you're curious, I can't guarentee you'll love it, but if you're a fan of vaportrap or experimental music, I'd give it a fair shake.
7.3 / 10
Highlights: b e n z a i t e n , Love Translator (self care), Hospital Flower, Kingdom_$lave, Life is a Constant Double Helix
crt paralysis – "Slideshow" (2022)
I'm about neck deep with vaporwave again these past couple of days, so next I threw on this project that got me very curious. Known for making some great vaporwave & DnB as dotnds, CRT Paralysis is a broken transmission side-project of theirs that I'm not fully enamoured with but still greatly appreciative of, especially with their Winter Paralysis series of albums. This "Slideshow" caught my eye though as it looked to center completely around the nostalgia of 2000s office computers and Windows 95 styled corporatism. However, not exactly in the way that I viewed it as a child, which is a little disappointing, but I still found this to be a very good time. The presentation was what drove this home to me the most, it's pretty off-kilter, even for Bandcamp standards. If you're curious for some late 2000s vaporwave nostalgia in a format that I could see INTERNET CLUB doing back in the day, I'd recommend this one.
How do I go about this one? This was the third album from a then very young RAWINTHEVOID. RAW is a talent in post-vaporwave & plunderphonics that I've been looking forward to seeing his growth for a few good years now. His two latest albums MD (Manifest Destiny) and NOTINTHEMOOD are especially great and, even with some very rough patches, they still shine in comparison to his very, very humble beginnings. I've been going through his catalogue backwards and it's fascinating to see how rudimentary & borderline regressive their sample-based works were back in the day. Even on Alphalord, currently my least favourite of theirs (but only barely behind Double Couple), I still found a wealth of fascinating ideas for its alphabet-long tracklist. For example, I would've never thought that speeding up a whole ass noise rock album down to less than six minutes in a song would've sounded any good. To spoil you, it doesn't sound good, but I'm glad someone tried it anyways. I don't recommend this one. If you're curious, go through his latest albums and his live sets, but don't go digging through the back catalogue. Trust me.
4.4 / 10
Highlights: c3, m13, o15, q17
VHS Head – Persistence of Vision (2014)
To close off this post, I went with the sophomore album from one of the most "Dude, how come you've never heard of this guy" artists in the realm of electronic music. VHS Head is a producer of IDM & Glitch Hop beats that are constantly punchy, sporadic and memorable, all thanks to his incredibly persistent sampling of found VHS tapes. He's growing a cult following overtime but it's not exactly helped by his sparse release schedule. This album came out less than five years after his first and he only thought to put out a followup just a few months ago. I can't wait to try that out, but I would shoot myself in the foot if I didn't go for this album first and I'm very glad that I did. I guess when I heard it, I was a little unenthusiastic in a way? But only the way that still made me love this album in the end, like my thought process was "Of course this album is great." The beats are still punchy, the constantly shifting sample flips are more memorable this time around, I think it's even better and more consistent than his debut! Highly recommend this one, with no doubt.
7.9 / 10
Highlights: Enter the Devil, Don't Look in the Closet, Camera Eyes, Red Ocean Apocalypse, Dead to Morrow, Frozen, Body Magic, Angels Never Sleep
Finally, another episode in the books! You'll notice I'm committing to these a little less and less, but I'm honestly not sure if I can keep doing these daily. I'll keep 'em up for as long as I like, but I think it's time to finally admit that I might skip days proper. I'll find a way to still make them work though, because no doubt, every day, I find something new that I want to talk about. Maybe I could make it more of a highlights thing than an outright journel, but we'll see how that shapes up. Until then, I'll see you next time!
