Vaporwave

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Not to be confused with Vaporware.
Vaporwave
Stylistic origins Chillwave, plunderphonics, new age, city pop, lounge, ambient, chopped and screwed, elevator music, smooth jazz, dance-pop, funk, nu-disco, R&B, cyberpunk, punk[1][2]
Cultural origins Early 2010s, Internet culture
Typical instruments Audacity, SoundForge, Ableton Live, FL Studio, programming, sampler
Other topics

Vaporwave (also spelt vapourwave) is a music genre and art style that emerged in the early 2010s. It is often characterized by a nostalgic fascination with retro cultural aesthetics, commercial artifacts, and technology, as well as a critical or parodic preoccupation with consumer capitalism, popular culture, '80s yuppie culture, and new-age tropes.[2][3]

Vaporwave grew out of styles such as witch house and chillwave, as well as related internet communities. Musically, it is often characterized by its heavy use of samples from late '70s, '80s, '90s and early 2000s popular music as well as lounge, smooth jazz or Muzak.[4] Samples are often pitched, layered or altered in classic chopped and screwed style.[4][5][6]

History

The genre's origin can be traced back to Oneohtrix Point Never's 2010 release, Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1, an audio cassette consisting of two sidelong tracks which use pop samples "spliced, pitched, repeated and drowned in reverb and digital delay."[7] He typically combined '80s sources and "[slowed] them down narcotically", in a manner reminiscent of chopped and screwed styles.[8]

The genre emerged in 2011 from online communities, such as Turntable.fm.[4][9] In subsequent years, it gained popularity through websites such as Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Last.fm and 4chan.[1][4] Daniel Lopatin's 2010 release, Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 and James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual are regarded as a "catalyst" for the development of the genre.[10][11] Imagery associated with early vaporwave included glitch art, Classical sculpture, '90s web design, outmoded computer renderings, VHS stills and concepts in cyberpunk.[12]

In 2015, ２８１４'s album, 新しい日の誕生, became the most popular release the genre had produced in four years, being a staple in Bandcamp charts and launching a 2xLP vinyl version through an Indiegogo campaign.[13] It was featured in Rolling Stone‍ '​ "10 New Artists You Need to Know: November 2015", an unprecedented event for the genre.[13] In a vaporwave-styled review, Tiny Mix Tapes also spoke favorably of the album.[14] The album, like other releases under the Dream Catalogue label, eschews vaporwave's kitsch-pop and Muzak samples, instead taking the genre's "focus on dreaminess and surreal futurism and on painting a narrative through music."[13] The resulting ambience draws inspiration in Boards of Canada, Steve Roach, Vangelis, Burial and Sigur Rós.[15]

The same year, MTV revealed a rebrand heavily inspired by vaporwave and seapunk.[16] Inversely, Tumblr launched Tumblr TV, with an explicitly 90s MTV-style visual spin.[17] According to Jordan Pearson of Vice, this change would mean the death of the genre, as the "cynical impulse that animated vaporwave and its associated Tumblr-based aesthetics is co-opted and erased on both sides—where its source material originates, and where it lives."[17]

Interpretations

Music writer Adam Harper of Dummy Mag describes the genre as "ironic and satirical or truly accelerationist;" he also notes that the name "vaporwave" itself is a nod to both vaporware, products that are announced but never actually manufactured or cancelled, and to the idea of libidinal energy being subjected to relentless sublimation under capitalism.[18]

情報デスクVIRTUAL, alias of Vektroid, describes her album 札幌コンテンポラリー as “a brief glimpse into the new possibilities of international communication” and “a parody of American hypercontextualization of e-Asia circa 1995."[19] Another artist, inspired by the Situationists, describes her work as a degrading of commercial music in an attempt to reveal the "false promises" of capitalism.[18]

Notable artists

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Harper, Adam (December 5, 2013). "Pattern Recognition Vol. 8.5: The Year in Vaporwave". Electronic Beats. Retrieved February 8, 2014. 
  2. ^ a b Lhooq, Michelle (December 27, 2013). "Is Vaporwave The Next Seapunk?". Vice (magazine). Retrieved April 10, 2014. 
  3. ^ Szatan, Gabriel (July 22, 2013). "Interview: CFCF on New Age, Japanese Music and the Almighty Panpipe". Red Bull Music Academy. Retrieved April 10, 2014. 
  4. ^ a b c d Galil, Leor (February 19, 2013). "Vaporwave and the observer effect". Chicago Reader. Retrieved February 8, 2014. 
  5. ^ a b Lhooq, Michelle (December 27, 2013). "Is Vaporwave The Next Seapunk?". Vice. Retrieved February 8, 2014. 
  6. ^ a b Staff, AUX. "Could Vaporwave Be the future of music?". AUX. Aux Music Network. Retrieved 18 November 2015. 
  7. ^ Beks, Ash. "Vaporwave is not dead". The Essential. The Essential. Retrieved December 8, 2015. 
  8. ^ Reynolds, Simon (July 6, 2010). "Brooklyn's Noise Scene Catches Up to Oneohtrix Point Never". The Village Voice. Village Voice, LLC. Retrieved December 8, 2015. 
  9. ^ Parker, James. "Datavis + Forgotten Light Prism Projector". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved February 8, 2014. 
  10. ^ Blanning, Lisa (April 5, 2013). "James Ferraro - Cold". Pitchfork. Retrieved February 8, 2014. 
  11. ^ Bowe, Miles (October 13, 2013). "Q&A: James Ferraro On NYC’s Hidden Darkness, Musical Sincerity, And Being Called "The God Of Vaporwave"". Stereogum. Retrieved 8 February 2014. 
  12. ^ Ward, Christian (January 29, 2014). "Vaporwave: Soundtrack to Austerity". Stylus.com. Retrieved February 8, 2014.  External link in |publisher= (help)
  13. ^ a b c "2814 - 10 New Artists You Need to Know: November 2015". Rolling Stone. Wenner Media LLC. November 25, 2015. Retrieved December 8, 2015. 
  14. ^ C Monster. "２８１４ - 新しい日の誕生". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved December 8, 2015. 
  15. ^ C Monster (October 15, 2015). "Dream Catalogue (HKE, ２８１４)". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved December 8, 2015. 
  16. ^ Lange, Maggie (August 29, 2015). "The Crowd-Sourced Chaos of MTV's Vaporwave VMAs". GQ. Condé Nast. Retrieved December 8, 2015. 
  17. ^ a b Pearson, Jordan (June 26, 2015). "How Tumblr and MTV Killed the Neon Anti-Corporate Aesthetic of Vaporwave". Motherboard (Vice). Vice Media, Inc. Retrieved December 8, 2015. 
  18. ^ a b Harper, Adam (December 7, 2012). "Comment: Vaporwave and the pop-art of the virtual plaza". Dummy. Retrieved February 8, 2014. 
  19. ^ "情報デスクVIRTUAL - 幌コンテンポラリー". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved February 8, 2014. 

External links

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