Vapor Vertebrae 03-2015 Part A

フレッドYOLO
Museum ‘97

<Single>

When フレッドYOLO aka Freddyolo doesn’t promote music, design tees, create music videos or help kittens, he comes up with nutritious tunes of his own. Museum ‘97 is the latest example of a shapeshifting solid avulsion. A synergetic ventiduct into the stolid world of museums and the counter project of coruscating consumerism that usually takes place in marble-floored malls, the physiognomy of Museum ‘97, while measuring a mere 70 seconds only, is mystically polyfoil. From the Ambient anacrusis with its reverberated temple cherubs onwards, the rotatory piece absorbs every trick of Vaporwave’s phylogenetic cesspool: quasi-dramatic pianos in martelato style, viscoelastic harp helixes, fir-green syrinxes plastered over a tropical 3/4 rhythm and – last but not least – artificial guitar licks hued in crimson. The textural quality is apocryphal more often than not, but this is to be expected in view of the source material. Museum ‘97 is the evocative call of the jocund jungle, an elasticized flashback, a literal walled garden. Portland is Panama.

Twitter: @freddyolo

Mirror Kisses
Little Heart Surrender

<Kill You In Bed Single>

In a recent tweet, George Clanton, the man behind the vaporific ESPRIT 空想 and delightfully vocal-driven Mirror Kisses projects, pondered the cause of his sky-rocketing battery of Last.fm/Spotify listeners. Well, duuuh: Never Late Again is simply too incandescent, a fantastic piece which remains stuck in one’s head for eternity. The bustling performer continues to deliver 100% Electronica, but Vaporwave is nonetheless retrosternally injected in Little Heart Surrender, the B-side of his latest single Kill You In Bed. Seamlessly connected to the aforementioned corker, Little Heart Surrender encapsulates gorgeously longitudinal airflows of thermal synths in its Ambient prelude, all of which continue to caulk the dreariness formidably as the gem progresses. A ligneous-caustic rhizome of bubbling beats, verglas glints and congenial lyrics of drowsiness, Little Heart Surrender is a mercilessly uplifting and life-affirming tune, but with a twist: in lieu of moxie maneuvers, it becomes an amethystine halide that is aeriform, laid-back and protrusive at once, with beams of light floating through every beat-accentuated superficial interstice. The synthetics of Depeche Mode coupled with the non-cheesy oomph of Living In A Box, centrifugal force through autochthonous aureoles – that’s Mirror Kisses for you.

Twitter: @MirrorKissesVA

Hawaii94
Tonight

<Stratford Ct. One Year Compilation>

Melbourne, Australia’s Lee Nania epitomizes everything that is so wondrously right about the wide meadows of Glow-Fi via his sobriquet Hawaii94. A multi-instrumentalist and synthesist, Nania fittingly reciprocates between these cajoling angles in Tonight, a contribution for the Stratford Court label’s One Year Anniversary compilation and a potential addendum title-wise to the artist’s clandestine Nightvision EP (2014). Here, however, the gateway is already awash with light, drawing from those vanillarific 80’s vibes. Serrated with an auspicious photometry of lyrics à la "I don’t need to worry anymore," these bouncy lead pads face wah wah pulses, caustic guitar sine tones and several iterations of glistening star dust. This intrinsic array of glaucous galactosamines gives the perfectly earthbound piece a cosmic tint – adding to the slowed-down thiazide in the last third – which eminently manifests itself during Tonight’s fadeout phase: as the concocted superfluid of blazing synths simmers down, the twinkling chimes still tower above the horticultural reticulation like lucent lavabos. 

Twitter: @iamhawaii94

TAME 時々
Cologne

<Perfume // パフューム>

Bristol, UK isn’t particularly known for its odoriferous rhododendron cotyledons, let alone the mere possibility of an ambrosial fragrance or two, but the above tune shows what we know: next to nothing. It is the noble task of TAME 時々to enlighten us with his ultra-short EP Perfume // パフューム from which I have distilled the 90+ seconds long virtue of Cologne. The front artwork gives a good hint of the brand, but the listening experience itself transfigures into something less mundane. The airwaves are plastered with scintillating cowbells, multiplexes of stacked synth strata, deliciously spurious handclaps and the scything hoarfrost of convulsive cymbals. The lure – or cannelure – of Cologne derives from its cosmopolitan panchromaticity that guides the experiencing subject through the cautiously looped state of affairs: the big city life is in the aural air, the undercurrent of the chords is hymnic but not cathartic, leaving the individual in a blissful state of compunction. Is this ethereal or efflorescent, Chanel Nº 5 or catch-22? 

Twitter: @TAMEJP87

Golden Living Room
The Book Of Changes

<TAHRC-070: Split C32>

Progression is change, and such diaphanous tasks need responsible hands: Golden Living Room is more than able to transform petrification into purified progress in a Vapor Ambient corker of the seraphic kind: The Book Of Changes is part of a split tape with Mewl on the TAHRC label, and said tune is formidably vertiginous, supercharged with subcellular fluids and streams of consciousness. Adrift and awake, the superimposition of various New Age-evoking synth layers immediately catches the attention. Whether it is the perennial exhalations, Angkor Wat mica in dem wooden vesicles or the supernal anhydride that oozes through the thickly wadded hexangular quilting, The Book Of Changes pours aquarian freshness into a synthetic peritoneum of languor. Even though this is a completely soothing Ambient piece, soft beats gyre from time to time through the pluvial potassium percolations, with the agglutinated handclaps rounding off the tangible titration. This is one benthic illuminant, relying heavily on spheroidal textures while remaining wary of an overproduced tackiness. 

Twitter: @GOLDENLIVINROOM

テンパーTEMPER
8am Departure

<Website Design Deadline>

From mucous Seapunk over prismatic vitamin V pills to a recent fondness of Vaporrave: multifaceted artist and Rain Dragon Records paragon テンパーTEMPER doesn’t stand still and ever-ventures forwards, playing with the listener’s expectations, occasionally mobbing them up only to then come up with a solacing conclusion. While I am personally no fan of the producer’s recent four-to-the-floor echopraxia of 90’s Trance, I can definitely see why this would appeal to a humongous audience that outnumbers Vaporwave aficionados severely. 8am Departure, meanwhile, is the opener of the artist’s presumably autobiographic LP called Website Design Deadline. Decidedly dreamy and drawing from a coder’s etiolated aesthetics and aerose fantasies, 8am Departure is a polyvalent vignette of the 9-to-5 office culture: slamming the listener down with euphonious synth superstructures washing over viridian chimes and globs, テンパーTEMPER doesn’t keep this incandescent pace and rather goes for a annealed, softly toned down structure: after an isolating segue showcasing the prestidigitation on a computer keyboard, rufescent pentatonicism rules. Busily bubbling blebs underline the pressing punctilio of the melody. Nobody is in immediate danger, but the website designer knows that the management’s patience is wearing thin. Is 8am Departure dystopian bliss or about the chance to establish oneself? 

Twitter: @TenpaTemper

Ambient Review 419: Vapor Vertebrae 03/2015 [Part A]. Originally published on Mar. 4, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.

Vapor Vertebrae 02-2015

Cyberlust
Shop Online

<online_4ever>

Hailing from Argentina, Cyberlust girl Lola is an expert for montages and shapeshifting moxies transmogrified into Vaporwave vortices. One particularly interesting vertebra is Shop Online from the album online_4ever. Launching with downwards-spiraling verglas stabs lucently forming a pristine lullaby, this parochial section eventually leads to a slowed state of reverberated mall mica. The hi-hats are elasticized, the city tenor sax becomes an alto one, distant shouts of consumerism are reflected on the genre’s most important walls… phylogenetically speaking. The array of textures make a lore out of a lure, the melody of the prelude remains stuck in one’s head for months, maybe even years. This is one tune to remember! Its aural photometry is panchromatic, absorbing all pastel colors without turning them into a neon frenzy. This is Ambient after all, wondrously drowsy, a suntrap for the home user, emitting the marble floor of shopping centers even within one’s abode. Online shopping has never been this sweet.

Twitter: @cyberlusttt
Video: Artzie Music

SODA Lite
Passion

<Slice Of Life>

The Reggae and Dub scene has reserved a particular niche when things get romantic and rose-tinted; the style is called Lovers Rock and is probably most compatible with a nihilist’s circadian doldrums. While Melbourne’s SODA Lite hasn’t crafted a tune that can be linked to Jamaica, it certainly can be attached to amethystine trysts. Passion comprises of a saccharified sax helix whose endmost wish is to – no pun intended – erect a polyfoil experience for the bae and her gentle star. The jazzy piano preset of the keyboard becomes a hexangular quilting, frilly pan pipes caulk the perfervid atmosphere, oh, and there’s percolating marimbas, swooshing particle winds and laser lariats thrown in as well. This wouldn’t be Vaporwave after all. Passion celebrates weird simultaneities: it is undoubtedly sleazy and laid-back, yet candid and cordial. In addition, it seems like a prolonged tune when the melodies go crazy beyond its apex, serving as concupiscent twists of liveliness and action. The underlying message is for SODA Lite to know and you to find out. 

Twitter: @sodalite222
Video: SODA Lite

コンシャスThoughts
Midnight

<Vaporware Vol. 3>

The stylistic kaleidoscope of コンシャスThoughts is one of zoetropic proportions, having its fractals built anew time and again, as Vaporware Vol. 3 – an album of one, not a compilation of various artists – magnanimously showcases. Not shy of sampling a tune, nor expelling the thought of producing something from the ground up, Chrissy Cray’s Midnight is a heterodyned highlight of both approaches, superimposing blue-violet Rhodes rhizomes and susurrant saxes in a strangely cavernous yet open space at a nocturnal city beach. Whether it is the polyphonic marimba globs, the caproic cowbells and their iridescent afterglow, or the handclap-infested midtempo Hip-Hop beat, languor and carefreeness are in the air. The synthesis of mellow melodies and memorable patterns creates a void whose lacunar nothingness is immediately filled with oneiric contentment. コンシャスThoughts creates an oasis of peace, a mirage whose fugacity is luckily transferred to your HD/SSD/cloud service for further inspection. Midnight is a magnificent tune, harboring a glimpse of 80’s MIDI horn stabs, softened cymbal coruscations and a peritoneum of paradisiac pericarps.

Twitter: @chrissycray1
Video: Artzie Music

Groovy Godzilla
At First Sight

<Single>

Not necessarily based on Ambient for reasons that manifest themselves immediately when the first chords are reaching the ears of the interested party, Long Beach, California’s Groovy Godzilla unleashes an effervescent corker called At First Sight, the first single of the artist's amorous album Godzilla Finds Love. Amalgamating the benthic aurora of Future Funk and a Brazilian laissez-faire granuloma, the single eventually emits a very insouciant vibe with a very interesting twist to the dedicated music historian (who will never come across the tune, let alone this review in the first place, but what the hell): the stabs, vox & brass blebs are poured into a Boogie/Batucada synergy. While the first style is known in Occidental locales all around the globe, the latter is, in short, a tunnel vision of a Samba on speed. Groovy Godzilla’s mélange doesn’t cause a tachycardia, but its energetic aura is noticeable and injects that undercurrent of glee and joy. The timbre is archetypically Latin, the singing coquette in the epicenter becomes an instrument herself, even though her vocals are perfectly understandable… until they morph into a dub-dub-duh Space-Age punctilio. Dreams come true in this mocha-colored echopraxia of Latinisms. Gooodzillaaaa!

Twitter: @aviscerall

Mmöner
Genesis Of The End

<Misty Skin>

After all these positively posh plasticizers, it is up to Mmöner to be the black sheep, cauterizing the colors in favor of high chromaticity and a braiding of metalization. Enter Genesis Of the enD whose playfully stylized appearance letter-wise is the only vestibule to fun you’re going to receive. The tune is the fourth in a series of Witch House-oriented Vapor-esque vignettes, made available on the EP Misty Skin. The above tune isn’t overwhelmingly belligerent though; multiplexing susurrant – albeit rufescent – organ pads of thermal heat with a similarly hazy beat setup in 4/4 time, the song begins to grow and radiate after approximately 50 seconds. All of a sudden, vocoded falsetto eruptions lead to a weirdly majestic, almost triumphant abyss into darkness. Mmöner makes sure that the textures are revisited throughout the track, and yet does Genesis Of the enD feel progressive, with a clear cotyledon and an even clearer apotheosis. The nastiness of Witch House is only situated within the interstices, nascent but ultimately harmless enough to succumb to the retrogressive Rave patterns, fluorescent melodies and incandescent Yorkshire expectorations.

Twitter: @MmonerWorld
Video: Mmöner 

Ambient Review 413: Vapor Vertebrae 02/2015. Originally published on Feb. 4, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.