i go around and skim through bandcamp tags or recommendation threads every so often for some new stuff to download-- every so often i'll get lucky enough and find a promising-looking album for free. most of the time the stuff i listen to is vaporwave (or vaporwave-adjacent genres), very rarely with vocals beyond snippets of news broadcasts here and there.
funny enough -- i don't think i'm the target audience for vaporwave at all given how much of it revolves around 80's nostalgia (an era where i did not yet exist) so in all honesty i think i'm certainly missing out on a certain kind of experience. nonetheless, i find it quite enjoyable so maybe the songs have done their jobs anyway
i do feel it's worth mentioning that i'm by no means an expert in music at all. in other words, i have no clue what the fuck i'm talking about. i will say that a lot of my opinions on the music are forged by my own experiences; consequently a lot of it is personal interpretation. i absolutely expect you to disagree with me; nothing on this site should be taken as gospel anyway
about my own experience with music-- i play the piano! i used to take classes and study it more rigorously; i passed my level 8 RCM test with some fairly good results but dropped it after that just as i both didn't have the time nor the motivation to keep learning it. (not to mention that i kind of sucked! i was a very bad student-- i started quite young and was notoriously hard to teach)
while i don't have any sort of professional training anymore, i enjoy playing songs i like as a hobby, typically by ear (as i find it more fun) though i can make use of sheet music if necessary. i've composed a few tracks in the past, though notably it's been a very long time since i ever did anything like that. in any case, my technical knowledge is certainly lacking (i know a bit of music theory and that's about it) so i don't think i can make any objective assessments on how well written any track is as much as i can share some thoughts on what these albums are telling me (but it bears mentioning that technical knowledge absolutely helps with determining the tone/mood/whatever of music! just wanted to throw that out) good thing that not much of this stuff is an original composition anyway :)
i found this album by looking through a recommendation list for late-night lofi, a vaporwave subgenre (and probably my favourite out of the bunch). the album takes the "low fidelity" part of lo-fi very seriously-- the whole thing sounds like background music to a crappy video you took on your phone compressed a few times. it's a neat collection of tracks, though-- fairly long at around 56 minutes-- and fun to put on in the background of doing stuff (hell, i probably wrote most of the stuff on this site listening to it; maybe that's a form of anti-advertisement, though). the versatility is nice, but i'd imagine not everyone is a fan of how it doesn't have much of its own flavour, even as a lo-fi release (though that's not necessarily a bad thing!)
this album's one that i discovered fairly recently (as of writing this, around like ~2 weeks ago), so it was around the time i was still getting settled in and comfortable with this new environment at university in a fairly run-down building in a seedier part of town. for a little more context i'm also recovering (fairly well, i'd say) from depression, so i've got the whole feeling of "yeah shit kind of blows right now but i'm looking forward to when it gets better and it probably will"
the album definitely suits the experience of wandering around a city at nighttime with the comfort of familiarity being only present in the fog of the mundane. you're not where you'd like to be quite yet, but you carry a gentle hope towards the future while feeling that tug of longing towards the past. you don't have a current to follow, but in still waters you know you're free to swim however you like.
anyway i'd say give it a go. i wouldn't blame you for thinking it's boring, though (it is literally an hour of background music with terrible audio quality)
fav track: nonstop to miami
ok this album is great. i don't know if i'll have much to say about it because yeah no it's awesome
unlike the one i discussed above, there is a VERY obvious theme and atmosphere being conveyed here. it's 22 minutes of unforgivingly desolate, lonely music, yet with an oddly comforting undertone. the apocalypse is over; the worst's already happened and you're left picking through its bleak, barren scraps for any memory of a life you could've lived.
pseudointellectual poetic bullshit aside this album does have this ridiculously oppressive tone to it, in contrast with the more liberating feeling of 'wasted digital' above. i discovered it around the peak of my depression, and the tracks really sound the same way my depression felt. to elaborate, after around 5-6 years of dealing with my illness it became comfortingly familiar, to the point where i'd rather have it all end than try and break out of my comfort zone of misery; i subscribed to the belief that there was no getting better. did you know that ice can actually keep things pretty fucking warm? yeah, it was like that-- and the snow had already obscured my vision.
anyhow. yes, this album. i put it on as BGM while reading sebald's 'the rings of saturn' and i find the two work well together for some reason. i recommend it.
fav track: snowfall (cont.)
slideshow! this one's just a delight to listen to, honestly. no weird pretentious half-baked narratives here-- you just get to hear about how happy this album makes me.
how i feel listening to slideshow is probably how older dudes feel listening to 80's-themed vaporwave. i understand a lot of the appeal falls flat if you didn't grow up listening to these kinds of sounds; for me, though, slideshow's 2000's-theming hits the nail on the head in bringing out that early-childhood nostalgia. this is the sort of "sitting in the corner playing games on the phone while dad talks business with his friends" and "fucking around on mom's GPS trying to change the model of the little indicator car" sort of fun.
the whole album sits at 24 minutes long, and each track takes up just a single minute. i'm not sure why, but i feel the track length helps the narrative..? probably because it literally sounds like a slideshow. hah.
i'd say to give it a listen, but depending on what your childhood looked like your mileage may vary.
fav track: clubhouse 2009/04/01
so admittedly this album's message didn't quite land for me initially, but there were few reasons:
a) i had pretty much no ties to american culture, and
b) i didn't exist back in 2001.
you could only imagine my confusion seeing people in discussion boards describe this album as "haunting" and "eerie" when i didn't understand much of it beyond "a nice collection of smooth jazz with news broadcast segments spliced in". of course, it was still an enjoyable listen for me, but a lot of the meaning went right over my head.
well, wikipedia to the rescue, because i eventually did learn that this album was about 9/11. more specifically, it imagines another history where the disaster that turned september 11 into 9/11 never happened. it does a damn good job of building this superficially peaceful world hiding such a tragic underbelly, too. the way the album was produced is pretty genius-- the news segments were taken from broadcasts on the day of 9/11 moments before the horrific event unfolded. the dissonance between the incident's severity and the cheerful voices of the reporters is absolutely pretty fucking haunting.
i can't comment much about the emotional impact the album had on me aside from praising catsystemcorp on technical stuff, though, since i had no friends or family that the 9/11 tragedy directly affected. i guess my experience listening to news at 11 is just a living example of how important knowing the context is to understanding any sort of media.
i will say that i'm not sure whether the TWC tracks affect the album's meaning or merely exist to extend its length to 1:11:09. the samples for those tracks were taken directly from weather channel broadcasts with no correlation (as far as i'm aware) between their dates, so i'm more inclined to believe the latter. still, you'd get a lot more out of news at 11 than i did if you were more closely acquainted with america's history.
fav track: the weather channel 11
i've heard here and there that vaporwave, especially older releases, was a movement meant to satirize and criticize capitalism while carrying an undercurrent of late-20th-century nostalgia. the albums i listen to all tend towards more of an apolitical perspective, focusing mostly on the nostalgia, but hologram plaza is probably the album i've got that best reflects vaporwave's original vision.
malls are certainly still alive and kicking today. back home there's a couple that became my go-to spots for going out with friends and family, though notably i'd never buy anything other than a breadroll or two. i just liked the atmosphere. over here in san francisco i've also found one to wander around in (i bought a dress there, though i've yet to check out their food). if i'm ever feeling a little melancholy, i pop on this album as i poke around the stores-- it does a lot of work setting a certain tone.
production-wise, the album's nothing special-- it's an hour of slowed, reverbed muzak, like many other releases of the sort. where i find it special, though, is how it portrays malls (and consequently, consumer culture as a whole). hologram plaza's not a fun, carefree summer congregation spot for you and your buddies to make happy memories in, nor is it a place of convenience where you go to furnish a new house or do your grocery shopping for the week. the plaza's a hollow, lonely world where what little comfort it provides only lasts as long as the thrill of a new purchase. it's transient, superficial, and about as meaningful as a random passing thought. nonetheless, it's nostalgic as hell and does make you wish at least a little for those better times when malls didn't feel quite so shallow.
anyhow, this is a great album to listen to while soaking in the gloom-- pick a mall that doesn't get much customer action (or a popular one at a not-so-popular time), put on hologram plaza, and walk around. trust me on this one.
fav track: midnight specimen
this is like the 2nd winter-themed album by this artist i've reviewed (there's another one i've yet to talk about too, i believe) what a coincidence
this album was divided into 5 separate releases, though meant to connect with each other sequentially (similar to everywhere at the end of time's stages) and then eventually released as a complete set! i straight-up just downloaded the whole thing to listen to (it's roughly 1.5 hours long) so i won't really talk about each individual section)
i read in a comment by the artist that this album was meant to be a literal interpretation of the season of winter; specifically the cold temperatures and resulting loneliness associated with it (the artist's canadian so i get it lmao) which i figured was more or less the case on my first listen-though; supposedly it's good background music for huddling up inside during a snowstorm but that's not gonna stop me from adding my own interpretations lol nice try
there isn't a lot of fundamental difference between this release and winter's lament (or with a lot of VW releases in the signalwave subgenre as a whole), both being melancholic low-fidelity tracks sampling mellow, nostalgic music, but where they do differ is the connotation behind which tracks they choose to sample. whereas winter's lament is brutally desolate and frigid, there's an-- albeit superficial-sounding-- undertone of warmth to winter paralysis. the artist stated that the album was made to "embrace" the wintry conditions up north, though i interpreted it as a form of escapism against an uncomfortable reality. the tones sound dreamy (especially in tracks like snow globe and sensationless), but the hollow quality of the sounds, as well as track titles like "the screen keeps me warm", imply this comfort is little more than superficial.
the album first track introduces a leitmotif later repeated several times throughout the rest of the album (funnily enough, the artist sampled it again in winter's lament) which isn't something i've seen much in the vaporwave i've heard! i'm not sure what it'd mean in the context of the album's literal interpretation, but through a lens of repression i suppose it could be interpreted as someone repeatedly trying to recall a specific memory, but never getting the full satisfaction of it each time. (i'm probably looking too much into it but that's what i do)
either way, good music for putting on while sitting around doing absolutely nothing. i recommend it.
fav track: all the tracks that use the same sample as "snow's kiss"
this may be the first album i review that's not directly considered vaporwave, though i found it on geometric lullaby's bandcamp page and i'm pretty sure it was tagged with vaporwave even if it doesn't quite sound like it. it's a solid hour of... i don't know, drum and bass? EDM? whatever it is, i like the way it sounds. i've got a bit of a harder time giving my opinion on this album since it's far less sample-heavy compared to the others i talk about (though samples are still present, a lot of it is original composition... but there's a lot of amen breaks, like, a lot of amen breaks) so you'll have to bear with me here.
like a lot of vaporwave albums though, a lot of the music's content is driven by the album's overall atmosphere over the composition of any individual track (how do i explain this??? it's like most albums have songs that are fairly complete stories by themselves, but we have these other albums where each song kind of coalesces to form a larger idea... am i coming across). the album is themed around intensely negative emotions such as heartbreak and depression and isn't subtle whatsoever about it (just try to guess what track titles like "mr. kill myself" and "lexapro delirium" could mean...) which i find is very hit-or-miss with a lot of people, but i do think despite this the compositions are strong enough to keep it an enjoyable listen even if the melancholy vibes aren't sticking.
i found this album back when my depression was pretty severe so my first listen felt very cathartic; the aggressive drums and dark audio samples were satisfying to listen to, so i'd say emotionally the album did resonate with me. composition-wise the songs are quite similar, being synth sounds with drums laid over (lexapro delirium is the only track that i find stands out noticeably); due to this and the large amount of ambience, some people do happen to find the tracklist tedious. (i don't, though!)
i find draining love story to be a strangely versatile album, though; i've listened to it while exercising, gaming, sitting around doing nothing... the amen break just tickles me pink, i guess.
fav track: lexapro delirium
i feel like i was definitely doing this page a disservice here by forgetting to put in the one album that really got me into vaporwave. it's an incredibly accessible and easy-to-listen album as well, so perhaps you'd consider getting into the genre...? do you want to feel like one million bucks? because this album will make you feel... y'know, world class.
i downloaded world class to listen to on my trip to seattle (which was unfortunate for some other unrelated reasons) and DAMN what a good match. watching the night-time skyline scroll by while sitting in mom's car while falling half-asleep to 80's jazz samples is a chill as fuck experience i recommend you try at least once (sitting in any window seat of any ground vehicle in some glowy city should work). there's no depression or social commentary here -- just 50 minutes of pretending to be a glamourous businessperson for the hell of it. the album even makes looking out the window from some crappy hotel in the tenderloin feel like pure cash money, if that tells you anything at all about the strength of its imagery.
otherwise i don't have a whole lot to say about the music; it's a little escapist for sure and it's a lot more "fun" than "meaningful". still, simple delights have their place in the world. indulge yourself a little.
fav track: s.w.a.k.
oh come on. it's geogaddi. have you not heard of geogaddi?
i just found out a few days ago that there is actually a term for the sort of album that comes together to form a whole with a theme instead of just being a collection of tracks - it's called a concept album! yeah, that's right. in any case, what a weird fucking concept album. it's got themes of math and satanism. what a delightful combo. i've heard a lot of people cite this as a disturbing or dark album, but i find it more strange and unsettling than outright scary.
it's a fun collection of both short, uncomfortable tracks such as "gyroscope" and "i saw drones", and unusual but total bangers like "music is math" and "alpha and omega". all of it's a fuzzy, electronic ride - it feels distinctly alien yet familiar at the same time. it's a pretty critically acclaimed album so i'll keep my commentary short(er). despite its success, though, it's not as easy to listen to as some of the other stuff i posted here. great experience, though. if you like broken transmission vaporwave, you'll probably like this!
fav track: gyroscope
there's some albums i like because they give me a fresh listening experience i've never had before, and some others i like just because they do what they do really well. this is definitely the latter. there's nothing particularly groundbreaking about a vaporwave release sampling melancholic smooth jazz and throwing a filter over it, even in the subgenres, but it is still pretty effective at achieving what it's meant to achieve. seeing the twin towers on the album cover definitely means that i wasn't born early enough to be this album's target audience, so take my judgement with a grain of salt or sugar.
overall, the album creates a quiet, moody atmosphere that's comforting enough to be an easy listen yet contains a tinge of sadness and longing for flavour. great stuff to put on to spice up your memories or something. i first found it when i started my meds (june 2023 ish, i'll just refer to this time period as "prozac summer") and listened to it while riding my bike around at night and it is... just. such a vibe. it's just excellent atmospheric stuff for those bittersweet moments. sitting at about 30 minutes, it's a pretty easy listen. it's nothing special, but it doesn't need to be.
fav track: tune in tomorrow
the name of the album sounds like drugs. it's a good name. when i tell people i have a horrible taste in music, this is what i mean. in my very honest opinion this is leagues better than SAW 85-92.
i thiiiiiink the backstory of this album is that rdj had a bunch of unreleased files sitting on an mp3 player he left on an airplane so he chose to release them as an album before anyone could leak it which i think is really funny because the main criticism i've seen of this album is that it feels like "just a random collection of tracks"... yeah because that's exactly what it is. in a way, i also think it's extremely charming that among all the other stuff i listen to that's pretty much almost always built around a concept (most vaporwave albums are like this), here we have an album whose concept is not having a concept whatsoever.
i don't know how to listen to drukqs. i don't think there is a correct way. you could put it on shuffle and it'd be just as cohesive as listening to it in order, but don't listen to it on shuffle because there's no need for you to do that and you'd miss out on the transition from lornaderek to qkthr. (but i always listen to albums in order first, just because when i was 9 and listening to the minecraft OST, it blew my mind when two songs "connected" to each other and i've made it a habit ever since). i listen to it when crying. i listen to it while sleeping on the car. i listen to it while playing league of legends. i listen to it while taking a shit. my rabbit likes the beats
if there is only one album left in the world i want it to be drukqs. if albums were genres then my favourite genre is drukqs. it's fucking horrible and completely fucking awesome at the same time. if you want to know what it is, it is a delicate blend of sentimental acoustic tunes, noise that sounds really good, noise that sounds really bad, and various other sounds of varying pleasantness. it's like looking through an alien's sketchbook, if you've ever wanted to do that. there's also lots of breakcore, if that's what you like. please listen to it.
fav track: i dont know i cant pick just one, but petiatil cx hdtui is a close second
i got into collecting dolls only fairly recently as of now; to be more specific, around the time when i got settled into my college dorm room. i'm not sure what really prompted me to get into the hobby, though; i guess it just came up one day. i've been doing a bit of figurine collecting for maybe a few years or so, so i supposed that kind of eased me into having little plastic people on my desk.
i've always found dolls fascinating, though. i suppose it's their mechanical nature that's pretty damn cool, and i've always been a fan of cute, girly stuff anyway. their slightly creepy aura definitely doesn't hurt, either. maybe there's a deeper psychological reason behind my interest, but oh well, whatever. dolls are cool. i like my tiny desktop imitation humans. :)
as of now i've only really been collecting those blind box BJDs since they're a lot cheaper and smaller than other dolls. they're also a lot kinder to my time and effort as they come pre-painted and packaged with their own hair pieces and clothing. i do plan to eventually get to customizing my own larger ball-jointed dolls in the future, though, but that'll be a while until i have both the money and the time. sounds like a good hobby for after retirement.
the little bear fellow was my first-ever ball-jointed doll! the series as a whole is a pretty damn good choice for a beginner, too. i didn't have to take their heads off to put on their dresses, and they're fairly simple mechanically. they hold poses well and are overall pretty fun to fidget with and move around. they can stand up on their own! not all that well, though.
the eyes are painted on, and the hair pieces are removable and interchangeable with each other. you could also replace the hands, which are connected with an S-hook (though i haven't figured out how to do it yet). they were also quite easy to dress! of course, with pretty much any doll, you can put them in different clothes so long as it fits. the rabbit looks good in this fancier-looking dress i bought separately.
as for the individual dolls, there honestly isn't a lot of difference between them aside from the hair, animal species, and outfit (but even then, they're all similar-looking dresses with the biggest difference being their colour and patterning). there's minor differences in the paint jobs (the rabbit has more upturned eyes and round eyebrows, while the bear has a beauty mark and thin eyebrows) and material (the bear's hair piece is matte and has flocked textures on the ears and hairties while the rabbit's hair is glossy all over) but otherwise there isn't too much to set them apart from each other.
design-wise they're quite pleasant to look at. i appreciate the more neutral vibe they've got going on with the expression and colouring, which pairs well with the design's simplicity that helps the repetitiveness of the dolls feel more cohesive rather than tedious. (though it could just be a me thing since i'm always one for simpler designs; they help the design feel more human?) apparently they've got little personalities and hobbies pre-assigned to them from what i can see on the product page; i'll be honest though, i don't feel like it's reflected in the design whatsoever (though a large part of a doll's appeal comes from the freedom you get to just totally make shit up about them and have them be their own little person so honestly i appreciate having a blank slate to work with lol) overall, they're a lovely pair.
i bought a 3-pack (later sold one of them, though) and got lucky enough to get one of the "rare" designs in the series (i didn't get the one i had my eye on the most, but such is the nature of these blind boxes). material-wise they do feel just a little cheaper than my other dolls; the bottom of one of them has already stained a little just by sitting on my desk. otherwise, though, they're by no means poorly-made (hell, a ball-joined doll that comes with everything like the faceup and outfit, even such a small one, at this price point is absolutely a steal). they do suffer from some of the problems that i mentioned about the other dolls such as not being able to stand up or sit down easily and being a pain in the ass to dress. there also isn't a wide range of motions i could get them to do, even less so than the other dolls.
on the plus side, the magnets attaching the headbands to the head are decently strong, and the shape of the headband means it's unlikely that it'll just come off, which is definitely nice :) they've got the same sort of inset eyes as the bonnie dolls (bonus points!), but the way the print lies under the glass gives the eyes a VERY pronounced effect of following you around. the hair is easy to disassemble and the eye pieces are also removable, though like with the bonnies, i haven't figured out how.
i thought the way the vicious side-eyeing paired with paradise's deadpan expression was pretty damn funny so i named her "judgement" as a result. (she's become my favourite of the bunch as a result.)
there isn't a whole lot of variation between the individual dolls; between the ones i own they all follow the same type of fashion. (you'll also find that this is a very common remark i have to make-- not a criticism, just a remark.) hell, paradise and jasmine even have palette swaps of the exact same dress. otherwise, though, the series' design is undoubtedly my favourite out of all the dolls i own. the frilly dresses are classy; their pastel colours and gentle expressions give them an understated, feminine adorableness. they wouldn't look out of place in a well-illustrated children's book or a vintage-themed room (provided that the other colours are congruent, of course); the aesthetic-- though probably barring the anime influences-- is timeless. it's a simple, sweet, and oddly sentimental celebration of innocent childhood joy. (i know they're just cute dolls and it's not that deep, but it sure is fun assigning personal interpretations to this stuff.)
this series is probably one of the most well-loved ones in the community (i'm willing to bet it's because the dolls can actually stand up) but unfortunately season 1 did get discontinued so unopened blind boxes are for the most part sold out on major retail sites. i managed to grab the winter limited edition secondhand from mercari (it came in smelling like some sort of scented candle-- probably accumulated from its last home and not an innate feature of the doll-- disappointing because i did like the smell), the spring off of aliexpress, and fantasy in a confirmed box off amazon.
in general the centaurs definitely win major points for not fucking tipping over all the damn time! 4 legs means more stability. they are pricier than other dolls of this size though and i can see why. they were also a hell of a lot easier to dress than a lot of other dolls. fantasy had a 1 piece dress and that was it, winter had a dress, skirt, and hooded coat (i left the coat off of mine though), and spring had a dress, a bonnet, and a cute little crossbody purse (it should be noted that this purse cannot hold anything).
as always the quality's solid as hell, especially for the price. the material feels nice, the paint on the face is well done, and the clothes are nicely stitched. however, a few ribbons have started to fray on the spring centaur (actually started fraying the day i picked it up), though you could just burn the ends a little to solve the problem. i've also heard stories of their tails being ridiculously tough to put on, and while i struggled with them a little myself i did end up being able to snap them in. the magnets to keep the wings on are of decent strength, but fantasy's dress covers that part of her back up so you have to stick the wings on through the fabric which weakens the hold. i haven't had problems with the wings falling off, though.
design-wise the series 1 dolls (excluding the limited editions) are very simple; each of the centaurs share the same dress style with the only difference being the colour and pattern. they do have varying faces though (even if the variations are very small) which adds a little character, though i only have fantasy so i haven't seen the other models up close. despite their simplicity, series 1 does come the closest to feeling like living characters-- not sure why! there's just an aspect to them that's not quite there in the later installments, even for the two limited editions. i've said it before, though, that the simplicity does prevent the designs from feeling tedious. it's probably the same thing here. anyway, they're wholesome and adorable-- and dare i say even a little captivating? don't know. it captures its own series title really damn well-- it feels like a fairy tale tea party.
the two limited editions... well, they do their job and they go home. the designs are solid and they're certainly adorable, but there isn't a whole lot i can say about them other than "they are competently designed season-themed centaurs". i didn't feel the designs gave me a sense of who the characters were (the fact that the hair models are reused from other centaurs doesn't help, either). i do appreciate the relatively subtle integration of their themes, though, and their colour palettes are a delight. out of the two, though, i'll have to say that winter resonates with me stronger overall; the design feels more cohesive (disregarding how illogical it is to wear a sundress under a fur coat, anyway). red as a main colour was also such a good choice.
(edit: reading back on this, i feel i did come across a bit unnecessarily critical towards the limited edition designs here-- it was late into the night and i was a little cranky. i absolutely don't mean they're poorly designed at all! they are very pretty centaurs. they're just weaker in comparison to the original series, but to be fair, i'm partly saying this because the originals were just that damn good.)
if you're into this kind of stuff though i'd definitely recommend you to pick up a box or two; they're great for the price and adorable overall. i'd also recommend the regular series over any of the two limited editions.