microphones in the trees: April 2019

Thursday, April 11, 2019

new management ~ 遠くの見知らぬ人



Either it's something of a "the beauty is in the eyes of beholder" kind of case, or it is a true fact, but recently more and more excellent ambient works started to happen in the world of vaporwave music. The specifics of the genre – namely, the fact of not knowing if that's an original work or simply some effects applied an old slowed-down track by a long forgotten artist, – gives an additional dimension to the vaporambient subgenre. You can easily tell what's is going on with more regular kind of songs, but with ambient and drone... It is not clear whether to thank the author for the quality of the work done with the sound editing or for the opportunity to hear something that otherwise would have remained forever in the depths of history... Both, most likely. In any case, the specificity of vaporwave is not to steal someone else's music but to create the right atmosphere using anything you can lay your hands on. Whether it will be a short intro from disco-funk hit or some old elevator Muzak composition. We have enough music gathering virtual dust on the music servers... Why not recycle it?

In the course of the listening to such albums like this one, it is easy to put aside reflections on the topic if the goal justifies the means or not. It's an experience happening right here and now after all.  Soft, enveloping music for subtle immersion into relaxed bliss. A dream disturbed by only slightly strange images, which, however, tend to blur and elude from sight. A sound that dissolves the need to think or to do anything. Sleep potion, gently pulling it into one's arms. Sometimes it may even seem like a sleepy paralysis, an intermediate peace between sleep and reality... An yeah, that's what we used to call hypnagogic some years ago. But there is nothing scary in this state of mind – except, perhaps, the desire to remain in it for as long as possible.