#Vaporfunk

[ange1icacid]

[businesscasual-biz]

Today is our Birthday! Business Casual is celebrating 11 years with the newest instalment of our anniversary series, looking back each year at some of the best we have to offer! https://music.businesscasual.biz/album/anniversary-vol-11

[saint-vhs]

Childhood - z'lectrik

[bruesselbach]

Satyr (@snakewife), 2023, oil on canvas, 18x36in.

[neondreamsplaza]

ＰＡＬＭ　ＭＡＬＬ

YouTube : [Purple Station]

[vaporwave]

Ｂｕｓｔｅｄ　Ｄｅｃｋ　－　ＶＨＳ　Ｂｉｔｃｈ　の印マラ壱

[decaffeinatedrecords]

anniversary track for Sunset Grid, now on my platforms

因縁を爆撃する ex-Ｈｉ－ＰＬＵＮＤＥＲＥＤ - 厳しい時代における私たちのオアシス

Bandcamp SoundCloud YouTube

[grillsmycheese]

Plastic Rainforest

Music - your best friend jippy

[thedivineerotic]

What the Funk?!

Vol 1. Part 1

The Foundation of Vaporwave: SynthFunk Pioneers

Vaporwave has been one of my favorite niche subgeneres of music for years now and its easy to tell why. I'm an old soul that was born to relatively older parents who grew up in the 1970s and whose primes were in the 1980s and 1990s so soul, funk and rhythm runs through my veins in ways my peers were not able to understand and ostracized me for. Once I latched onto vaporwave, my ear was able to detect many samples from songs I had heard growing up and been exposed to new ones. Vaporwave is slowed-down (or what we in the South called “Chopped and Screwed” back in the day) synth funk and new wave tracks from the 1980s and early 1990s set to colorful nostalgic yet futurist aesthetics and anime from around that time.

It is where the past and the future meet in the middle and dance all night.

And it has become one of the loves of my life, discovering vintage music that makes you want to get up, dance and be happy.

Here are some recent favorites that I have been hooked on since the past year or so.

The System

Rhythm and Romance (1989)

Description: Coming from in my honest opinion perhaps the single most underrated act in funk and R&B in the 1980s, this album fits its title perfectly. Mic Murphy and David Frank are literally on fire in this album even though none of their past efforts left anything to be desired either. They were vaporwave before vaporwave was a thing. To me, their pop flavored, R&B blessed, synth funk sound and angsty romantic lyrics are quintessential vaporwave material. There is no way you can listen to this album and not want to move, not want to groove, not want to have fun. What they lacked in mainstream success, they more than made up for in giving us the textbook definition of a "buried treasure" in multiple projects that I feel privileged to have dug up. Though having already been making music together for the majority of the decade at this point, the duo arguably hit their zenith on this album and the groove tells it.

Standout Tracks:

Midnight Special

Soul to Soul

Have Mercy

Kashif

Kashif (1983)

Description: Here is another synth funk pioneer who didn't get near the mainstream appreciation that he should have. But being primarily a producer, its natural that he stayed relatively behind the scenes but this time he truly let himself shine through some of the grooviest, smoothest synth baselines you will probably ever hear in your life. His programming and keyboarding skills set the tone for later funkateers such as Teddy Riley and Babyface to take to another level in the 1990s. However, Kashif and this project stand as the prototype in its their own right with synth and baselines both ahead of its time and someone just right on time for his era. RIP to the Great Kashif and before falling down the rabbit hole of his productions for others, hear the man shine on his own in this vaporwave masterclass.

Standout Tracks:

I Just Gotta Have You (Lover Come Turn Me On)

Help Yourself to My Love

Stone Love

Loose Ends

Zagora (1986)

Description: In the abundant world of 1980s dance music, the Brits had something to say. And no one made it as loud and clear as the funk, house and R&B group Loose Ends. These folks produced some of the most addictive combinations of House music and synth funk ever heard on record and set the tone for House music to become the penultimate underground genre in the early 1990s with R&B House legends like Crystal Waters and Soul II Soul. Though their discography goes deep, this album presents them at maybe the height of their powers, delivering a world class synth funk album just before hip hop influenced New Jack Swing came the following year to take over the R&B music scene.

Standout Tracks:

Stay a Little While Child

Slow Down

Ooh You Make Me Feel

Shalamar

Friends (1983)

Description: Achieving perhaps the most mainstream success out of anyone on this list, it's easy to see why Shalamar is still celebrated as icons of early 1980s dancefloor scene to this day. In a time where supergroups still dominated the funk and R&B scene, these three forged their own path and released some of the funkiest grooves you will hear from around that time. What made their sound stand out came from their unique mixture of standard R&B and funk with the then-new new wave scene that was coming out of Britain. As a result, their music has stood the test of time and influenced vaporwave mixes produced by both Black and white, British and American lovers of the genre alike. In my opinion, this album is their most solid and serves to represent the danceable, funky feel of the entire 1980s.

Standout Tracks:

I Can Make You Feel Good

Help Me

There It Is

[stupiduglly]

Commissions Open

[systemst91]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CW1Oqz-vu_M/

[businesscasual-biz]

Check out Telenights' New Album ‘Summer Daze’ OUT NOW On Business Casual! 

https://music.businesscasual.biz/album/summer-daze

[saint-vhs]

luxury elite x Tendencies - glowing

[portablezone]

𝔸 𝕟𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕚𝕥𝕪