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[vapormaison]

2019 Best Press 3/4:  カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title by TANUKI

While for many vaporwave vinyl is doubtless equal parts collector’s item and audio source, I don’t want to lose sight of the goal of this blog here: developing a canon of the genre for high fidelity enjoyment. That said, when I come across something remarkable or noteworthy about a particular piece of wax, even if it is not a “purely audiophile” object, I want to make mention of it.

And TANUKI’s カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title wax release is not only noteworthy, but contends for hi-fi consideration despite it’s status as a picture disc.

But let’s back up slightly.

Going back to the previous thesis on why we buy records, sometimes you just want to own a vinyl just because. Just because you’re a collector trying to compile a discography on wax — or, better yet, just because you truly love the album art. For me, カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title (Double EP) was undoubtedly all of the three “just be-causes”.

A while back, I noticed that the LP was going into its 3rd press, and decided to snap up a copy because I like Tanuki, I like Lum, and because of those other just becauses. Unfortunately the only format available was not the pink vinyl, but the picture disc. As I’m sure is well-known (because audiophiles are very loud about things they dislike), picture-discs are a big no-no in the audiophile community. This is because while a beautiful objet d’art, a serious listening session of a picture disc release will usually produce greater amounts of surface noise than any other type of vinyl. You can, of course, with the right system, neutralize and mitigate this process slightly, but true-blue hi-fi heads pursuing that elusive muse of “pure sound” would never give a picture disc a second look.

I’m not one of those people.

Tangentially, I’ve heard whispers of ghosts of rumors from when I was living in Shenzen, China — that various record suppliers (small batch Makers) are working out manufacturing and material processes that minimize these issues on pic discs to create appealing records that cover all the bases: hi-fi suitability, collector oriented visual esoterica, and price. I should also admit I have no idea where those companies are in terms of R&D and/or producing these. I end up catching a lot of very fast talk from extremely motivated enthusiasts, but Chinese is still as elusive a language to me at times as “pure sound” can be. With that in mind, however, it’s logical to surmise that advances in technology will eventually render the differences between picture discs and traditional black wax undistinguishable. So long as the world isn’t destroyed in some cataclysmic climate disaster (very real possibility), or -- as we are watching evolve now: World War 3. My view is that it’d be pointless to dismiss the format out of hand when there are active attempts to innovate it as we speak.

That all said, I know what to expect when a contemporary, big-label picture disc plays. During my college days, I used to spin wax at the university radio station. One of the previous catalog managers had a fetish for this “collectible” format, and was convinced he was doing the station a favor by purchasing all these vinyls, noting a pre-supposed resale value later. I remember throwing these on the well-worn Technics SP-10 we had as our main turntable, and listening to the occasional scratch, frequent popping, and constant surface noise, that for the uninitiated (bless you), sounds like a sustained “cracking” in your Rice Krispies — or for those born in the analog age, CRTV static.

So when I sat down with the Tanuki picture disc, I had this laundry list of preconceptions and prejudices about the format. I thought that I could listen to a moderately scratchy record once or twice, keep it as more a visual boutique item and then eventually include in an article where I bemoan the poor quality of the genre’s releases.

But then, I actually listened.

And it sounded… well, I won’t get ahead of myself. Here’s the full review:

THE MUSIC

BABYBABYの夢 — is doubtless the reason why many of us have bought the EP from a sonic perspective —especially if the band-camp reviews are indicative of trends. I still maintain that this is the Mariya Takeuchi sample/remix work par excellence. Tanuki hits all the essential notes here, a genuine respect and love for the sound-staging of its original source, Yume No Tsuzuki. I still get echoes of the original arrangement in my system, (ever so slightly) with a bright and dance-infused collection of unique sounds — particularly in that delicious, wide mid-range — that flesh out the track into its own sort of masterpiece.

何がGoin' On — the curatorial and conspiratorial side of my brain tells me that Goin’ On will probably go down as one the under-appreciated vintage bangers of this era of future funk. I can envision hipsters two or three decades from now sussing out a neophyte with pretentious questions about this track’s pitch-shifted sample draws from. It has that sort of vibe that you know hits with a certain subset of electronica fans — rich & vibrant, making the tweeters on your system work out in all the best ways — it’s just great.

がんばれ — Tanuki is at his best when he gets playful with brass samples. I firmly believe that the titans in this genre each have their go-to piece in their best arrangement — like Dan Mason’s creative vocal array, or greyL’s manipulation of micro-samples. For Tanuki, it’s whenever her gets a horn — synthesized or otherwise, into his production workflow.

ファンクOFF — continues Tanuki’s magic act, taking another city pop track more iconic for its soulful electric guitar riff and turning it into the most slap-worthy single on this EP. I prefer it when Japanese pop samples are fundamentally re-imagined, although I can see how the perfectionist tweaking of someone like Yung Bae is more appealing for some. Tanuki is undoubtedly one of the innovators of this genre, and there’s no more solid evidence of that talent than this track.

腕の中でDancin’ — if I ended up hosting a sort of mythical vaporwave grammies or something like that, (I’m available, folks!) I would probably go off on a Ricky Gervais style rant on how artists aren’t in touch with “the people” (read: me) because all we really want are more remixes of Meiko Nakahara songs — who given her impact on City Pop should have way more play in this genre than she does. This one, like most of the Meiko mixes I’ve heard, is a banger with an absolute fire bass riff punctuated throughout.

Radiant Memories — this might be my first certified “hot take” in the publication (they’ll be many more, I imagine) — but as far as I’m concerned this is the superior Plastic Love edit. I’ll just leave my thoughts there, so they can soak in with a portion of the fanbase who split my reddit account on an open fire of downvotes for suggesting that other artists than Macross 82-99 (Praise be upon him!) are allowed to touch this song as well. While Macross’s mix is definitely the more up-temo of the two, and that for some is the very essence of the genre, this slightly down-mixed version is both the perfect conclusion for the EP and ideal antithesis.

THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE

Signal to Raise ratio on the following albums:

カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title:  ~61.9db (1 db MoE)

Tron Legacy, Daft Punk:  58.4db

Love Trip, Takako Mamiya, Kitty Records Press: 65.8db

(ratings based on averages 5 minutes of sustained play on the testing unit, the machine actually complied this data on its preset, which is another fascinating part about this sort of vintage press-testing tech). The margin of error is because the machine, according to my mentor Dr. Juuso Ottala formerly of Harman International, informs me it was never meant to give accurate readings of picture discs, and to add about a dB of error margin.

One of the benefits of growing up in New England and, subsequently, New York, is that there are no shortage of heritage professional audio brand HQs in operation around a 200 mile radius from Manhattan to Boston. Off the top of my head, there’s Harman/Kardon, Boston Acoustics, Bose, NuMark, Marantz, and Rane headquarters within an hour’s drive from my two hometowns. Early on in my audiophile quest, I got my hands on some cool vintage gear — vinyl lathe testing equipment that has collected dust in both an old Harman technician’s storage unit, and now my parent’s basement. Over the holiday, I recently brought it out to do some surface noise testing on it to get a rough confirmation of what I was explaining in yesterday’s hi-fi guide. The innards of the machine looks eerily like a plinth-less linear tonearm and plate pair attached to a monitor. After making sure I’m not violating some kind of Harman International trade secret, I’ll post it on instagram.

Wanting to also get a firm idea on just how good my ear-test sounded, I grabbed another picture disc vinyl I had received as a gift a few years ago from my brother — the Tron Legacy OST. While I found the film passably enjoyable, my own preconceptions about pic discs, and a general exhaustion with french house — left me with no discernible desire to spin the thing. I hadn’t even broken the seal on the plastic wrap, so it seemed like as good as a blind test as any. I also grabbed what my ears tell me is a “good”, “heavy” press, a 1982 original dead-stock copy of Takako Mamiya’s Love Trip LP pressed by Kitty Records Japan. I’ve played it maybe a half dozen times since I bought it, so it’s as close to “new” 80s audiophile pop record as you can get. The Japanese are infamously anal about low SNR on their vinyl.

And, well, the results speak for themselves. The sweet spot for most black vinyl records is between 60-70db depending on age, weight, and a host of other frankly uncontrollable factors that aren’t worth getting into detail here, as I’d go on forever. The main takeaway here is that Neoncity’s and Tanuki’s record sat at the low end of the audiophile vinyl reference spectrum. Which in itself is a remarkable achievement for a pic disc. It’s worth taking a look at Tron Legacy, which just barely scratches 8db above a cassette tape, and 7db a Japanese vinyl from 1982.

This is all in an effort to say: damn, this is pretty good.

This also somewhat counters the usual “picture discs sound like shit” narrative that’s prevailed pretty consistently in the audiophile community. Tron Legacy? Yeah, that probably sounds like shit if I could bother to suffer through a listen. But whoever Hong-Kong based Neoncity is using actually makes “good” — if such a qualifier needs to be attached — image-pressed records. And that devotion to audio fidelity should be rewarded.

It might be time for me to re-asses picture discs on the whole, and that mind-expanding moment is something I owe to the fine folks at Neoncity.

[vapormaison]

Budget Hi-Fi for Future Funk & Vaporwave: An Introduction

Introduction

I’ve had a couple of readers reach out to me in DMs after the holiday, and both wanted to start consuming vaporwave in reasonably high-fidelity — presumably with some fresh Christmas cash. First off, I want to apologize for converting them to this insane hobby. It will serve as an eternal joy to your ears, but an eternal terror to your finances. With that in mind, they both gave me budgets of around a thousand dollars, American, and I found myself recommending rather identical setups based on their parameters, living space, and general use patterns.

From the outline I gave over those previous DMs, I prepared a three part (potentially five part, if there’s sufficient interest) series of articles serving as a primer to roughly introducing basic principles of hi-fi enjoyment to a novice or neophyte crowd, My hope is that this can double as both a buyer’s guide for the reader, but also as a way to proselytize new fans into these two great hobbies: hi-fi and vaporwave. Here goes:

BASIC PRINCIPLE: Pure Sound, Compression & Loudness

“Pure Sound” is more of a term in vogue with Japanese audiophiles, but I think it’s functional here for what we’re trying to achieve. To understand pure sound, we’ve got to take a look at its antithesis: compressed digital. I want to make a point here of the word compressed because I’m not some boomer or vintage fetishist to the point where I can’t appreciate good sound from a digital source.

But, the way 90% of the world consumes music in the 21st century — in lossy mp3 formats with varyingly low bitrates on mediocre-to-poor head/ear phones is not ideal. Steve Jobs’ decisive victory over physical media with the iPod and iTunes expanded our libraries, but rendered most of that music into poor shadows of its state when originally recorded. The reason why your dad or grandpa are still devoted to their old stereo with a collection of CDs and vinyls is not just because they’re a luddite — primarily, it is because those CDs (up until ’95 or so) and vinyls (since and to forever, essentially) are usually compiled and pressed in the highest resolution possible. 

And before, anyone gets on my case about denigrating about Steve — I love the guy. His taste was excellent, too. Here’s a picture of the man’s Woodville mansion, where his only furnishings are a lamp, his hi-fi and some records. He’s got a handmade-in-Scotland Linn LP12, Acoustat Monitor 3 loudspeaker pair, and a Spectral Statis Amplifier. Absolutely legendary gear. Rest in sonic peace, King.

It was a $30,000 kit in its day, so he spared no expense. While he was selling you poorly compressed music, he was enjoying his audiophile vinyl music (a 1960s recording of Handel is in there, one of the “pure sound” classics in Japan) in the ideal recreative sonic comfort. Be more like Steve. I’ll try to get you there for 1/25th of that price.

What We Need:

To get a good sound system going for your library of vaporwave, there are four things you need at minimum. Today I’m going to just address formats. In the coming weeks I’ll go over the following: playback platforms (turntable, network streamers, etc), amplifiers, and your speakers (in-ear, headphones, or loudspeakers). But what all those are predicated by are a necessity of some kind of musical source — the reason, if you will, that you’re probably intrigued by hi-fi, right? Apart from the aesthetics of most systems, we’re trying to reach a higher echelon of music enjoyment.

Digital Fomats

The short answer here is just .flac files. They are lossless (uncompressed) 16-bit data-hungry kings which pump out much more detail than normal mp3s, which will be extremely important when you get a pair of nice speakers or headphones. I will go into that into more detail in a future article. If you play a crummy mp3 on a pair of nice earphones or loudspeakers, you waste their ability to soundstage — something we will discuss when we get to the speakers article. These lossless lassies also give us the ability to chase after that muse known as “dynamic range”, which is another way we can detect detail in musical compositions.

This kind of stuff matters deeply to both audiophiles and the artists themselves. If you remember the Quincy Jones vs. the Estate of Michael Jackson case, one of the accusations is that the detailed sound-spaces he created were crunched to oblivion in subsequent CD and digital releases of tracks like Thriller and Bad.

Above is a CNET comparison of the vinyl rips of Bad’s original release and a 2017 mp3 release. The top is “good” dynamic range -- you can hear the whole sound arrangement. The bottom is, well, shit.

People will occasionally argue for other digital formats. I don’t consider it a point even worth belaboring, really, as in my own benchmarks and those of many other audiophiles, there’s just no beating FLAC for general purpose listening. Some people will simp for another similar lossless format, ALAC. It’s Apple’s format, and while I’m a huge apple Stan (this is being typed on a 2018 MacBook pro connected to a Apple Thunderbolt display), Apple has effectively abandoned the project since Jobs’s death, primarily because it doesn’t sell, and secondarily because it needs a visionary of Jobs’s caliber to really take it global. Some people will also try to sell you on WAV. Just laugh at them. It’s also worth noting that the vast majority of vaporwave releases offer .flac as a format available for download, and you should be taking that option every single time.

Now, if you’re not a downloader, there are some streaming services that are offering hi-res. Spotify does so, but poorly at the moment. Tidal does a much better service to listeners and creators. I’m a Tidal guy, myself, but just because Tidal was an early adopter of hi-res formats for streamers. The differences in a few years, I think, however, will be negligible, as Spotify has finally started to take audiophiles serious now that its market share has started to stagnate. I’ll be going more into how to optimize your lossless streaming in my article about pre-amplifiers and network streamers, so stay tuned for that.

Analog Formats

I’m going start off by making a controversial statement here: cassettes are not high fidelity.

This is unfortunate, because the vast majority of physical releases for vaporwave are definitely motivated by a sort of 80s nostalgia and I’m sure many of the purchases are also motivated by the false presumption that the cassettes offer better sound quality. While they very well might seem like it in comparison to a youtube upload (although I think Real Love uploads in hi-res audio, not sure about Artzie), they will mostly be wasted on your system unless you’re just looking to pump some bass or annoy your neighbors. Real quality sound will be difficult to extract from these.

Why CDs? Why vinyl? It comes down to the numbers. I’ll explain this in the most lay terms possible, so much so that I’m sure audiophiles will wander onto my socials and demand retractions and corrections.

One of the ways we measure high quality sound is in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). I think this is best expressed as a sustained “pop, & warmth” that you hear when a needle hits a record. With tapes it sounds a little different — I’d liken it to the cracking of unboiled pasta, or the fluttering of plastic in the wind. The lowest quality consumer tapes, the stuff that your parents probably fucked to in the early 90s, are rated at roughly 45-50db of SNR. That’s like 2003-iTunes level of muddy, ugly, sound. CDs are almost double consumer-grade tapes, at around 95db. Vinyls sit at around 70-75db.  

Now, some vinyl-heads will come at me with some takes from the Loudness Wars. Yes, CDs went through a period from roughly 1994-2008 where they were poorly mastered that they bordered on unlistenable. But we’re talking about vaporwave, where the work is contemporary, and the mastering and production lines are boutique. No one at the Aloe Island, DMT FL, or Neoncity is demanding the mastering engineer to compress the sound to make the bass sound punchier for badly designed car audio systems based on bad anecdotal studies from disgraced EMI engineers -- at least that I know of. 

However, I will, just for you, include an obligatory “loudness wars” jpeg that only you will understand. Everyone else, for the purpose of this article, disregard.

Saint Vitus - "Let Them Fall" from "Lillie: F-65" (2012)

Additionally, I know most of you guys like a “little” analog sound in your systems. I do, too. Vinyl’s a warm medium, and I love it for that. It exists in that happy medium between the noisiness of cassette tape and the cold cleanliness of CD. If I ever have to do serious reference listening of classical music or something like that, I have CDs for that. Vinyls are what I listen to for fun.

Concluding Thoughts

My next article — in a few days — will be getting into the weeds with gear, specifically turntables, cassette decks (I know the people want it) and network streamers. I’m hoping that gives interested parties some time to get their records or FLACs on a hard-drive, because that is going to be essential to us even embarking on this journey towards high-fidelity Outer Heaven.

[vapormaison]

4 Future Funk Releases Deserving of a Vinyl Press

As 2020 looms, I inevitably start thinking about filing for tax returns. Maybe that’s a symbol of the rote, misery-inducing modernity of twenty-first-century life — but I’m trying to take it as a positive this year. Getting some cash back from the Internal Revenue Service means more disposable income to drop on vinyl. While I’ll be spending quite a bit more on Japanese ambient wax this year, I’ll be ear-marking a fair share to go into vaporwave and future funk releases.

With the platform that I have currently, it’s now a definite responsibility to identify some gems that deserve a label to step up and put together a killer release on wax. With the social reach that I’ve gotten in just two months of somewhat milquetoast long-form reviews, it’s honestly a bit insane — but I’m also insanely thankful. I certainly wasn’t expecting over 400 followers from Japan when I’m publishing in English, so — ありがとうございました!

Hi-fi appreciation tends to cross artificial barriers of language and nationality.

Over the past five days I’ve compiled a pretty exhaustive list of 100 digital-only and digital/cassette releases that I’ve streamed the most over the past year. To suss out which releases sounded best for hi-fi consumption, I decided to test them on my two Christmas gifts this holiday — A Cambridge Audio 851N network streamer/pre-amp and a pair of new “anniversary” JBL 4312 Mk2 speakers powered by my vintage H/K 700 series Amp. While most of the list slapped on this new kit, there were four releases that I felt were truly deserving of getting a wax treatment in 2020. These are, in effect, the ones I’d be a guaranteed buyer of. Here they are:

Marsy + HER by Marsy

Admittedly, I stumbled on Marsy’s work just by scrolling through the list of releases through Bogus Collective, which over the course of 2019 has rocketed to the top of my list of favorite digital labels for discovering new artists. While this is of course a fine way to discover an artist — I’m stunned that I didn’t first encounter Marsy’s work on the two most visible channels for future funk discovery and appreciation — Artzie & Real Love Music. Unfortunately Real Love and Artzie haven’t been keeping up with their releases, with the most recent video on youtube from either curator dating back to November 2018. While I do get a deja vu feeling with Marsy — as in, I must have seen them on these platforms before -- perhaps with actually being cognizant, an artist of this caliber should be all over those channels on a basis at least roughly corresponding with their releases.

Do better, fellas!

Marsy’s most recent work is an absolute banger with one of the widest mixes I’ve listened to this year. The JBLs absolutely ate up the rich bass and low-range in most of Marsy’s tracks, and for a moment I had to ask myself how this release was sitting around as a digital-only. This is just one of those funky profiles made for vinyl. That being said, 7 tracks seems a bit light for a twelve-inch LP, so if I was advising a label (happy to do this pro-bono!) I’d maybe pair this album with another robust, high-energy release from Marsy: 2018’s 5-track Her EP, which coincidentally has one of my favorite individual future funk tracks (愛のFantasy) and absolutely brilliant cover art.

 Star Virgin -- サクラSAKURA-LEE 

I’m going to go on a soapbox for a moment here: I don’t like Qrates. I’ve bought from Qrates campaigns before and often find their wax brittle and their presses tinny. Now, there are a whole host of reasons why this could be the case — vinyl necessitates a much longer production line — and this inevitably creates errors. But these errors should be corrected by someone in a quality control department. And if you talk to any of the major labels, relationships with QC/QA people are some of the most essential recipes to a good physical release. This is in effect the primary function of a physical-oriented underground label: ensuring a proper quality press by ordering tests, and keeping limited back stock in case there’s some kind of slip-up. Qrates campaigns don’t offer this in sufficient degrees — and as a result makes a lot of potential buyers feel insecure.

This all said, Sakura-Lee’s unsuccessful Qrates campaign shouldn’t be seen as a lack of desire to support a proper wax release of their iconic Star Virgin release — I genuinely think it’s regarding people’s reservations about dropping $30 or more for vinyl of potentially mediocre quality. Ultimately, this is where labels should step in, build up some buzz, and provide a modicum of quality assurance to truly finalize that sale. I’ve talked to a lot of audiophiles who would love the hear tracks like The Sweet Escape and Feelings with the warmth of vinyl. Sakura-Lee’s sound is so unique and so well-suited to the format. As an owner of the Star Virgin minidisc, I can certainly attest to the quality of that release and the great sound it’s produced on my hi-fi. But minidisc is cold. Crisp, but cold. Star Virgin is musical joie de vivre -- it has all the energy of life itself, and contrasts with the almost archival and clinical nature of the minidisc format. In my view, there’s no doubt that with the right master and press, this would produce an otherworldly sound worthy of its title once it finds its way onto wax -- hopefully in 2020!

Kween Pepsi -- Jesse Cassettes 

Latin future funk is the warmest of all future funk. This is partially because us Latins (your humble reviewer is named Sebastião, after all) are the warmest people in all the world. It stands to reason then, that vinyl, music’s warmest medium — is a natural fit for for the funkiest of all music. I first discovered Jesse Casettes on the Eternal Vibes compilation, which is a compilation full of warm, Latin sounds and Jesse Cassette’s contribution to it was my absolute favorite. I’ve been a huge fan of their work ever since. 

Kween Pepsi is a masterwork that toys with a good speaker’s treble response like nothing else I’ve listened to. Only a few future funk artists can reach this level of playfulness on the high end — Night Tempo, Cosmic Bae, and a few others. But almost none sound quite as fun as Jesse Casettes, and none sound as polished and well-mixed. Kween Pepsi hits you with banger after banger, and the Seikomart tape was already a commercial success. It stands to reason that Kween Pepsi could get a nice master and fly off the market, giving audiophiles another grail on vinyl that stands out as one of the genre’s finest albums of the decade. Bringing it into the next with a new physical seems like a great idea. What DJ wouldn’t want to drop the needle on a track as well arranged and layered Osaka Fall Season Nights and let their system shine?

Miss — Flammy

Real Love beat me to the punch very recently by featuring Flammy on their channel, but Flammy is still an under-appreciated artist that I’m hoping to see 2020 herald big things for. I’ve always appreciated their deeply creative sampling, and their mixes consistently sound rich and full on every hi-fi system I play them on. I happened upon “I bet my girlfriend is chinese and aesthetic” (a title very real for me as my girlfriend is both chinese and aesthetic) back in early 2018 and was instantly impressed on how it made my KEFs absolutely werk in spite of my stodgy old British floor-standers never receiving vaportrap/future hop with very much vigor.

After kind of losing track in the waves of new releases over the past year or so, I re-discovered their work this month after Miss released, and their mixes, creative micro-sampling (City Hunter, anyone?) have been just as rich and rewarding to both my system and my ears as on that initial listen. As I said earlier, I genuinely think this Lille, France-based artist is on the verge of a blowup, and when that happens I want to make sure my childish ranting of “I want this on vinyl!” is heard sufficiently by whatever label steps up to the plate. My suggestion: maybe get this EP on a 10-inch.

[vapormaison]

Best of 2019 Vaporwave Release 3/4: Sensual Loops SPECIAL EDITION by Cyber Club

As vaporwave matures and enters the mainstream, I often find myself having discussions with vapor heads on reddit about the iconography of the genre. I realize that this is a bad idea, but cannot help myself. More often than not, they are pointlessly terse, and tend to be tediously teleological — the type of argumentation featuring enough loops of logic to cause a medieval Byzantine monk’s head to spin.

A recurring topic that baits me every single time is when a poster attempts to criticize the album art of a record, dismissing the entire work on the based on “anime” aesthetics. While this might seem like an argument so off-center and reductive that it’s parody— I’d encourage you to go on r/VaporVinyl and take a look at some of the posts replying to threads about Cyber Club’s Sensual Loops LP series. It’s not pretty, and representative where some of the fanbase is at the moment. Adding to my shock was when one of the self-appointed critics outed themselves as twenty three years old. At that moment, I was forced to confront my own bias. I had mistakenly assumed that the puritan was an out-of-touch Gen Xer or a Baby Boomer. Aesthetic intolerance is not exclusive — and plenty of Zoomers are members of this trash clique as well.

What really boggled my mind, however, was that the user had picked vaporwave out of all the other possible genres to go on their Nipponophobic soapbox against. A quick look at the aesthetic movement as a whole (sonically, artistically, etc.) establishes it as what I would assert as a primarily millennial genre — less of a statement about its creators and consumers, and more about the broader, overarching cultural milieu in which in developed. It was birthed in the decade that heralded the mass-consumption of Japanese media in the Western marketplace. Many of its early practitioners got their start chopping and screwing anime OSTs and hip hop. Future Funk effectively appeared on the sonic map by the sampling of Japanese city pop. What is even worth arguing here?

But that which bothered me even more was the user’s stubborn refusal to even listen to the album. You can not buy a vinyl because you just have a particular aversion to cover art — that’s fine! Better yet, you can not buy a vinyl just because you’re not a fan of the sound. Those are two perfectly fine reasons not to partake in a release. But then to go on reddit and complain about an album aesthetic for something you haven’t even listened to? Come on, fam. Level up your praxis. It is the whitewashing and the boorishness that is most infuriating. I’ve legitimately never heard of anyone who dismissed an entire album’s music purely on the basis of its vinyl cover art before.

And shame on them, because they are sleeping on one of the best works of 2019.

The limited edition of Sensual Loops 1 & 2 is another LP that I had the luxury of listening to while on my East Asia tour. I brought the album (among others) with me to visit a very good pal of mine, Han, who’s retired to Hong Kong. Much to my relief, he’s in a comparatively spacious apartment over in the Tai Wo area — by no means the stereotypical postage stamp — and has set up a little audiophile pad that I’m most envious of. His setup is devoted to all things B&W, and I got a beautiful listen of the album on a pair of impressive and almost imposing 700-series floor standers. Powered by the Cambridge Audio Edge series Amp/Pre combo, this was far above even my paygrade. But after working as a salaryman for two decades, he was finally able to invest in his endgame system. And what an endgame it is!

Getting the chance to listen Sensual Loops on this system cemented my opinion when I had first heard it’s release digitally: I was listening to an instant contender for the best vaporwave release of 2019.

Sensual Loops 1

Introduction immediately fills your speakers with a wide, warm guitar and horn loops that feature just enough static noise to distinguish itself as a vaporwave track. I always like it when a little minute-thirty track gives the amp a little exercise. It also proves to be a perfect sonic setup for the next track, which is ostensibly what every “intro” track should do, right?

Night carries that guitar riff from Introduction but adds a playful variance with a synth loop, and vocals that I believe are sampled from that Philly Soul classic “Children of the Night” done by the Stylistics and the Jones Girls’, among others. All of the moving parts here do wonders, syncing together in a perfect arrangement. Both Han and I commented on just how bright this played on his JBLs, which is a testament to the mix and mastering work here.

Love & Affection definitely feels the most retro-vapor of all the tracks on Sensual Loops 1, beginning with a series of loops, riffs, and synth chimes that feel as if they were picked from a certain collection of sitcoms of an early nineties vintage. The heavily distorted vocals and hypnotic drum kits pop in after about a minute to give the track an almost deep house feel as it progresses. The “all mine” hook then crescendos into a symphony of drum hits that conclude the track with a real sonic flutter in the air when played with high-end speakers.

Pain accelerates the rather slow pace of the album up to this point. I’m a big fan of the synth arrangement that opens the track, and I schmood even more with the powerfully funky vocal set that carries the track throughout. But with its short length, it does feel more like an interlude or setup for what I consider to be the highlight of the LP.

Memories is our certified slapper. It starts off immediately with an incredibly catchy synth chord arrangement supplemented by a fantastically tweaked vocal sample from the fantastically, alliteratively-named Melba Moore, another funky soul queen who needs a revival in the contemporary lexicography.

Sensual definitely swings the record a bit further away from the future funk and back towards the vapor-funk side of things. Back are cyber club’s usual array of jumpy, tinny synth chords and manipulated vocal micro-samples that still provide a really robust sonic experience on the hi-fi system of your choice. When the vocals make their appearance about ninety seconds in, I was expecting them to sound much less rich in the middle than they did, which was definitely a present surprise on the mastering side!

Alone is a beautiful cacophony of micro-samples with a vocal track manipulated to sound like an 80s ideal of a future robot gf. I’m not sure how else to describe this track except as pure atmosphere. The fluttering synths, muted percussion, electric highs that send tweeters bouncing — it’s difficult to precisely describe how a track like this comes over a hi-fi system like the Edge. It just pulls out every detail from an immensely dense track like this and does it every bit the justice it deserves.

Paradise ends up taking a traditional funk and re-engineering it into a sort of quasi-tropical sound similar to some of the early Aloe Island Posse bangers. It’s got a much more lo-fi edge to the track then most future funk takes on a track like this, and creates a really unique and playful experience.

Bliss is almost raw synth pop with a hardened vapor edge to it. Although the original sample is from a very soulful electro R&B outfit — the Loose Ends — we get aggressive drums and synth loops that bring this closer to Paula Abdul than anything that could be traditionally considered rhythm and blues. Just enough manipulation of the vocal sample and some well-timed percussion hits make this more fit for a night out than a baby-making session in, which is both remarkable and a testament to cyber club’s skill.

Sensual Loops 2

Intro captures a little more of than urban-turned-Island soundscape that we caught a glimpse of in Paradise. I’m eternally impressed by this, as it seems like Cyber Club never gets too caught up in the production to bring this too far from its vapor essence while still making this a great lede in its own right.

Sensual was a track I was initially expecting to be a remix or redux of the first Sensual from Sensual Loops 1, but I’m glad to see this piece of bass-heavy vapor exists as its own full-bodied track in its own right. It grabs you immediately with its “I’ll never give up on you” vocal loop spliced in among its synth array, and carries you through with an intriguing arrangement of instrumental loops and micro-samples throughout. The low end can really shine here with the right system.

Hold Her Now is a piece of nostalgic, vintage vaporwave straight out of the Saint Pepsi era. Ostensibly a creative cut-up some New Jack Swing that absolutely slaps with the right electric guitar riff and synthetic percussion hit, it harkens back to when vaporwave was in its “peak aesthetics” phase of production and plunder-phonic glory. Perhaps this reminder of what vaporwave used to be unfairly biases me, but it’s definitely a listen for the nostalgia driven old-heads.

Affair is the type of track that sounds completely different on certain types of stereos. While Han’s stereo brought out the crisp, wide vocal mix — perhaps a testament to Cambridge’s design history, my Harman Kardon/KEF pairing brought the synth flares here to the fore. The testament to this track is that I really enjoyed both profiles, and Affair sounded robust and detailed throughout.

Kiss is one of the tracks that I felt coolest on upon an initial listen, which is perhaps a statement to just how much I enjoyed this album. When presented with the innovative arrangements of tracks like Hold Her Now or Memories, I was left feeling that Kiss doesn’t do enough in its minute thirty second runtime. That being said, it’s fun. And that’s what music can and should be at the end of the day, isn’t it?

Touch heaps on that vapor memory with some creative vocal layering, tinny and distorted high-end flutters, and an electric horn that came out swinging in the Cambridge system, much to my surprise. It’s clear at this point that Cyber Club has created a very particular listening experience here, and I’m oh so fond of it.

Special makes a funky classic fresh and electric again, which is what I’m really starting to vibe with in terms of the Cyber Club oeuvre. It serves as a sort of confirmation, a celebration and an altogether fantastic close to the LP.

Vinyl Physicality & Listening Experience

I like black vinyl. This milquetoast statement has earned for me the ire of some enthusiasts on r/VaporVinyl when I post on my alt-account there. Because vaporwave attracts curators with “experience” in the music industry, I’ve been told by “serious LP collectors [who know] label managers” — the type of folks who spin on $100 Crosley turntables bought at a Kohl’s Black Friday sale — that new black vinyls just doesn’t sell anymore. Not for vaporwave, at least. A release should have a colored vinyl or not release at all!

This was a take from the same twenty-three year old who wouldn’t purchase Sensual Loops because of the hentai on the cover — so take that for what you will.

I’ve always liked the supplier that Sic Records uses — whoever they are. The vinyls always have a bit of mass and heft to them, leading me to guess that they’re probably in the 180g range. But that’s just my finger test. My Jungle2000 vinyl feels just as weighty. I’ve always believed there’s a definite spectrum with black vinyls — from the frail Qrate cheap options to the high end audiophile oriented waxes like the beautifully crafted Victor Japan and Columbia waxes from the late 80s and early 90s that you see most city pop and anime OSTs pressed on.

The masters on these records are definitely intriguing for the format. My biggest critique of vaporwave vinyl at this point is that some labels don’t take the requisite care to put out a good vinyl master, and often just end up going all-in with poorly optimized digital release ones. The folks at Sic definitely know what they’re doing — because this ended up playing great on a number of systems and speakers, from my KEFs and H/K setup, to a friends Technics mid-fi rig, to Han’s Cambridge endgame. Each time, we got a wide-but-not-too-wide play without the sound edging towards the bright end of the spectrum too intensely. I think this is important because it respects a lot of the samples used. The mixing work done on a lot of the Philly soul here definitely had a certain muted approach that really brought out the most from the vocals and left instrumental arrangements to a moderately more ambient role. I get that impression of continuity here and love it for that.

In short, you should snap up this release while you can. It’s a great release, and fuck the vaporwave nannies who’d shut down Cyber Club’s best two albums without even a listen. May that /u/ go down with u/hoesmad_ on r/Vaporwave’s wall of shame.

[vapormaison]

Best of 2019 Vaporwave Release 2/4: Hypnagogia by Dan Mason

When I go to vaporwave and future funk shows throughout Asia, I run into many truly serious vinyl collectors and hardcore audiophiles who I respect immensely. They have been, in many respects, my introduction to and informal educators in the hi-fi world. This is not to throw shade at my Western vapor-vinyl friends, but I’ve always felt that there is a natural predisposition — perhaps imbued by traditions of archival curation and letters spanning five millennia — for Asian collectors to have the most discerning taste, and when it comes to audiophilia, the most exacting specifications.

I don’t know any fellas or fems in Hong Kong, Yokohoma, or Seoul with a substantial vinyl collection who rock a set of expensive, vintage B&Os handed down by their father, but are spinning the records on a Crossley suitcase turntable or an ATP-LX60. There’s a sincere reverence for the physical media there would naturally disincline a hobbyist from actively damaging their own material — a form of wax homicide that is all too common with my pals in Brooklyn. I’m able to put in context, however, whenever one of my countrymen mentions the cost of seeing a doctor, of course. Just staying alive is an expensive enough proposition — which explains why hi-fi enjoyment tends to skew boomer in America. Everyone else has a sword of Damocles hanging above their head.

That all said, when a particular artist is held in reverence by those Asia-oriented pals of mine, I take note and listen. Recently, when I stopped off in my usual haunts in Kanagawa early on this year, there was a name that was on all of their lips: Dan Mason. More specifically, his recent work, Hypnagogia. Admittedly, it was a release that had evaded me at first, corresponding with the peak of the IELTS testing season. And unfortunately, while I was jet-setting from university advisement here to consultancy there, the vinyl drop completely fell out of my grasp.

I spent a few weeks on discogs, but to no avail. Not even the scalpers were selling them anymore. It was this that first clued me into the idea that I might have been absent for something legendary. So shortly before I left Japan, I was able to meet a friend of a friend who was in possession of the record. It required a train ride all the way out to Osaka (in context: it’s not all that bad, Honshu’s roughly the size of Cali) to get a listen to this record.

That day, I was treated to one of the warmest, most enjoyable listening experiences of my life. The woman who welcomed us into her traditionally designed home was truly an audiophile extradonarii. As we crossed a sliding doorway into her listening room, I was met with a pair of beautiful Yamaha NS-6HX speakers in rosewood cases flanking a tower of clean, shining, silver-faced Technics separates —the SE-C01, SU-C01, and the S91 power supply. Perfectly understated, mini — but also powerful — especially for a cozy place like hers. Added for good measure was the M02 tape deck and above those was a classic 1200 turntable. It was a family of DJs, I later learned— and her nine year old daughter had recently taking up spinning on their set upstairs!

As the album begun, I closed my eyes and let the almost overwhelming brightness from the technics/yamaha combo wash over me. And after a few seconds, I got past the uniqueness of the set and had my Eureka moment — I was listening to one of the best albums in the genre that I had ever heard. Not just an iconic album for 2019 — but for the genre as a whole. Here are my thoughts on it here:

Part 1: The Music

Insomnia begins in a very iconic Dan-Masonish style. It was exactly what I expected, in a way, and almost comforting. As the track rises like a loaf of artisan bread through its first minute we’re treated with a procession of synth, chimes, a muted drum kit and powerfully distorted, bass-heavy vocals that manage to both lull and unsettle in equal measures.

Melatonin High definitely hits on an unconscious neural pathway related to my own history with hallucinogenic experimentation. The array of synths, skewed vocals, and soft percussion hits feels very apropos for both the title and its position on the LP. Atmospheric tracks like this always just vibe better early, in my view.

Shade feels the most “poppy” of the album, with a clean but entrancing chord arrangement, prominent vocal track, jungle drum loops and the sparingly used but extremely heavy and robust synth chimes. In a rare moment, I found myself enjoying the vocal-less denouement in the last quarter of the track just as much as the rest of the piece.

Fade exists sonically like a relic of dreams of vapor past — like a throwback to Mason’s earlier, much more distinctly “early vaporwave” sound profile. This is not to say that it doesn’t innovate in its own way, with clever vocal layers and an impressive synth array, but it echoes towards an aura that is more like a return to form, or perhaps more artistically realized — a fade away to a flashback. For these reasons, it’s my favorite on the LP and speaks to thematic thrust of the album in what I think is its strongest sonic affirmation.

Go Away is a robust vapor-hop, future-oriented throwback, speaking first to a very distinct “Bridge war” New York flow roughly concurrent to the rap sound I personally grew up with in Queens, NY. But the genius present here is that it takes this very distinctly late 80s/onset of the 90s East Coast flow and merges it with lyrics that feel distinctly at home in a mid-millennial rapper’s sound-cloud. We’re treated to desires of Robatussin lean (not available until the mid 90s in NYC because of some big pharma legal war I was only peripherally aware of) effortlessly weaved in with moments of millennial malaise. This track should sufficiently hit home with that particular crowd born in that ’88-’93 set.

Visions features an arresting synth array that carries you down the contact high of Go Away brilliantly. The vocals here tend to swing towards the sort of low-end distorted profile of Tyler the Creator’s “therapist” character in Goblin — with was made an ever-more prominent association by virtue of the quasi-existential and psychological overtones that developed in the piece lyrically.

Stop Me manifests itself initially as a sort of clever synth-wave throwback, and then slows its chord progression to a screeching halt fleshing it out more fully as a “true” vapor piece — aided by a perfectly arranged vocal track that comes out as W-I-D-E on a good stereo set. This is definitely the type of track whose mastering for vinyl can either be used as a master class on mix & master or a cautionary tale. Thankfully, it’s certainly the former!

Good Night starts with an echo of ghosts of lo-fi’s past, with compressed percussion hits, and tinny snares, but we are treated soon after with a remarkably hypnotic trail of synths that absolutely dance at the high end, sending the Yamaha’s tweeters into overdrive. it’s also one of those tracks that, by virtue of brilliant progression and arrangement, feels much shorter than its run-time — a key feature for any good penultimate LP track.

Hopefully Forever is a remarkable track to end the album on. To take the listener from the “chill” vibes of Good Night and then hit them with the Ryuchi Sakamoto-esque electronic array (Am I detecting a possible ‘Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence’ inspiration?) and raspy, almost -screamo lyrics imbued with frustration, dread, and longing is a dichotomy worthy of an article all its own. It’s certainly not my particular favorite sound profile, but even I can recognize it for what it truly is: stupendous.

Part 2: The Vinyl Listening Experience

As stated previously, I’m a pretty firm believer in the “audiophile” bones of Hypnagogia, and obviously many audiophiles have literally and figuratively bought in as well. What impressed me about the mix in my limited listening context is that it somewhat antithetical to the tastes of many local audiophiles there, and the general sound profile of Japanese stereos and speaker systems. Technics especially seems to me to take great effort to widen and max-out the low end of the spectrum — which in principle, would work on something like a french house record, but with something like Hypnagogia requires a bit more precision, in my view. The Yamahas did a bit to neutralize this tendency, I think — and my particular listen retained much of the dynamic range that I’ve appreciated in previous releases by Dan.

Nevertheless, I found myself progressively disarmed by the quality of the mix & mastering work. A vinyl experience this clean — and not to overuse this word — but precise in its appreciation and maximization of dynamic range deserves makes this LP deserve serious consideration whenever it comes up on discogs retailing for $300 or something insane like that.

On the physical quality — I have to say I was not expecting a wax release this nice from Business Casual. Perhaps this is my natural bias, but I’ve always associated them as a high-end cassette label. Masters of that craft, no doubt. But I think this excellent press and physical product (along with sales, I imagine!) sends a pretty clear message to the folks at Business Casual that they should be getting into the vinyl game as aggressively as they do cassettes.

[vapormaison]

2019 Best Japanese OST Press/Repress: Elfen Lied by Tiger Lab Records

Like many late millennials with artistic pretensions, I used to have an “Anituber” channel back in the wild west days of youtube. From 2010-2013 — roughly corresponding with my first three years in university — I reviewed DVD releases from ADV, Manga Entertainment, Central Park Media, and Geneon — all the big players in Western anime releases at the time, all dead and gone now with the rise of streaming. Everyone but Funimation — a sad irony and perhaps telling about the nature of the dubbing industry that the studio with a serial rape problem and established casting couch was the only one to survive.

In the interest of maintaining my personal ethics, posterity, and sanity I’ve long since deleted that channel. While there was definitely a “moment” on the platform for a nineteen year-old cokehead film student in front of a MacBook webcam doing his best Slavoj Zizek impression, that moment has long since passed. I’ve long since cooled on “substantive” media critique anyway. The world doesn’t need another Eisenstein-aligned Marxist analysis of Neon Genesis Evangelion — or, a 6-part series on using Lacanian techniques to develop a leftist praxis for Fate/Stay Night. Media exists in the present moment to be a salve for the postmodern hellscape we inhabit together.

As an interesting sidebar, the most popular video on that channel — raking in just north of 10k views over its lifetime from 2011-2015, was a twelve minute video essay on the 1995 anime Elfen Lied, where I asserted that it was the ultimate expression of contemporary Japanese anti-modern rage. While I don’t find myself particularly nostalgic for any of the content on that channel, I’m actually kind of proud of that one in particular.

While most of my analysis was fixated on the visuals, narrative, and recent oeuvre of its mangaka, Lynn Okamoto, and series director, Mamoru Kanbei, I did lay out a framework on why I consider it to be one of the most successful soundtracks ever produced for an anime. I did not heap this praise lightly, as that roughly fifteen year period of 1995-2010 was bookended by the OSTs of Evangelion and K-On! — and certainly proved to be one of the most sonically iconic periods that the medium has ever produced.

it was also one of the first soundtracks that spurred my own history of Japanese OST collection.

And, then, almost a decade later, I found out that Tiger Lab was releasing a vinyl of Elfen Lied.

In spite of this, when I originally the news, I felt a tinge of trepidation. This is not to throw shade at Tiger Lab, however — but at the reputation of previous releases of the Elfen Lied soundtrack in Japan. A quick adventure with google translate across the Japanese net for various Elfen Lied OST roleases — especially on CD — will reveal for you a lot of contempt from Otaku and anime-enthusiast audiophiles for any number of reasons. Most hinge on the quality of the physicals. This is often because Japanese physical media releases of anime soundtracks are often laden with fresh, exceptionally crisp and clean-sounding masters for CDs, and usually exclusive posters and other content geared toward the “collector” nature of many Otaku. This has usually not been the case with Elfen Lied.

A friend of mine in Kanagawa quipped “Sometimes it sounds better on the DVD” in regard to a number of OST releases of soundtracks from anime produced by Studio Arms with CD releases published by VAP. Admittedly, some of it must have been born in resentment, but I’ve always trusted the man’s opinion — as he’s invested a small family fortune into building a shrine of sorts to that studio’s output. He chalks up the poor release quality to the studio’s inability or lack of funds to master the content properly for a CD or HQ digital release, and VAP’s decline in release quality during the early 2000s roughly corresponding to a sale to another Zaibatsu. “Studio Arms made hentai for many years to stay solvent, maybe they could not send a good master to VAP [the publisher]” he told me. While I can’t know if it’s VAP, Arms or another studio handling the CD-master work, a cursory check of their oeuvre seems to confirm confirms that claim of his — but I acknowledge I’m wandering into uncharted waters here.

In spite of all that — I ordered the wax from Tiger Lab and was duly impressed. In lieu of reviewing each track as per my usual review format, in the following section I want to talk about my listening experience from the two formats I own the soundtrack in — the SA/VAP published CD from 2004 and Tiger Lab’s release. Once we finish going into the core differences — and why this vinyl is absolutely worth your purchase over competing physicals — I’ll go into the virtues of the listening experience on the whole.

Part 1: Comparisons of Select Tracks

I suppose the expectation is that I start off by taking about the most iconic recording from the series — the OP, Lilium. In the spirit of defying expectations, I’ll begin with what I consider a better litmus test.

My personal shit-test for a good master and press is how well it can handle a track that is sonically robust and diverse, crossing genre and form — requiring an intensive, sufficiently wide mix and refined master. You don’t get that on every OST album — but Elfen Lied offers one such potential track in particular, and that particular track happens to be my favorite composition on the entire album. Uso Sora, composed by Kayo Konishi and Yukio Kondo is a truly magnificent piece, and it’s used brilliantly in the series — for those familiar, I only need to quote one line: “M-m-mommy…?”.

It begins with lulling piano chords that gradually build in tempo and energy with the addition of percussion, and then it undergoes a full metamorphosis in its last minute or so to become an aggressive, frenetic techno piece with distorted lows and an angry drum kit. Mirroring the evolution of its subject in the show with understated aplomb, and functioning as a robust and enjoyable composition divorced from its source — it really deserve more recognition than it receives, but I do not doubt it will ever step forth from the massive shadow cast from the haunting chorals of Lilium, and the brilliantly directed visual intro that accompanied it.

Needless to say, Tiger Lab more than passed muster here, to the point where I’m almost blown away by just how good it sounds compared to the rest of my Elfen Lied related physicals. I experienced a definite brightness from the vinyl master over my stereo that I don't get from a lot of other Western label releases, like say Milano, which tends to cash in on a Westerner’s preference for warmth.  Tiger Lab deserves credit for this approach, because it genuinely feels like a more authentically “Japanese” sound. In my experience, the Western labels that care the most about the dedicated audiophile adhere to this sonic profile, and Tiger Lab deserves all due credit here.

Finally, I might as well include my thoughts on Lilium. In short, it sounds fantastic. The mix here really brings out the most of the chorals, and provides crisp and clean sounds where you want them most. It’s also one of those tracks where you can just feel the dynamic range before you even hear it. I ended up listening to these on my Cambridges, and I’ve got to say that’s there’s something in the way they treat this particular profile of song — strongly vocal dominated, extremely muted piano, and supporting string inhabiting the negative space — absolutely incredibly. It put the KEFs to shame. I’ve always asserted that you’ve got to pair certain songs with certain speaker pairs. I’ve never been a huge devotional music guy, and I’m not entirely sure that the Cambridge or KEFs provide ideal profiles for the track. That said, Lilium sounds great anyway.

But I can envision these on a pair of high end Yamahas, or a pair of vintage Blaupunkt bookshelves sounding as stone-cold killer as Lucy when Kouta’s threatened.

I sent a rip to my friend Hiroshi, the StudioArms Shrine man, who immediately snapped up a copy after listening. I also learned that it was actually the first vinyl purchase he’s ever made after two decades of serious collecting. So perhaps that is a testament in and of itself!

Part 2: Physicality

I rarely devote an entire section to talking about the vinyl/OBI itself, but then again, Tiger Lab has put out a release certainly worthy of this. First off, the cover, which pairs perfectly with the overall aesthetic of both the series and previous soundtrack releases. I can imagine this being a release that has already attracted some attention by Japanese collectors, as the cover seems to tap into a certain sense of continuity that I know are a huge hit with that community. It certainly pairs well with my two releases from VAP, and a laserdisc set that I have. They all opt for that very iconic Klimt Vienna Secession style with appropriate creative flourishes — but I like Tiger Lab’s take on it the most. The side characters populating the back in a choral array reminiscent of the Beethoven Frieze is also a really nice touch for any enthusiast of the fin-de-siècle style.

I picked up the pink vinyl on release, one of the few pink vinyls that I’ve bought that at least feels thematically consistent with the release and not just a default “vaporwave” or “city pop” or “future funk” styling. Diclonii rock the pink hair, after all. That all said, I’m wishing now that I got the “metallic gold” edition, as its another color that feels both apropos and stunningly beautiful. With all that in mind, this is also one of the better waxes that I’ve felt in-hand, and manages to feel robust. I’ve yet to find specific info, but it certainly feels like a 180g.

In conclusion, I’ve got to give immense credit to Tiger Lab for handling this release with a class and vigor that few Japanese publishers have given it. It certainly bodes well for the future of anime releases on vinyl, and makes me eager to fill out an emergent collection.

[vapormaison]

2019 Best Vinyl Pressing 2/4: Sweet Summer Trip by GreyL

GreyL’s “Sweet Summer Trip” reminded me of why I got into hi-fi.

It’s kind of a funny story.

At the risk of sounding ridiculous — the first song that caused me to “seriously” think about hi-fi and physical media on the whole was Good Vibrations by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Absurd, I know. Obscene, even — I’ll grant it!

Give me a hundred or so words to work my way back:

A decade ago, I had the luxury of owning a Jaguar Vanden Plas of mid-nineties vintage as a daily driver while still in University. For the non-car nerds out there, this is the model of British land-based battlecruiser that Queen Elizabeth was carted around in for a couple decades. For its time, it was beyond luxurious, comfortable for both driver and passenger to the extreme — and without a doubt very much an “old man” car. By 2011 — mine was also beyond dated. For the most part, I envied my more bougie classmates riding around in contemporary German imports — in all areas except one. My stereo. This VP must have been owned by an audiophile, because they had splurged for the Harman Kardon system — the top shelf offered by Jaguars of that vintage. I’ll spare you the specs — but believe me that it put the muddy Bang & Olfusens in the Benzes to shame.

Why, you ask, is it so special? The simple answer is pedigree. These systems were produced the same factory to identical specs that Bowers & Wilkins was using for Rolls Royce and Bentley — a $4,000 upgrade for that car in 1995 dollars. As a result, I had an aristocrat’s luxury saloon that could function as a massive, high-fidelity ghetto blaster on wheels. Biggie and I blasted from the same schematics of speakers.

Unfortunately, I was never much of a cassette guy (I’m still not!) — and I never invested in a good tape collection. One tape that came with the car, however — a forgotten glove compartment gift — was Marky Mark’s.

It was, alas, the only good one.

In the midst of those daily drives to campus and back, I found myself positively entranced by the deft mix of bright and poppy rap by Yung Mark and hypnotic euro-pop samples that populated much of the tape. With the windows up and at low-enough speeds, the Jag provided a rich, warm experience that just oozed effortlessly from the Harmans. While I basked in that sound — I wondered why everything sounded so much richer than my mp3s plugged and played into a pair of Beats by Dr. Dre Solos. The warmth, the brightness, — the beautifully constructed mix of primitive drum kits and euro-trance beats shone through with full fidelity and range. I began to appreciate the music for its component parts, as I could make out each part of the mix in detail.

I began to appreciate the little things — those sonic nuances that an artist weaves into their craft to achieve perfection, but are so often ignored by the limitations of format and listening form. All of these were present in Sweet Summer Trip — and this means the world to me.

This is how I became a hi-fi head, however amateur.

Thus, Sweet Summer Trip was nostalgic and powerful for me in so many ways past the incontestable quality of the master. My ears really woke up again on this one when needle hit vinyl — as I’m, with full disclosure, incredibly biased towards GreyL’s sound. The best way I can characterize it as follows: vibrant J-hop and euro-house influences that are infused with an energized, even ebullient future-funk core. That’s without a doubt my bread and butter, and I was all ears. My initial attentiveness was rewarded with a sonic experience that I can only liken to a perfectly cooked Delmonico. A-side, B-side — there was a fully fleshed out and really magnificently treated product here — both creatively and technically. I’ve included some more detailed thoughts on it here:

PART 1: The Music

Nightmagic just feels like the perfect track to start your vapor95-clad Japanese road-trip to. I’d suggest an Abashiri-Yatsushiro circuit — preferably in a DeLorean or Nissan Skyline GTR. Barring that, you can just enjoy five fun, fresh minutes of surprisingly full-bodied 8-bit-sounding samples that coalesce into pure, unadulterated groove in the song’s final half. As if just putting extra icing on this sonic birthday cake, we get a seamless — precision, even — transition into:

da da song — which kicks off with a cacophony of dialing phones and record scratches, succeeds in bringing some much needed bass to the GreyL experience at this stage. With a brilliantly hypnotic vocals and the most creative hype sample of Ludacris I’ve ever heard, we get firmly seat-belted in to our own sweet summer trip, sonically speaking.

stripe absolutely slaps! This is, as far as I’m concerned, the absolute, quintessential “GreyL sound”. I fell in love with this album and GreyL’s oeuvre for their manic genius of micro-sample use, and it is present here in spades. Somehow, someway, GreyL managed to meld Toki Asoko, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lil' John, Daft Punk, and G-Dragon together in one song — and if that seems at first glance discordant or simply “too much” or perhaps even a meme — it’s not. A snippet of One More Time’s chorus powers through a diverse yet structured composition held together by Asoko’s vocals and some flares by G-dragon. Lil Jon finds his way in for good measure, but isn’t leaned on or over-hyped. Most importantly, Sonic goes fast. It’s harmonious and warm and just absolutely brilliant on my speakers — which got their first good exercise in months from the wild range of this song. This is one of those tracks I fully expect to feature on top 20 lists when future funk has gone mainstream and is the subject of clickbait listicles. Stripe is— most succinctly put, a moment.

blue bird answers a question that no one really asked but seems at least topical: how do you follow up your magnum opus on an LP? GreyL replies with a groovy banger that eschews the barrage, or perhaps more kindly put, medley of micro-samples and provides a more straightforward Future Hop mix with a fresh flourish two minutes in giving us a masterfully modified hook. It brings the energy down from the fever pitch of strike in all the best ways.

groovin’ magic hits right back with snappy distorted vocals, an up-tempo and funky electric boogie riff. This is roughly when I began to realize the album arrangement was taking me on a really fun ride, and that groovin’ magic— while a catchy, beautifully mixed track in its own right, is the type of track you use in your DJ set in a supporting role — the type of lead-in to set the stage for an absolute banger to come. As a whimsical set of pops rounded out the penultimate minute, with a slightly heavier drum kit to match — my suspicion was confirmed — and in hindsight I was absolutely correct, because

let me be with you~ (4:20) brings it afresh. It immediately blasts a broadside of funky beats, samples, pops, and sonic flourishes while building into an absolutely euphoric dance groove. It’s an absolute tragedy that this track doesn’t find its way into more dance-funk sets, but I like to think my own amateur work does its share of proselytization. Every future funk physical, in my humble opinion, should have at least once bright, wide-mixed dance-hall banger where you can just drop the needle and vibe. While I enjoy stripe more as a fully realized concept, let me be with you~ is definitely the most vibe-worthy on the record.

期待はしないで puts greyL’s various house and techno influences on display — and was a track I really wanted to love, but am forced only to like. The vinyl master renders the track muddy on the low end. It was an easy enough fix on my system — but folks with a simpler vinyl setup may find this track a bit wanting. I boosted the bass by +4 and re-EQ’d slightly from my left channel. But — this has always been my view — more time spent at a pre-amp’s and equalizer’s control board is less time fully enjoying a track. While something like this normally would remove an album for consideration, I want to express what a testament the rest of the album is. The crisp, professional and downright artisanal work on this album more than justifies what I’d consider a hangup that may or may not be replicated on other systems. Either way, play with the bass a bit and you can still more than enjoy this piece.

fashion starts the side of the LP where things start getting fun and experimental. The piece brings GreyL most adjacent to that Future Hop on this record, but a creative array of micro-samples keeps it firmly in the funk department. Because of the rapidity of the bars, its runtime actually feels much faster than it is — about four minutes.

apple restonaurt’s most apt analogue is “electro-swing for the Amanaguchi listener”. With vocals so heavily modified they almost sound 8-bit and a sample set that seems to dig in from りんごレストラン and T.I., among others. It’s an invigorating and fun dip into that electro-swing sound, and GreyL manages it with ease, as always.

kaze no tani no nausicaa with a title that claims a Miyazaki pedigree, at first seems more at home in one of Yamakan’s works. We get a taste of DMX, what honestly sounds like a micro-sample of T.I. but is probably someone else, and a japanese vocal sample that dances around the mix, seeming to jump to and fro sonically throughout the entire track. A clever bit of mix/master work here, or a happy accident — it sounds fantastic.

ding-dong brings the energy down to a slow burn, and entrances us — perhaps even lulls, with a fire sax loop and atmospherically distorted vocal samples. It definitely ventures into chill wave for its first half, until turning on its afterburners in its second half— ushered in from one of the most subtle uses of Super Smash Bros. I’ve heard to date.

our place closes the album on an ideal note — giving us a final, filling course of funk and micro-sample array. While many closers tend to jack up the pace and vibe a bit too much for my taste, our place keeps it decidedly chill and sounds absolutely sweet on the speakers. A perfect note.

Part 2: Vinyl Listening Experience

I had the pleasure (and obscene fucking expense) of living in Hong Kong in 2018 for a few months. It was primarily for my international ed consultancy day job, but one of my great regrets is not immersing myself in the music scene there. What happens in Hong Kong, and neighboring Shenzen on the mainland (home to vapor/synth label Vill4n IIRC) is the absolute cutting edge of the music industry — and by natural extension, the world. This holds true for future funk.

Hong Kong-based label Neoncity Records has at times released some of the best-pressed vinyls in the game — especially in 2018,— and much to my appreciation — puts them out in reasonable release numbers and multiple batches. Although I’ve found some of their pressings to be a just bit on the clinical side (vinyl should be warm!), I’ve never encountered a physical put out by the label that is mixed and mastered poorly for its format. Vinyl-heads know what this means naturally, but the best way I can explain this for someone getting into the hobby is just to listen to a vinyl rip of My Pet Flamingo’s release of Late Night Deluxe. Everything sounds detached, EQ everywhere, and bass so muddy you can harvest rice from it. Not to harp on it unnecessarily, but it was definitely that label’s growing pain, and they’ve thankfully come a long way since that disastrous 7-inch. See my review of Soul’s Song by Yu-utsu for evidence of that!

But I never have to question a Neoncity release. It arrives, it sounds great, I show it off to my audiophile friends to a succession of nodding heads. That all said, GreyL’s vinyl is just a little bit different than many of its siblings. A little bit better, I’d say.

In a recent, sort-of impromptu apartment-party DJ set, I had the opportunity to play two Neoncity releases side-by-side. I had mixed let me be with you from Sweet Summer Trip with a track from Sailorwave II — another great release by Macross 82-99 and Neoncity. What impressed me most was my stereo’s reactivity to Greyl’s album. Sailorwave sounded good. Sweet Summer Trip slapped! As I mentioned in a previous review, future funk is — a decade after its “inception”, an up-and-coming genre. Even titans like Mikazuki Bigwave and Night Tempo have around 50k twitter followers, compared to the millions of most commercial musicians. The quality of mastering will improve, I think — I hope, as frequent collaborators and labels improve their professionalism in regard to physicals. It’s never a perfect process, of course — but Neoncity is ahead of the game in so many respects. They know what sounds good on vinyl, and you can see constant improvement in the quality of each release.

This is all to say, that from the perspective of pure stereo responsiveness — that bright, sufficiently wide and warm trifecta that you want from your platonic ideal of a vinyl release? It’s here. Sweet Summer Trip has it. Each of Greyl’s tracks (with the slight exception of 待はしないで,) gets some of the best work in on my stereo that i’ve heard this year.

Finally a word on aesthetics. Neoncity has the “beautiful anime cover art” corner on absolute lockdown — and Sweet Summer Trip’s cover is again a standout in this department. Crisp lines, just a hint of glossiness, and saturated hues characterize this cover. Like all great and beautiful things, of course — it feels a bit fragile compared to competitor’s releases — but this might just because of the heavy use this vinyl has seen — it’s always traveling in and out of its home when I’ve got company, and the sleeve is already starting to see some creasing, sadly.

Unfortunately, I can’t really recommend vapor fans go and pick this record up at the moment, as resellers on eBay and Discogs are scalping this at truly obscene prices. I had the luxury of picking mine up on release day — and like most of the buyers, have no desire to resell. That drives up the price, I’m sure.

So Neoncity — when’s the repress?

[vapormaison]

Best of 2019 Future Funk Release 1/4: Toyama’s Love Island by Skule Toyama

A common argument I get into on audiophile and vinyl forums — that by virtue of interest and venue tend to skew boomer (who isn’t on discord now? Answer: Your grandpa.) — often revolves around the raison d’être of pressing future funk. In an earlier piece, I gave my opinion on the subject — but I didn’t really evidence the critique by many opposing audiophiles. As far as they’re concerned, I might as well be collecting Funko Pops — that is to say that these presses aren’t worthy of serious hi-fi consideration and are merely collector’s items. To their credit, when posting about my experiences with the genre, most of these aged audiophiles scratch their head not at the anime art on the box nor at the picture disks (usually reviled by the old-heads)— but at the oft-digital source itself.  These guys are the ostensibly cool uncles with the dope music collection, after all.

While they often are a wealth of information on the analog format, and voracious consumers of early City Pop — a genre beloved by audiophiles, — forums like this tend to create feedback loops of retrograde understanding. Their enjoyment of all things analog turns them into intense luddites, often to the point where I question why they are interfacing with a computer in the first place, that dreaded source for the perceived decline of their hi-fi culture.

I’ve more or less given up on the prospect of turning them around on the subject of future funk. However, this summer, on a thread where we review recent vinyl purchases and upload lossless rips, I made a rather pedestrian post about how much I enjoyed Skule Toyama’s latest release — Toyama’s Love Island. And to my complete and utter surprise, my vinyl-to-digital rip of “Sunset Hasn’t Come Yet” brought all the boys to the yard. While I got my usual peanut gallery of “lol future funk, lol vaporwave, buy jazz” posts, its turns out more than a few Joe Boomers with vintage, $10k-valued Sansui stereo sets could vibe with this too. You know, the purely purists of the pure.

This caused me to consider for a time precisely why Toyama Love Island whispered to these boomers I share a particular corner of internet space with. What about it warmed the heart of these old men so cold to cold media? It obviously had to be something more than the mastering or the press itself. Most of these guys had been engaged in serious listening to absolute titans in their craft for forty plus years now. Many had studio experience themselves. Even now, I don’t have a really good answer. The best one I can supply is this: the warmth that emanates from Toyama Love Island can melt even the iciest heart. Cliche? No doubt. Apropos? Of course.

PART 1: THE MUSIC

Intro warms us up with a minute-long evergreen bit. By whom and what from— I genuinely don’t know (perhaps that’s the appeal for me personally, the mystery but also the universality)— but the punch line certainly feels nostalgic, and the horns do too.

Have a Good Time fronts the funk after a minute-long intro track. It’s an absolutely fantastic true open because of its principal horn loop that absolutely claws into your cerebral cortex and takes root there. Between listens, I found myself humming it while brewing a pot of coffee. While it’s not my favorite of the tracks on the album, its pure energy and catchiness is a master class on how future funk albums should inject you with an uncut hit of unapologetic brass funk within the first couple minutes.

Electricity takes the initial energy of Have a Good Time and subtly ratchets up the vibe with clever layering and a sweet progression. While my initial take on my first listen was that the bass was too muted (a slight boost from the hi-fi set of your choice can obviously erase that distinction quickly!) — I warmed to the mix after hearing how well it meshed with the following track.

Love Island serves as a sort of kinetic climax to the first quarter of the album and a great midpoint for the A-side, but the treble feels just slightly compressed and off-balance on the wax here. After fiddling with EQ and my pre-amp settings on the second listen, the track came through vastly better. My suggestion is to subtract here and there if you have a Japanese-built set that tends to run bright. After doing so on the 2nd listen, Love Island began to shine — and the distorted loops that seemed discordant on my initial listen were brought back into a more complimentary role with the rest of the piece.

Midnight Mall is my absolute favorite of the album because it just unabashedly brings the boogie with a pure, slap-worthy bass, crisp midrange from the intermittent horn flares, and absolutely atmospheric vocal compliments. Although Love Island is a strong title track, so to speak — I really do think Midnight Mall is the true baby-maker banger of 2019. For peak enjoyment, boost the bass a little on your stereo, add mood lighting and engage in the wholesome romantic activity (impassioned stares, hand-holding) of your choice.

Sunset Hasn’t Come Yet is the boomer whisperer. My guess regarding what makes this track appeal so authentically to the boomer crowd is the strength of its arrangement. You get a comfy arrangement throughout, a bass twang that sounds like its straight outta Miami Vice coupled with very moody Japanese vocals. For a future funk record, this feels like the track most in sync with its roots, creating a very authentic, fun sound.

Marsala’s effortless sonic transition from Sunset Hasn’t Come Yet’s stage is definitely a highlight of this album’s pretty flawless composition and arrangement. It feels very much like a palette cleanser for the album’s first half, and is perfect for an LP format — as you feel this transition writ large by the very nature of the format. The blaring synths feel like they would meld into place effortlessly with a Michael Mann-directed denouement to a period action-psych drama.

Flying Star is a soft reset to the album from a vibe standpoint, and is competent at what it does in the overall scope of the album. My only significant criticism of Skule Toyama’s output — which is somewhat present here — is that they don’t really let the vocals carry enough water. While exquisitely layered in relation to the rest of the piece, I want to hear the vocals take up a sort of primary mantle in the soundstage in a track like this. We get it in Flying Star’s middle third, but it does feel like a sort of pointless delay in gratification. A track like this has a chance to capture the listener and bring them into the sonic space. It comes just short of doing that.

Sailor Moon Rock manages to decimate that previous criticism by running at me and grabbing the tempo by the collar with an absolutely fire set of loops and immediately accelerate. I love it for that, and is definitely the B-side’s strongest composition. We get some no-doubt nasty guitar riffs and some iconic SFX that really bring this track together and make a B-side banger exemplar, reason enough to flip the wax.

Keep On Going brings us closest to a synth-wave composition that we get in the entire album on the track’s first third, but finds its funk at the ideal moment. It definitely succeeds in fleshing out of the B-side, and creates its niche on the project subtly but at the same time, at the risk of seeming hyperbolic — brilliantly.

Do Me definitely feels the most “Nu-Disco” of both the side and the overall album. It’s definitely one of those tracks that you can both happily wait for in the queue and then just revel in — knowing that while the record nears its conclusion, you get a track that just would not at all be out of place in a Shibuya nightclub circa 1979 or weave its way into a Haruki Murakami novel.

Outro is a perfect closing for the album, but I question the utility of making it the penultimate track instead with the inclusion of the bonus track. That said, it’s impossible not to vibe with the arrangement and layering of this piece. My hope is that when I die and arrive at the pearly gates (admission pending), St. Peter (recently taking up a hobby in DJing to pass eternity) will have a special edition pressing of that will have this as the final track on the wax.

Live Now! is definitely the track I feel coolest about. A good piece on the whole, just feels a bit out of step with the rest of the project. But I’m never going to look the gift horse in the mouth when it comes to the prospect of additional music, so a welcome addition nonetheless.

PART 2: VINYL EXPERIENCE

I really like the Toyama Love Island purple wax. This seemingly benign statement is no doubt going to incur a chorus of audiophiles in that forum criticizing me for this. Vinyl is not designed — as much as some will tell you, to be a perfectly neutral hi-res medium. There is natural warmth, scratchiness, minor distortion — et cetera. It also features natural imperfections that develop over time — like any piece of physical media. What’s more, some perceived hiccups on the overall master might actually be caused by a slight offset or error in the press, a common and natural occurrence when dealing with physical media like this. That’s why graphic equalizers were so prominent in vinyl hi-fi set in its late 1970s/early 1980s heyday. This is just an aspect of the vinyl experience.

Toyama’s Love Island features, in my view, a few of these imperfections. But these imperfections are nothing major — a quick re-equalization (oxymoronic, but I’m sure you know what I’m getting at here) a little fiddling around with the pre-amp here and there — these are natural to any experience and remind me why I became fascinated with the hobby in the first place — to maximize an audio experience. If every indie press gave that to me out of the box, well, what’s the point of the system that I own? It exists to provide a platform for a rich, diverse, and vibrant sonic experience. But the platter is just decorative without real warmth coming from the music, and Toyama’s Love Island brings that in droves.

My Pet Flamingo has a long (in vaporwave measurements, obviously) history of putting out quality physicals. Toyama’s Love Island builds upon this with a big’ol brick and a heaping slab of mortar. I’m also a big fan of MFP’s visuals. I’m not sure who they use to make the sleeves, but I think they’re generally constructed well, and the cover images that grace them never feel compressed or feature much in the way of artifacts. When you become deeply intimate with a vinyl sleeve, you start to notice these things — and I’ve never had this inkling when fingering a Flamingo release, so kudos to the label’s curation.

The mix feels exceptionally bright on my current system, and that has been a consistent point of curiosity with My Pet Flamingo releases. My guess is whatever they test their masters on is engineered by a British/American company not named “KEF” — think Cambridge, Wharfedale, McIntosh, etc — or a damper sounding Japanese unit like Technics or Yamaha. Again — I don’t see this as a problem, just a note to those running more traditional Japanese (80s Harman, Sansui, TEAC) or Nordic systems (B&O, Blaupunkt) that tend towards that end of the spectrum.

With obvious digital and analog appeal, Toyama’s Love Island is the closest thing to a “holistic” future funk release that I can think of — which makes me wonder why Skule Toyama’s hasn’t blown up yet. Only a matter of time, I’d guess — especially after earning a nod from this little outfit, I’d hope.

[vapormaison]

Best of 2019 Vaporwave Release 1/4: Constant by Hotel Pools

There’s an argument present in more ideologically-possessed, Boston-Brahmin administered art history circles that goes something a little like this: for a work of art to be truly great, it must innovate. All other attempts ultimately function at best as imitation, objects d’art meant to be consumed, then disposed, forgotten. “Good art” must always be in a savage competition to experiment and challenge for these galaxy-brained individuals. I won’t expound on this theory too much as it could land me in some hot water with these very university art departments my day-job is occupied with consulting. I merely mention this to preface the review by stating that I’m fundamentally opposed to any totalizing view of art and it’s worth.

In short, looking at creativity in this way takes an axe to aesthetics in lieu of novelty. And while I I can find novelty intriguing, I cannot enjoy it without an accompanying aesthetic appeal. On the contrary, I can enjoy pure aesthetics without novelty. I can enjoy them a lot, in fact. And what we have in Hotel Pools is pure, unadulterated sonic aesthetic. 

Constant stays consistent — it doesn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel, and I say this as complimentary as one can — as it does what knows with aplomb. What it does, which surprisingly few vaporwave LP releases do nowadays, is provide a sonically sound and unapologetically focused LP that slaps from start to finish. From track one to track ten, we get strong, full, repayable compositions that string together a solid sonic narrative from beginning to end.

I’m never left questioning arrangement, as a quick test in tractor studio 3 confirms my suspicion that one could play each track in a live set and mix them seamlessly in sequence with minimum effort. We’re not just looking at a set of singles. What we have is a real LP crafted with a classic artisan’s eye. Again, it’s that attention to detail that makes this album so remarkable in its polished-ness. Each of these tracks is — to use a culinary analogy — a plate of magnificently cooked tapas plates that combine to create a sequentially perfect Manhattan brunch in a pricey, Hell’s Kitchen restaurant like Sevilla. They exist as great individual dishes and in a carefully curated sequence. And that must be enjoyed — and moreover, appreciated for what it is: great.  

PART 1: THE MUSIC

Accelerate gets the show on the road with a synth-heavy, late 80s analog sort of sonic space. Perhaps it even ventures into lo-fi. A timely drum loop does the work of progressing the track to more complex layers of added synths, which, coming over the really full midrange of my KEFs, did a lot to create a feeling of acceleration that’s only enhanced when you hear a purring engine and the sound of tires burning out on asphalt. It wouldn’t feel out of place somewhere in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, or a new-wave remake of Two Lane Blacktop.

Stardust transitions seamlessly from the closing snares of Accelerate and brings the album into a very well-trodden synthwave/futurewave arena. The layering of light percussions on each hook is done expertly, and Hotel Pools doesn’t let them sit for too long, allowing the synths to bear the weight of progression.

s o l o brings the energy of Stardust down a notch and opens by veering more onto the lo-fi end of the scale by presenting us with a sonic array that wouldn’t be out of place in an old IBM or AOL infomercial for the first half of the track — and then seems to pick up with the space, grace and pace of an Jaguar XJR of mid-90s vintage once we pass the minute mark. This peppy sonic landscape seems to exit as abruptly as it enters, however.

Flare does exactly what you’d expect it do sonically with its array of distortion-driven percussions and synths that seem to fade in and out in a procession that seems almost elegiac. This is probably the track that sounded the plainest in my digital listen. Luckily, vinyl adds just enough warmth into Flare to make it really sizzle. You get richer, fuller vibes from the low-end of the spectrum, and each percussion hit seems fuller and more robust — complimenting the synth array instead of seeming in opposition to it, bringing analog harmony where there is compression-fueled digital dissonance.

Vega is the most vibe-worthy of all the tracks. By building a very ambient soundspace and then developing it with a playful chord progression, we get something really unique. I’m tempted to use that phrase from the state of Rhode Island’s disastrous marketing campaign that made its appearance on the New York City metro in 2016: “cooler but warmer”. That phrase manages to capture the energy of Vega. It does very little to represent the moribund, decline-managed, means-tested myopic dystopia that calls itself Rhode Island.

Disconnect definitely feels the most “synthesized” in a synth heavy album, giving us a vintage array that would be very much at home in a sci-fi flick like THX 1138 or Videodrome. The song’s title is intriguing, because I didn’t detect much in the way in discordance or manipulation — this is more reminiscent of vapor-synth in its younger form — before the great proliferation of the genre that took place around 2014/5 or so. If anything, it’s more aptly titled re-connect, considering that it brings us back to a simpler era of the genre — and, at the risk of becoming political — our lives.

Melt exists in a formless state somewhere between mall-wave, synth-wave, and that traditional vapor sound. It is also another track I was initially rather cool on during my initial digital listen. But this is where I have to give a firm, firm, recommendation for the physical. Melt’s simultaneously playful but methodical sound sounds compressed to hell on Spotify, Youtube, etc. You get the full-breadth and depth of the piece with the vinyl in a way that goes beyond my capacity for expression. If you want to confirm for yourself, buy the album and enjoy the lossless. That’s near-on what you’re getting with the press.

Hover is a damn good composition — but in album with great pieces throughout, you have to like one the least. Hover is that for me. I think this may be because Hotel Pools gives us a really polished, layered composition from beginning to end — and while progression is not a necessity, for me, at this stage in the album — it is welcome. But as a penultimate piece, it still performs well.

Return closes on a strong note. With a smattering of blaring synths, lo-fi loops and light drum hit, we’re gently faded out of this record as the track glides along a well-planned denouement. The soft note it ends on actually gave me a sort-of ASMR experience — which while not my intent when going into a dedicated listen, is appreciated nonetheless!

PART 2: VINYL LISTENING EXPERIENCE

My previous experiences with Stratford Ct. built in a bit of bias going in. While their Cassette releases have always kept me satisfied and been kind to both my eyes and my aging deck, I had almost resolved to stop buying vinyls from them altogether. My “Strawberry Banana” edition of Fall ’18 was received brutally by my system. Tinny highs, unimpressive muddy lows. My first assumption is to never blame the release. I make every effort to readjust my equalization, switch speakers (to SX-50s, which reproduced even more of that sound profile, albeit with the bass even more diluted). I even brought the LP with me to flex on a friend and coerced him to run it on his Technics system — a SL-1200 (a DJ, obviously) run through a mid-fi rack of Black-Box gear from the early 90s accompanied by a pair of JBL studios (230s I believe) for what could approximate a real reference listen. They sounded marginally better there — but I still can’t say I was impressed enough for it to regularly feature in my regular listening lineup.

This difference can probably be chalked up to a difference in analog amp technology at the time: because the Japanese systems are brighter — where my amps designed by Dr. Matti Otala from the early 80s carry on that tradition of funky, 70s warmth in a lower TIM package. This naturally means that the 90s Japanese systems are going to clean up more imperfections on a press but provide a slightly less warm and comfy listening experience.

All that said, I’m perfectly willing to accept that I might own a dud, or an mis-press, who knows. This happens with vinyl — as contrary to hipster opinion, it’s not actually a precision medium. At a certain stage of audiophilia, you learn to accept it. I took that one on the chin. You have to with this hobby — given the low production runs.

This release, however, is solid. It comes through with energy and vigor in my system, with tracks like the heavily layered Vega, mid-melodic Melt, and the synths of Return gently guiding your exit from the sonic space built so masterfully by Hotel Pools. There is also a certain crispness to the vinyl which is reminiscent of some of the newer digital manufacture of coming out of china recently. The technological sounds of this profile actually gets just enough warmth from my system to make the whole project a joy to consume on vinyl hi-fi.

Whatever pressing or manufacture issues happened with my copy of Fall ’18 were not present here, and redeemed Stratford Ct. enough where I’ll definitely be picking up their vinyl releases in the future without hesitation. All in all, an impressive release from both artist and label.

[vapormaison]

2019 Best Vinyl Pressing 1/4: 魂のための歌 by 憂鬱

Preface: Throughout the month of December, Vapor Maison will be nominating  “BEST OF” albums of 2019. Slots will remain open for this month’s releases. Categories include Best Vaporwave Release, Best Future Funk Release, Best Re-Release (V & FF), and Best City Pop Re-Release, among others. This is one nominee for best Vinyl Press.

Author’s Note: For the writer’s ease of writing and readers ease of reading, I’ll be using the transliteration of 憂鬱:Yūutsu, and the translation of “Soul’s Song” in lieu of “魂のための歌”. I’ll maintain the Japanese track listings for easy reference. Apologies to Purity, a maiden as tedious as she is cruel.

Are the merits of a vaporwave album on vinyl even worth reviewing?

 Obviously, you’re reading a vaporwave vinyl review — creating a sort of circuit — so in the strictest sense of the word, yes, — but naturally, a follow up question must be asked by any smart music consumer. If so much of vaporwave, and by extension future funk, is centered around digital manipulation of either computer programs (vocaloid, electronic loops, midis, drum kits, etc), and pre-existing digital rips of j-pop (by definition most of future funk) — what’s the point of a vinyl press? Pressing mp3s onto vinyl is pointless — as no amount of “warmth” from a vinyl-based Hi-Fi system will ever make up for a low-quality source. What’s more, the indie releases of these tracks can make it hard to justify an expensive vinyl mastering session. In my most unfortunate purchases, I’ve had MP3s outperform certain 45s.

But sometimes, you can get just the right format, just the right mix and master, and it just makes your hifi set sing. You, as a Vaporwave/Future Funk/Chillwave/etc. enthusiast, can certainly approach the sonic repro quality of lore — that Platonic form of an “audiophile’s album”. How can I prove this? Look no further than Soul’s Song by Yuutsu. Point blank, full stop. This is the one of the rare vapor records for a true audiophile. In this next section, I’ll be giving my thoughts on the album’s tracklist. In Part 2, you can join me for a trip into Hi-Fi World for a discussion of Vapor-Vinyl’s legitimacy.

PART 1: THE MUSIC

小さい鳥 opens the album with a moody, synthetic mandolin-like twang and elegiac Vocaloid vacillations extended in a sort of melancholic embrace that brings you — willing or otherwise, into the arms of this project. The arrangement of the loops are of particular note here, with the layering of additional sonic flutters that culminate in an anti-climactic crescendo that leaves you as sad and disappointed as the album no doubt wants you to feel.

それは愛を返さありません ends up being the most “atmospheric” of all the tracks, a listening experience I’d describe as a fitting background track for a KEY visual novel — eerie, haunting monosyllabic Vocaloid chants of comprising the long, long hooks. While running at 5:24, it definitely feels longer — perhaps created by a symphonic discord between vocals and music at intermittent portions of the piece. I’d characterize this piece as the most experimental of the album, deftly playing with my expectations more than any of the others.

闇 is incredible — and without a doubt the highlight of the tape. Because it departs from the simple string looping and gives us something more — something resembling a tragic and contemplative harmony, however discordant, and one that builds into lyrically what I consider to be a genuine contemplation of spirituality and the other world — a natural place, topically, for an album titled “Soul’s Song”. A sort of hollow computerized synth also left me considering — was this song about the soul of the Vocaloid program itself?

The digitized horns, eerie synths, and what I could best classify as the crackling of amplifiers introduce the thirty-eight second interlude of 変更 and serve as the riser to the climactic shift of the EP beginning in おやすみ. This four-minute piece deftly blends electric and analog strings and brings the vocaloid program to its emotional and sonic heights, really making the high-end pop in a for a surprisingly refreshing experience.

We conclude the album with a hybrid piece ネコチャン which captures the electric energy of おやすみ, the distorted samples of 変更 and adds a fleeting feeling of warmth with that familiar sound of tennis shoes on a waxed gym floor, evoking nostalgia that never was of doldrum days in a Japanese high school. The album fades out, with our familiar vocaloid’s calling out of Neko-chan, melting away like memories.

PART 2: THE VINYL LISTENING EXPERIENCE

When re-starting this review blog in earnest over the past month or so, I made a point to get my best gear serviced. I couldn’t claim to be fulfilling my broadened duties without having a fully-serviced, properly functioning kit. One of the more essential and dreaded refurbishments was getting my KEFs over to the local stereo shop wizard for a re-foam. I’d be without my workhorses for a week: an audiophile Alexander without his binaural Bucephalus. In the meanwhile, my backup speakers — a pair of Cambridge Audio SX-50 bookshelf speakers that I use as computer monitors, stepped up to the plate as pinch hitter.

I provide this anecdote for a reason: the very afternoon I dropped my KEF’s off at the shop is also the afternoon I received my copy of Soul’s Song by Yūutsu.

Admittedly, I can’t say I was particularly hyped for this release, or very eager tor receive it in the post. The previous evening I had been sleeplessly experimenting on a DJ set of city pop for the journal’s launch party at my alma mater. I was decidedly on an upbeat, caffeine-fueled kick of positive thoughts and big dick energy. Success had triggered the dopamine receptors, and the idea of sitting down for a serious listening session of an album that many BandCamp users had dubbed as “peak sadwave” seemed like an unnecessary vibe check.

But— being a self-appointed music blogger— a craft which I imagine has real pretensions about it somewhere, I buckled —a serious listening session was attempted.

And I was utterly blown away.

***

A final word on gear. The Cambridge SX-50s — and Cambridge Audio in general— do have a bit of a cult-following among guitar enthusiasts in various audiophile spheres. I also am familiar with a listening bar in Nagoya (where I studied abroad for a semester) that uses top-shelf Cambridge Hi-Fi gear solely for Vocaloid listening sessions!

Suffice to say, I was not actively thinking about either of those two facts when I first let the needle drop, but when the twangy synthetic guitar loop and the eerie vocalic chants of それは愛を返さありません began, a sudden wave of melancholy set in and brought my mind back to a lonely winter spent in that basement bar after breaking up with my girlfriend. And to the Cambridges. At that time, I became intimately familiar with how an upbeat, poppy — sometimes even jazzy track— accompanied with Vocaloid vocals could really make those speakers sing. And it was happening right now, as I was cuddled by the warmth pouring from those drivers in spite of the cold sadness of the arrangement. That dichotomy was on full display as “Ya-aa-mi” invocations of 闇 reached its penultimate hook.

In may respects, these Cambridges were and still are petty. I had previous experience with them butchering a poor quality vinyl of the Luxury Elite/Saint Pepsi Late Night Delight EP two years ago. My KEF’s usually take it upon themselves to run cover for a bad release. Cambridge-chan couldn’t be bothered. On a bad day, with a bad play, they’ll seem like the most clinical JBL studio monitor — but here they were, absolutely singing. This album was making them slap — metaphorically. And that’s when I realized what a magical press this was.

Five days later, the KEFs were securely hooked up to my amp again. The first vinyl to be put through the paces was, of course, Soul’s Song. Again I was impressed. The exquisite layering of this album can’t be expressed enough — and while the SX-50s brought out the synthetic string and vocals to the fore, my 104s filled in the rest of the sonic picture. I felt as if I was being re-acquainted with a piece of sculpture upon viewing it from a different angle, or witnessing a church’s mosaic in person after seeing a small reproduction in a well-printed textbook. This is a pressing far and above the previous standards I’ve set for vaporwave.

***

As any Vapor Vinyl review would be incomplete without a brief take on the overallＡｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ of the release, so I’ll just start by saying that I really enjoy the three-tone front end. The lavender, beige and white undeniably make this a very “Aloe” release, who tend to make things easy on my very nearsighted eyes by never making the cover too busy. This is perhaps with the notable exception of VR 97’s recent cassette release — not a trend, I hope!

I do have to admit I’m getting a bit tired of pink vinyls, though — and Soul’s Song unfortunately now joins a very crowded pack. I suppose if you were being pedantic, you could compare the “pinkness” of the album vis a vis the 2nd pressing of Macros 82-99’s Sailorwave (fuller, more saturated), or even the “bubblegum” first pressing of Vektroid’s Floral Shoppe (just naming two iconic releases) — but I think this release would have been fine (and moved units) as, say, a picture disc — making use of the powerful, emotive cover art to its fullest extent. In short, it takes something unique and then commodifies it to the point of exhaustion. While I suppose this criticism could be leveled at all of the genres I cover— I think generally speaking Vaporwave and Future Funk (to a lesser extent) treads this line of “capitalist critique” and “modified consumption” rather adeptly.

The main thrust in the previous paragraph, I should qualify, is not a specific criticism of Aloe City Records, however — I think they’ve done a fine job generally. If I could make a list of three releases that justify a special edition vinyl — this is certainly one.

For audiophile vaporwave/chill-wave fans, I’d encourage you to snap it up while you can.  You can even buy it ethically — it’s still in stock on Aloe City’s band-camp page. It’s in my mind — without doubt — one of the best presses of the year.

[vapormaison]

ＷΣＬＣ♢ＭΣ░Ｔ♢░ＴＨΞ░ＭΛＩＳ♢Ｎ

VAPOR MAISON is celebrating Japanese City Pop, Vaporwave, Future Funk, and other inspired physical media.

We’re oriented towards amateurs, enthusiasts, and audiophiles alike. Anyone with a passion for vinyl should be at home here — whatever your passion and power level. The site will be dedicated to comprehensive commentary on Vinyl LPs, CDs, and Cassettes from four related genres of music: 1970s/1980s Japanese City Pop, Future Funk/Nu-Disco, 1970s/1980s Japanese film scores, and Vaporwave.

These four genres were chosen because of their kokoro, (心) that very Japanese sense of interconnectedness.

VaporMaison was formerly CITY-POP X CHANGE, a vanity blog run by myself and an ex-girlfriend who wishes to remain anonymous in this project — together we ran a single print issue issue locally in Taipei, Taiwan — which still populates the tables of a few listening bars to this day. The site will periodically give out free copies, and feature a vintage article from the old blog every Sunday.

What We’re Vibing On:

At the start of my audiophile journey, my goal was to build a hi-fi stereo system capable of reproducing a bright, 80s sound worthy of reviewing City Pop, but also able to profile other genres with vigor and warmth when needed. To that end, I looked for Harman Kardon. Although originally based in New York City (later, Los Angeles) HK had its high-end audio equipment had its equipment manufactured in the Shin Shirasuna factory in Nagoya, Japan. Shin Shirasuna was one of the most prestigious and well-heeled manufacturers in the period predating the rise of Sansui and TEAC— and my set is very much a marriage of Japanese design and detail coupled with the visionary engineering of HK’s Dr. Matti Otala, the Finnish sonic engineer and amplification innovator.

Visually, the set should be immediately recognizable for fans of American Psycho. When Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) asks Paul Allen (Jared Leto) if he “likes Huey Lewis and the News?” — and begins his deadly dissertation — he does so in front of one of these Shin-Shirasuna/Harman Kardon component sets — the HK700 series.

image

The system is, as follows:

Harman Kardon EQ 8 Equalizer

Harman Kardon HK 770 Amplifier

Harman Kardon HK 725 Pre-Amp

Harman Kardon CD 705 Casette Deck

Harman Kardon HD 500 CD-Player

Harman Kardon ST-8 Linear Tracking Turntable

The final two components are arguably most essential to the overall experience – my speakers and headset. I kept the Bateman Suite theme going by picking up a pair of KEF 104/2 floor-standers from e-bay and servicing them at my local shop. After comparing with an audiokarma forum member for reference, I can attest that the boxes are definitely up to snuff. I will also my favorite cans, a pair of low-serial AKG 701s to broadly define the listening experience through those means.

Daniel, who will be contributing live show reviews considers me a bit of a madman, an audio weeaboo of the worst kind. He is most likely correct!

Vinyl Review Methodology

To begin with, I promise readers at least two full end-to-end listens of every product I discuss – one on speakers, one on cans. I’ve taken umbrage before at shoddy, incomplete review practices across all media. I won’t be guilty of the same. For shorter releases, I will give additional plays. I firmly believe records are meant to be consumed like films – in two hour sittings, with requisite critical listening and contemplation.

While I will occasionally give my thoughts on the overall aesthetic and sonic merits of an individual release, I think most of my readers will be more interested in a thorough analysis of the more grounded components of a physical release – record/cassette quality in terms of build and pressing, OBIs, extras, booklets, etc. are more in the realm of my consideration.

Live Events

As a result of my day-job (international education consultancy), I do a lot of traveling throughout America and east Asia (Taiwan/Hong Kong, Mainland China, Japan, Korea). As a result, I often have a chance to catch many live shows of future funk/vaporwave artists. I may include my thoughts on these concerts, as we are indeed witnessing the rise of a subgenre, and some record of that would be useful to posterity, I think. Those that I cannot attend in Japan or Taiwan — my good friend and regular collaborator Daniel Wu will most likely go to. He’ll be posting his experience here from time to time.

Final Thoughts

I’m looking forward to embarking on this journey with you!