Full performance of David Bruce's Lully Loops as performed by Daniel Hope and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra [Skip to 39 minutes] Links to the other Classical Vaporwave tracks mentioned in the...
That track by Ryan Ayres was really cool, I had no idea it existed. I really enjoyed the vaporwave genre way back when, but like most things stopped engaging once it started getting play...
Exemplary
That track by Ryan Ayres was really cool, I had no idea it existed. I really enjoyed the vaporwave genre way back when, but like most things stopped engaging once it started getting play everywhere - at the risk of invoking some smug hipsterism, I'm out when it becomes part of (capital letters) Cultural Noise. And all that really meant was I'd moved on to listening to other stuff/I just got tired of it from hearing it too much.
To come back after many years and hear Ayres' spin on that song was a pretty awesome experience. The swelling grandeur of it paired with the melancholic feel evokes a feeling, like I'm seeing the end of something, the death of something sublime. "Sublime" is not a word I'd use to describe vaporwave, so it ends up being kinda interesting to think about it like that. Here was this thing, this moment, this genre - it came, it evolved, it drifted away. For me I mean, obviously I don't determine what happens to a genre, but my experience of it was as this transient blip of interesting music that led me to other things. Ayers' track feels like paying homage by honing in on and heightening some of the feelings those tracks tried to hit.
The video too was really interesting to check out. I think Bruce is justified in calling what he made classical vaporwave - it's doing the same things toward the same ends, just in a different setup with its own conventions to pay attention to. The spirit of the genre is definitely there, and the music evokes those same feelings, of a sort of forlorn nostalgia. It's a fair criticism I think to look at vaporwave and think it's a bit trite - sure, you're mostly just slowing down old music and fucking around with it a bit, sometimes in ways that genuinely would only take you a few minutes to do. It isn't always very complicated nor is there a lot to really say about the process. To me that kinda frees you to look at it differently - since we don't have to be concerned as much with it being difficult, we can look with less on our mind at what the music is doing, is how I tend to look at it. And with vaporwave there was always this sense of witnessing the distorted, deteriorating vision of a future that never happened. Like an old VHS tape, the picture is distorting and fading because it's coming apart. Ayres' track feels like looking at that future for the final time, appreciating what all it was and then letting it go with one last pang of that forlorn nostalgia. Bruce's track feels like having stepped fully into something new - taking from vaporwave its fundamental aspects and using them to accomplish something a bit different. Classical music isn't awash in the same feelings/connotations as 80's pop; slowing it down and distorting it leads to a bit of a different feeling. I'm interested to see, as I go looking for more music like this, if it ends up heightening that sort of "death of awe" feeling or if it goes in a different direction. Bruce's example, of the guy honing in on changing tones, has me pretty intrigued about what different approaches people have taken.
YVW! Glad you enjoyed it. :) Excellent comment, BTW. So likewise appreciated, and thanks for sharing your perspective. :) p.s. If you haven't already, you should definitely check out Robin Haigh's...
YVW! Glad you enjoyed it. :)
Excellent comment, BTW. So likewise appreciated, and thanks for sharing your perspective. :)
p.s. If you haven't already, you should definitely check out Robin Haigh's SLEEPTALKER, also mentioned in the video too. I thought it was incredibly cool as well. Even though it's a live performance, it had moments where it felt like time had somehow actually slowed down and the orchestra was playing in slow motion, which was genuinely trippy and sinister sounding. I felt like I was having an acid flashback. :P
No kidding. I mean it in a nice way, but if I were titling that track it would probably be "The K-Hole of Tom & Jerry" or something. I kinda loved it though. The second half especially veers into...
No kidding. I mean it in a nice way, but if I were titling that track it would probably be "The K-Hole of Tom & Jerry" or something.
I kinda loved it though. The second half especially veers into what feels like horror, and ends lonely and small, after a beginning that reminded me very much of old cartoons. I think what I'm getting from it being an orchestra, is more of a sense of power behind what's going on - where an electronic track sounds more mournful and melancholic, the orchestra tends to sound more sinister. I wonder if that's me mapping some of my impressions of classical music onto things or if others would feel similar.
I'm happy they do the theme a bit in the beginning so I can better tell how it's distorting later - that too is an interesting piece to think about. Sometimes I think vaporwave takes a risk, of being "too distorted", as in you've taken something and twisted it enough that it's hard to tell what it was, which means it's hard to see how far away we've gone, so to speak. When the song presents the original (or most of what's original) first, I can better understand how far away we go from it and get more of that genre-defining sense of deterioration. I've def got some exploring to do :)
Oh, damn. Good name! Falling into a k-hole is definitely a way more accurate description of the feeling it invoked! And the start was very reminiscent of early Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbera shows...
Oh, damn. Good name! Falling into a k-hole is definitely a way more accurate description of the feeling it invoked! And the start was very reminiscent of early Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbera shows too.
And yeah, I also appreciated how it started out with the "normal", undistorted section too. I think one of the advantages of most vaporwave tracks is that since they're typically made using samples taken from reasonably well known songs, something like that isn't really necessary. But with an original classical music piece like SLEEPTALKER, we would have had no frame of reference to allow us to recognize that the instrumentation was being intentionally slowed down and distorted were it not for that "normal" opening section.
Full performance of David Bruce's Lully Loops as performed by Daniel Hope and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra
[Skip to 39 minutes]
Links to the other Classical Vaporwave tracks mentioned in the video:
Ryan Ayres - LISA - Expression of a Theme Stolen by MACプラス
Cassandra Miller, Plus-Minus Ensemble with Juliet Fraser - Bel Canto
Robin Haigh - SLEEPTALKER
That track by Ryan Ayres was really cool, I had no idea it existed. I really enjoyed the vaporwave genre way back when, but like most things stopped engaging once it started getting play everywhere - at the risk of invoking some smug hipsterism, I'm out when it becomes part of (capital letters) Cultural Noise. And all that really meant was I'd moved on to listening to other stuff/I just got tired of it from hearing it too much.
To come back after many years and hear Ayres' spin on that song was a pretty awesome experience. The swelling grandeur of it paired with the melancholic feel evokes a feeling, like I'm seeing the end of something, the death of something sublime. "Sublime" is not a word I'd use to describe vaporwave, so it ends up being kinda interesting to think about it like that. Here was this thing, this moment, this genre - it came, it evolved, it drifted away. For me I mean, obviously I don't determine what happens to a genre, but my experience of it was as this transient blip of interesting music that led me to other things. Ayers' track feels like paying homage by honing in on and heightening some of the feelings those tracks tried to hit.
The video too was really interesting to check out. I think Bruce is justified in calling what he made classical vaporwave - it's doing the same things toward the same ends, just in a different setup with its own conventions to pay attention to. The spirit of the genre is definitely there, and the music evokes those same feelings, of a sort of forlorn nostalgia. It's a fair criticism I think to look at vaporwave and think it's a bit trite - sure, you're mostly just slowing down old music and fucking around with it a bit, sometimes in ways that genuinely would only take you a few minutes to do. It isn't always very complicated nor is there a lot to really say about the process. To me that kinda frees you to look at it differently - since we don't have to be concerned as much with it being difficult, we can look with less on our mind at what the music is doing, is how I tend to look at it. And with vaporwave there was always this sense of witnessing the distorted, deteriorating vision of a future that never happened. Like an old VHS tape, the picture is distorting and fading because it's coming apart. Ayres' track feels like looking at that future for the final time, appreciating what all it was and then letting it go with one last pang of that forlorn nostalgia. Bruce's track feels like having stepped fully into something new - taking from vaporwave its fundamental aspects and using them to accomplish something a bit different. Classical music isn't awash in the same feelings/connotations as 80's pop; slowing it down and distorting it leads to a bit of a different feeling. I'm interested to see, as I go looking for more music like this, if it ends up heightening that sort of "death of awe" feeling or if it goes in a different direction. Bruce's example, of the guy honing in on changing tones, has me pretty intrigued about what different approaches people have taken.
Cool video, much appreciated
YVW! Glad you enjoyed it. :)
Excellent comment, BTW. So likewise appreciated, and thanks for sharing your perspective. :)
p.s. If you haven't already, you should definitely check out Robin Haigh's SLEEPTALKER, also mentioned in the video too. I thought it was incredibly cool as well. Even though it's a live performance, it had moments where it felt like time had somehow actually slowed down and the orchestra was playing in slow motion, which was genuinely trippy and sinister sounding. I felt like I was having an acid flashback. :P
No kidding. I mean it in a nice way, but if I were titling that track it would probably be "The K-Hole of Tom & Jerry" or something.
I kinda loved it though. The second half especially veers into what feels like horror, and ends lonely and small, after a beginning that reminded me very much of old cartoons. I think what I'm getting from it being an orchestra, is more of a sense of power behind what's going on - where an electronic track sounds more mournful and melancholic, the orchestra tends to sound more sinister. I wonder if that's me mapping some of my impressions of classical music onto things or if others would feel similar.
I'm happy they do the theme a bit in the beginning so I can better tell how it's distorting later - that too is an interesting piece to think about. Sometimes I think vaporwave takes a risk, of being "too distorted", as in you've taken something and twisted it enough that it's hard to tell what it was, which means it's hard to see how far away we've gone, so to speak. When the song presents the original (or most of what's original) first, I can better understand how far away we go from it and get more of that genre-defining sense of deterioration. I've def got some exploring to do :)
Oh, damn. Good name! Falling into a k-hole is definitely a way more accurate description of the feeling it invoked! And the start was very reminiscent of early Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbera shows too.
And yeah, I also appreciated how it started out with the "normal", undistorted section too. I think one of the advantages of most vaporwave tracks is that since they're typically made using samples taken from reasonably well known songs, something like that isn't really necessary. But with an original classical music piece like SLEEPTALKER, we would have had no frame of reference to allow us to recognize that the instrumentation was being intentionally slowed down and distorted were it not for that "normal" opening section.