Vaporwave by slowing down the tracks and intentionally producing errors
in the sound, which are very similar to the ones that occurred with cassette
tapes, interrelates to glitch music. Referring again to the beginnings of
electronic music, the emergence of scratch brought the aesthetics the misuse of the source (the phonograph), which is the predecessor of glitch music to which vaporwave relates to. Accordingly, many of the pieces of this genre depict an atomic use of sound that is mediated through audio editing software and the digital computers.
In glitch music, the sound loses clarity and fidelity, which also plays a
new role in the unveiling of the sound as the result of a technological process. Cascone (2000) describes glitch as a “form of […] failure of digital technology
[…] glitches, bugs, application errors, system crashes, clipping, aliasing,
distortion, quantization noise, and even the noise floor of the computer sound cards” (2000, p. 13). Consequently, as Vanhanen (2001, November 26) proposes,
glitch music belongs to an “aesthetic of interruption and misuse”
(2001, November 26). These two characteristics also describe the fashion in which the sound waves are manipulated.
In the same way that vaporwave can be analyzed as a branch within
electronic music, the aesthetic experience that this artistic movement offers is closely linked to its visual part. In Minor’s (2016, March 6) words “vaporwave isn’t just something you listen to either, it’s something you experience, and
experiences include visuals” (2016, March 6). This is a unique characteristic considering that there is not any vaporwave production published without a cover; the music is indivisible from it. Therefore the visual and audio components, as equal parts, create the conceptual theme of a vaporwave album. Vaporwave visual art was originated in Tumblr as a successor of seapunk, as it is referred as “a e s t h e t i c s”. For Chandler “vaporwave depends heavily on visuals in order to maintain its individuality as a musical form.” (2016, September 6).
- Karla Zavala
(Dystopian Shopping Malls: Vaporwave and The Ghosts of The Future)
Dizzyling great bursts of sound from the always reliable label Business Casual, this is an album that delivers split-second shots of joy. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 26, 2022
A dizzying slice of future funk, “Flowers” by OMI5 creates kaleidoscopic sound worlds from a shifting palette of synths. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 13, 2017