Review Summary: False romance for the hopelessly lonely.
Vaporwave is one of the more interesting internet trends to have come out in recent years. Musically, it’s a form of plunderphonics that focuses almost exclusively on new age, lounge room jazz; pretty much anything that you’d likely hear playing through the muzak in a retail store. Key to vaporwave’s appeal however doesn’t wholly lie in the music, it’s incomplete and almost redundant once you strip away its visual appeal. Because of this, it’s hard to review a vaporwave composition simply on its musical merits, which is almost always simply taking an existing track and pitch-shifting it, slowing it down, perhaps implementing a beat over the top of it and occasionally have the tracks skip like a scratched CD. bl00dwave is no exception to this style and don’t bring anything new to the table in that aspect. However, bl00dwave creates an interesting enough aesthetic on N E W V I S U A L S, the strength for which vaporwave is heralded by music fans for providing rather than a satisfying musical experience.
Visually, in a way that’s not unique to this particular artist, but interesting in that the artist is heavily focused on it; bl00dwave utilizes still shots (sometimes visually altered for a more retro look and then uploaded to Facebook) from Japanese dating simulator video games and anime from the 90’s circa or thereabouts. The way that bl00dwave presents this art, borrowed in a similar way to the plunderphonics of their music, captures this strangely warm feeling of false romance that is portrayed through dating simulators. In the same way that is present throughout the vaporwave medium is a strong sense of nostalgia for a time that you never experienced, false memories of a non-existant life that you can escape into.
Cleverly, bl00dwave has managed to portray this false romance effectively with the sampled music used on N E W V I S U A L S. The music is sleazy, it’s comforting and it’s invigoratingly pleasant to listen to. As evident by the albums artwork, it feels as if it is the soundtrack to a dating simulator that you’re playing in your head. The sampled tracks are mixed in a strange way that emphasises snare and the synthetic qualities of the muzak, possibly to hyperbolise how far the quality of digital music has come since the era that N E W V I S U A L S romanticises. This sleazy dating simulator music is consistent throughout the album, which doesn’t provide a lot of variety sonically though the brief running time of the album does compromise for this as well as it remaining aesthetically sound.
Though it’s not the first of its kind and can be accused (along with the entirety of the vaporwave sub-genre) of relying on the original songs to do all of the work musically, aesthetically N E W V I S U A L S is a satisfying take on the romantically satisfying yet ultimately plastic atmosphere created by dating simulator video games. While it doesn’t make for a particularly exciting listen, combined with bl00dwave’s visual art and a clear and open mind, N E W V I S U A L S certainly makes for an interesting little escape after a long day.
