Review Summary: The original Pioneer of vaporwave creates an album that you must not forget about.
When you talk about the genre that is "Vaporwave" it always raises questions. It can be good criticism, or bad. But even if you don't like the genre, you can't deny while listening to it, it creates a surreal environment. This environment is pretty hard to come across in music, and even though the genre is heavily involved with sampling, it still manages to create something unique, fresh, and otherworldly. When people talk about the aspects of it, usually comes across as a "Joke genre" which is only in some artists, but it didn't exactly start out that way. Some people think it started all with Vektroid. While she helped put the genre on the map, In my opinion she wasn't serious about what she had created. If you read a little backstory, it seems what she did was in vain (for the most part). When she made MACINTOSH PLUS's Floral Shoppe, she took it for granted. It was all a joke to her, and didn't like that people actually loved the work she intended to be a joke, but people obviously saw more to it as a "joke". Others may say it started with Chuck Parson's Eccojams. While this is also semi true, it was one of the most recognized proto-vapor releases, and a masterpiece in it's own right. Usually Eccojams gets overshadowed by the one person who basically started it all, 骨架的.
Now if you don't know who 骨架的 is, you probably think you've been living under some rock, but actually not many people know about his work in all seriousness. The reason behind this is because most of his work mysteriously disappeared off the internet for quite a long time, and no one knows the reasoning behind it. Now it is possible now to find his work since it's all been reestablished, but now has been forgotten. When he disappeared for a full year, he came back and released a couple more albums back in 2012, and put up all of his early work back but hasn't done anything since. Now 骨架的 translates out to "Skeleton" in English, technically making this album a self-titled album.
Now we get to the album. Looking back on this can be a journey for a huge vapor fan as myself, And of course when the album starts, that is exactly what happens right from the get-go. The first track feels like you are being deployed into a magical space journey full of 80's and 90's nostalgia bundled into a thrill adventure. Like vaporwave is, it feels like what the future would've been in the eyes of a 90's kid like myself, full of internet post-commercialism glory. This album isn't like vapor artists like Vektroid, where it's mostly summed up by "slowing down Diana Ross", it's much more than that. the creativity in here is just genius, and it doesn't even feel like sampling, because you can hardly tell where he pulled them from. You can feel unsettling at times through the album, as some tracks can become very eerie at times, while at the same time can be very soothing. The tracks beg explanations, and they emit somewhat of a dark tone throughout the album, and while it can be scary some might say, it's more of a uncomfortably relaxation that most records can't pull off in my eyes.
This album is up and down a classic modern masterpiece, and it is hugely underrated, especially to the vaporwave community. If you are a fan of vaporwave, you need to check this out, because you can see where it all began. this record needs to have more attention, considering how important it is to the genre. while the album is relatively short, his second album holograms was released one month after this one, and if you want more from 骨架的, I would check it out as well, because it is also a brilliant piece of work. Do not forget about this album vaporwave fans, because the past is in the future.
