A counter-revolution to the lo-fi nostalgia for cassette wobble and vinyl crackle, vaporwave, as this burgeoning genre has been dubbed, celebrates the state-of-the-art, the hi-def, multi-media virtual reality of glossy superficiality.
[Release page] A generation raised on air-brushed cover girls and corporate team-building exercises, living and working in climate-controlled, olfactory-designed mall and office complexes. A label luxuriating in the hitherto copyright-befuddled realm of uncleared samples, warez and digital delivery. New Zealand’s Crystal Magic Records celebrates this buffered ambiguity – who is sending, who is receiving? – with perfect pitch for the perfect pitch. Eyeliner’s High Fashion Mood Music looks and sounds like its most easy, breezy, beautiful product line extension.
A counter-revolution to the lo-fi nostalgia for cassette wobble and vinyl crackle, vaporwave, as this burgeoning genre has been dubbed, celebrates the state-of-the-art, the hi-def, multi-media virtual reality of glossy superficiality. A hobby project by Luke Rowell (Disasteradio), Eyeliner replicates familiar, mainstream synth-pop stamped with the Stock Aitken Waterman seal of approval (but without the lyrics) for a pretend audience of PR consultants, advertising copywriters, and high-frequency stock traders, piped into the lobbies and elevators of their gleaming, branded boutique hotels and head offices, music gazing a full fiscal quarter into the future.
There are a number of artists pursuing this tack at the moment, but few with the plastered-on “What, Me Worry?” smile and consistency of Eyeliner’s High Fashion Mood Music. The utter lack of a knowing wink and slavish fidelity to the tritest sound of the eighties is the twist, filtering out any hint of personality to the beat of those the ever-present, hexagonal electronic drum pads.
It’s not so much canned music for office, hotel and bar environments but soundtracks for the in-house TV commercials that celebrate these sanitized franchise chains. Antipodean antics of the highest and driest order.
High Fashion Mood Music is available on Crystal Magic [Release page]
