Crisp, tranquil and alluring, this album is a must for those seeking escapism into a realm of limitless magic and mysterious love.
Anonymous deep ambient and vaporwave producer 泰合志恒, more frequently known as t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 (an artist I have been closely following to near a year now) is renowned for diligently maintaining a sound that is both broad and truly unique to themselves, encompassing blissful melodies, dense echoscapes and hypnotic vocal leads lathered in reverb and pitched down to the point of lyrical incomprehensibility. Such techniques, among others, are well favoured in the the world of vaporwave—an art movement with ambiguous definition founded on the internet with its early influences established in 2010 (some vaporwave releases, including this one, can be found on our Best of 2015 list)—yet when implemented by 泰合志恒, a very specific and recognizable sonic signature is accomplished, heard, in one respect or another, in all of t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者’s releases.
Thus the artist’s Tokyo Exchange release, 神秘的情人 (translating from the Japanese as Mysterious Lover) holds an identity as an album, like other t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 albums, that is full of common ground from the whole project, yet confidently holds its own unique character. Its songs, ranging from three minutes to pushing fourteen, are dense and lo-fi, that frequently takes advantage of low bit rate quality to have digital artifact and textures aid the ever expanding cupolas of unusual and hypnotic atmospheres. This is a noisy album, but not in the conventional sense of noise music. Rather, its raw noisiness, perhaps originating from the source materials of the music or the resampling of texture, is a warm and analogue wash across a digital sea.
Indeed, the juxtaposing atmosphere of this digital/analogue duality is not only an effective aspect of the album’s production style, but an endearing technique of the composition itself. When I listen to this record, it feels as though it was stumbled upon on an early 2000s peer-to-peer network, perhaps originally ripped from a dusty old cassette yet ultimately with no information or source provided as to what it was or what it meant, and with such digital decaying to it due to poor bandwidth that the resulting product becomes a mangle of weird noise and texture. Yet such obscurity contributes to the fascinating and immersive experience that is forced upon the listener, compelling one to do nothing but keep listening.
Like many albums under the vaporwave tag, and especially in the case of t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者, there is the implication of a concept pulling this album together, yet its vagueness, with the melancholic sense of isolation found in some tracks contrasted with its warmer tones and deeper atmospheres in others, leaves much for the imagination to fill on its own. For me, I am swimming across dreamscapes of a mysterious Utopian world that, despite its somewhat alien atmosphere, proceeds to encapsulate and welcome me with open arms and a loving embrace. As a result, the name Mysterious Lover seems very appropriate. This mystery is intensified with the ease every track has towards being easily not a specific focus within the listening experience, regardless of its frequently very memorable motifs and phrases. Instead, taking the full album as one movement of sound as opposed to a mere collection of tracks, this album is a fine representation of a concept album, making for a truly remarkable, dynamic and captivating trip.
神秘的情人 is, above all, hypnotic in its truest sense. Its mesmeric quality is unique and unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Crisp, tranquil and alluring, this album is a must for those seeking escapism into a realm of limitless magic and mysterious love.
神秘的情人 is available on Tokyo Exchange.
