Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It is often "peaceful" sounding and lacks composition, beat, and/or structured melody. It uses textural layers of sound that can reward both passive and active listening and encourage a sense of calm or contemplation. The genre is said to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual", or "unobtrusive" quality. Nature soundscapes may be included, and the sounds of acoustic instruments such as the piano, strings and flute may be emulated through a synthesizer.
Lo-fi is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate choice. The standards of sound quality (fidelity) and music production have evolved over the decades, meaning that some older examples of lo-fi may not have been originally recognized as such. Lo-fi began to be recognized as a style of popular music in the 1990s, when it became alternately referred to as DIY music. Some subsets of lo-fi music have become popular for their perceived nostalgic and/or relaxing qualities, which originate from the imperfections that define the genre.
Chillwave is a music microgenre that emerged in the late 2000s. It is characterized by evoking the popular music of the late 1970s and early 1980s while engaging with notions of memory and nostalgia. Common features include a faded or dreamy retro pop sound, escapist lyrics, psychedelic or lo-fi aesthetics, mellow vocals, slow-to-moderate tempos, effects processing, and vintage synthesizers.
Daniel Lopatin, best known as Oneohtrix Point Never or OPN, is an American experimental electronic music producer, composer, singer, and songwriter. His music has utilized tropes from various musical genres and eras, sample-based composition, and complex MIDI production.
Far Side Virtual is a studio album by American electronic musician James Ferraro, released on October 25, 2011 by Hippos in Tanks. Conceived as a series of ringtones, the album marked Ferraro's transition from his previous lo-fi recording approach to a sharply produced, electronic aesthetic that deliberately evokes sources such as elevator music, corporate mood music, easy listening, and early computer sound design. The album has been interpreted as engaging with themes such as hyperreality, disposable consumer culture, 1990s retrofuturism, advertising, and musical kitsch.
Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music and a subgenre of hauntology, a visual art style, and an Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s, and became well-known in 2015. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, 1970s elevator music, R&B, and lounge music from the 1980s and 1990s. The surrounding subculture is sometimes associated with an ambiguous or satirical take on consumer capitalism and pop culture, and tends to be characterized by a nostalgic or surrealist engagement with the popular entertainment, technology and advertising of previous decades. Visually, it incorporates early Internet imagery, late 1990s web design, glitch art, anime, stylized Ancient Greek or Roman sculptures, 3D-rendered objects, and cyberpunk tropes in its cover artwork and music videos.
Floral Shoppe is the ninth studio album by the American electronic musician Ramona Andra Langley under the alias Macintosh Plus, released on December 9, 2011 by the independent record label Beer on the Rug. It was one of the first releases of the 2010s microgenre known as vaporwave to gain popular recognition on the Internet. Since then, Floral Shoppe has been considered by some critics to be the defining album of the style.
Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 is a 2010 album of remixes by American electronic musician Daniel Lopatin under the pseudonym Chuck Person. Its tracks consist of chopped, looped samples of various songs—including popular songs from the 1980s and 1990s—processed with effects such as delay, reverb, and pitch shifting; the results highlight mournful or existential moments from the sources. It was used as an initial template for the vaporwave internet microgenre.
Hypnagogic pop is pop or psychedelic music that evokes cultural memory and nostalgia for the popular entertainment of the past. It emerged in the mid to late 2000s as American lo-fi and noise musicians began adopting retro aesthetics remembered from their childhood, such as radio rock, new wave pop, light rock, video game music, synth-pop, and R&B. Recordings circulated on cassette or Internet blogs and were typically marked by the use of outmoded analog equipment and DIY experimentation.
Sushi is a studio album by the American electronic musician James Ferraro, released on November 7, 2012, by the independent record label Hippos in Tanks. The electronica dance-pop record has a much more mainstream sound than Ferraro's past albums, continuing some of the trap, R&B and hip-hop underpinnings that were a part of Ferraro's two mixtapes Inhale C-4 $$$$$ (2012) and Silica Gel (2012), released under his Bebetune$ and Bodyguard monikers, respectively. Sushi garnered mixed to positive reviews upon its release, a common criticism being its lack of depth or indication of a main concept.
Night Dolls with Hairspray is a studio album by American electronic musician James Ferraro, released on October 31, 2010 by Olde English Spelling Bee. Described as a "cycle of bubblegum pop songs," its lo-fi sound draws on sources such as 1980s pop culture tropes, B-movies, and glam punk. The album garnered generally favorable reviews from critics, and was called a "weirdo masterpiece of the 21st century" by Impose.
NYC, Hell 3:00 AM is a studio album by American musician James Ferraro, released digitally and physically on October 15, 2013 by the label Hippos in Tanks. The album, stylistically exploring a combination of R&B and avant-garde music, was Ferraro's first album recorded with studio instrumentation. It began as a conceptual project, described by Ferraro as "a surreal psychological sculpture of American decay and confusion", for him to only record at or around midnight, and the album's material was "realized" instead of structured and planned out.
Skid Row is a studio album by American electronic musician James Ferraro, released on November 13, 2015 by Break World Records. Lyrically, it had previously existed as a series of poems before it turned into a set of lyrics for an album named after the crime-and-poverty-heavy Los Angeles area Skid Row. It is the Los Angeles counterpart to Ferraro's previous studio effort NYC, Hell 3:00 AM (2013). Its sound palette includes elements of funk, news reports, new jack swing, film scores, smooth jazz and 1980s rock and hip-hop. The album garnered generally positive reviews upon its release.
Human Story 3 is a studio album by American electronic musician James Ferraro, self-released on June 14, 2016. Displaying a turn towards the style and aesthetic of modern classical, the album's concept revolves philosophically and structurally on how technology that can be used meaningfully is often used less usefully for commerce and, as a result, how the technology may eventually end up subverting humanness. The record garnered critical acclaim and landed at number seven on Tiny Mix Tapes' year-end list of the best albums of 2016.
Suki Girlz is a mixtape by producer James Ferraro, self-released under the moniker user703918785 on SoundCloud on July 2, 2014. The concept of the trap mixtape is symbolized through both its sound and its marketing; all of the tracks are low-quality and borrow tropes common in music self-released on sites like SoundCloud, and it was released with the name user703918785, which spoofs the spambots of these services, thus making it symbolically disposable. It garnered favorable opinions from music journalists, landing at number one on a list of the best mixtapes of 2014 by Pretty Much Amazing.
Last American Hero is a studio album by American musician James Ferraro, released on November 10, 2008 by Taped Sounds. It was later repressed in March 2010 by Olde English Spelling Bee.
Hauntology is a music genre or a loosely defined stylistic feature that evokes cultural memory and aesthetics of the past. It developed in the 2000s primarily among British electronic musicians, and typically draws on British cultural sources from the 1940s to the 1970s, including library music, film and TV soundtracks, psychedelia, and public information films, often through the use of sampling.
Jornt Elzinga, commonly known as Cat System Corp., is a Dutch musician regarded as a vaporwave figure that originated the mallsoft subgenre. He also previously recorded as Mesektet for his dark ambient releases.
Luke Laurila, better known as Telepath, is an American musician notable for his considerable impact within the vaporwave scene. During the mid-2010s, his ambient sound and dream-like presentation turned him into the main originator of the slushwave subgenre. He also released albums under the alias Virtual Dream Plaza, and he currently releases music under the pseudonym Tianhuojian.
