Spotted in Tokyo: Vaporwave music archives 2009 - 2019

Punp

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It'd be my pleasure. As mentioned I probably won't have much opportunity to really dive into it till December, but as soon I do I'll be sure to share it here!

(I was even thinking if there's any interest I could do a scan and put it online, will cross that bridge when I come to it.)
I really didn't want to ask, but I'm very interested in seeing it and translating it to find out what it's about. I can wait until December.
 
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13:56 (near 15:10) - identified as (google sound used) "new york jazz lounge (topic) - wave", or at least some sample, mashup, chop-n-skew of it: https://youtu.be/bRON8vaaXdA - some type of "hold music, mallsoft, muzak" to fill gap the fast way?
 
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Steingar

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I really didn't want to ask, but I'm very interested in seeing it and translating it to find out what it's about. I can wait until December.
Your wait is over. Find some pics attached.

It's such a well designed and aesthetic book, has actually become one of my favourite material objects. I'm going to have to nix the idea of scanning it (since I'd probably have to pull it apart to do it effectively), but if you want to do an eternal service to the community and buy/scan it yourself, you can find links below:

- Buy direct from DU Store here
- Order from Japan here (I think there's also Amazon/ebay listings but not sure if they're more expensive or not)
- The store I bought it from is literally this one here, but not sure if they have more in stock (I got the last one on the shelf)

Note that I have a pretty juicy project associated with this book which I plan to release to the community in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!
 

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BarnSwallow

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Damn it, I walked by that store while I was in Shibuya! I knew I should have asked which store you went to, but I didn't want to look like a stalker.

I'm curious, is the whole book as aesthetic as the sample images, or is it just a compendium of vaporwave releases? I'll still get it if shipping won't eat my wallet.
 
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Steingar

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Damn it, I walked by that store while I was in Shibuya! I knew I should have asked which store you went to, but I didn't want to look like a stalker.

I'm curious, is the whole book as aesthetic as the sample images, or is it just a compendium of vaporwave releases? I'll still get it if shipping won't eat my wallet.
Haha you shouldn't have worried about asking.

I definitely selected the more aesthetic pages as examples, but in general the whole book is nicely designed and well crafted. I'd say about 60-70% of it is indeed a catalogue/compendium (so looks very similar to image 5 from above, with the album reviews) but even flipping through that is nice to see how imaginative the vaporwave album covers are. The remaining 30-40% is interviews, definitions of vaporwave terms, graphs, images, essays, etc.

Overall, I'd recommend it to anyone who likes the vaporwave aesthetic, but yeah maybe weigh that against shipping costs, etc.
 
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Punp

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I have a very basic understanding of book binding - so it's not entirely impossible to buy it, strip it, scan it, and rebind it. If people are willing to chip in to the cost of buying the book to make it into a PDF I'd be down to clown. I just got my tax bill and it's entirely wiped out any profit I made this year.

Incredible looking object. Thanks for sharing photos. What format will your project take?
 
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Your wait is over. Find some pics attached
Have you seen replies i posted under video?
Found: Callais went away (paulstretched?) Maybe
Orchestra music, edit same way

You forgot to add that song i identified, Mall %something by CatCorp (on your YT video you posted here)
Also some my other posts got auto-deleted, i think it was link to RealVenom - Hate (bonus track) from "Save Yourself but Forget About Me" album. Link from webarchive:
 
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Steingar

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Incredible looking object. Thanks for sharing photos. What format will your project take?
Pleasure! It's essentially in a google sheet, which maybe gives away what it is, but I think folks will appreciate it anyhow.

I have a very basic understanding of book binding - so it's not entirely impossible to buy it, strip it, scan it, and rebind it. If people are willing to chip in to the cost of buying the book to make it into a PDF I'd be down to clown. I just got my tax bill and it's entirely wiped out any profit I made this year.
Count me in. I'll let you drive that discussion, but if you can get maybe 4 or 5 other people on board I'd be happy to contribute.
 
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Punp

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Pleasure! It's essentially in a google sheet, which maybe gives away what it is, but I think folks will appreciate it anyhow.


Count me in. I'll let you drive that discussion, but if you can get maybe 4 or 5 other people on board I'd be happy to contribute.
On further reflection, while the book is on sale I wouldn't want to detract from their success by making a digital copy. It looks like a very carefully curated art book - I'd definitely like to get a copy of my own - especially when you can pair it with google translate.

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The point is:
Was, is there any tracklist anywhere? On cd or in the booklet?
 
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Punp

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The point is:
Was, is there any tracklist anywhere? On cd or in the booklet?
There are some mentions of tracks. I've just bought a copy - I'll report back.
 
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Steingar

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It's arrived earlier this week! It really is a wedge of a book, isn't it? It's very dense with text beyond the aesthetic pages.
Ohh, a late Christmas gift then!

Haha yeah it's quite packed with stuff. Btw, if you want a digitised catalogue of all the albums in there and links to videos where you can watch them, check out this thread here:

 
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Punp

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Yes, excellent thread. I'm reading through with my phone right now.

The live translation is pretty good. I'm going to be sad when google discontinues it and locks it behind a paywall. Sample:

Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1

Chuck Person

The Curatorial Club

2010/08/08

The track "Angel" from this album can be seen in a video uploaded to YouTube by Sunset Corp. on July 19, 2009. It was uploaded exactly 10 years ago, and is said to be the origin of Vaporwave.

The person who uploaded it under the name of Sunset Corp. is Daniel Lopatin, also known as Oneohtrix Point Never (hereafter OPN). After "Angel," he uploaded "Nobody Here" and other songs with videos. The videos are simply loops of 1980s video deck commercials and old-fashioned computer graphics, which were the most advanced at the time, and the music is a sample of Toto's music, which is looped monotonously and speed-changed, to the point where it can be called a display. It is a strange sampling music that can only be described as junk. These songs uploaded on YouTube were released as an album on August 8, 2010, as "Chuck Person's Eccoj ams Vol.1." The jacket is modeled after a CG of a shark that resembles SEGA's MegaDrive, and the letters "ECCO" and "MEGA-" are displayed in large letters. Visuals and music that are the height of junky. You will notice that the foundations of this style were in place before the term vape or wave even existed.

When OPN was making "Angel," he said, "I was experimenting with all sorts of things while working on a new album." True to his words, in "Replica," released a year later, the same technique as Eccojams can be heard -- "collecting junk and displaying it like a monster." Artists who incorporate this technique and incorporate it into their own songs began to appear, and since this work, James Ferraro, Vektroid, and Kotsukateki have also released albums. When I interviewed Kotsukateki in 2017, when asked why he chose to use the motif that defines Vaporwave, he replied, "There was that kind of atmosphere on the internet." This is a clear example of the development of the music industry and music itself in 2009, and the nature of Vaporwave, which can be seen as a critique of that development.

I thought that it was definitely OPN that created the atmosphere.

I am not someone who takes Vaporwave seriously, but simply enjoys listening to it as music. However,

I'm still listening to Vaporwave because I was really curious about why this music took this approach. This is an album that I would recommend to anyone who has just heard the term Vaporwave and wants to know more about it. (△KTR
 
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