Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

CVLTVRE - NEW [Dream Catalogue - 2020]

" />
NEW is the first release from Dream Catalogue this decade and one of the most "traditional" sounding vaporwave records put out by the label in a good couple of years. CVLTVRE (Stephen Malet) emerged during the peak years of the vaporwave phenomenon, releasing a slew of records in 2014 under a number of monikers before appearing to head off on a trajectory towards IDM, trap and future garage styles on his last solo record as CVLTVRE for Dream Catalogue, Surreal (2016). On NEW, however, he returns with a welcome refinement of classic vaporwave, which Dream Catalogue have in their inimitable fashion christened "Intervapeur".

While this may be "traditional" vaporwave, nevertheless it's thankfully free of much of the lazy long form sampling and detuned pop ephemera that came to blight the back end of the style's peak in the mid 2010s. That being said NEW still deals in the kind of queasy, lo-fi easy listening and corporate melodies that are the genre's signature. The difference here is that they are original compositions, aged and crafted in much the same way as groups like Boards of Canada and some of the artists associated with hauntology produce their work. Indeed comparisons to the acclaimed Edinburgh duo are not unwarranted as many of the album's melodic high points would sit well on early BOC records like Music Has the Right to Children.

Irony and appropriation are key facets of the vaporwave aesthetic, and on NEW we find them deployed in the dreamy samples drawn from advertisements for Bounty chocolate bars on Taste of Paradise and the ubiquitous Japanese dialogue drifting through Shiny Intelligence. These uses can easily sound trite or shallow, but the quality and authenticity of Stephen Malet's melodies means these songs never risk that fate. Indeed it's the melodic core that really makes this album shine. On songs like Tiles, Magazines or Ocean Plastic simple lounge tunes are transformed into somnambulistic waltzes fit for the sterile corporate dystopia in which many of us in the West live. But - and this is the trick with the best vaporwave - the dark melancholy implicit in these tunes, while evoking the shallow, the corporate, and ultimately a world of limited horizons dedicated to little else than compulsion, is also extremely listenable and disarming. This dual effect of corporate music aesthetics is something Richard Chartier has also been exploring with his Pinkcourtesyphone project.

There are a few curveballs included here too. Access includes a sample of what sounds like a radio phone-in with Michal Dorn (Worf on Star Trek the Next Generation) which adds a suitably melancholic geek dimension (particularly for those of us of a certain age) and marries beautifully with slow funk bass and new-age ambient pads. And finally the guest "vocal" from Arthur Reptilian (no idea either) on Dream Again is a lonely ballad marrying DJ Screw with early Sade to suitably mind bending effect. NEW distils everything that was interesting and radical in vaporwave, while adding a maturity and musical flare that suggests there is still a good deal of life left in it.

Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5

Duncan Simpson
Latest Reviews

CVLTVRE - NEW
NEW is the first release from Dream Catalogue this decade and one of the most "traditional" sounding vaporwave records put out by the label in a good couple ...
290324   Stuart Argabright & AfterAfte...
290324   Piranha - Piranha(DVD)
280324   Typhoon Club - Typhoon Club(B...
270324   Jerzy Skolimowski Collection ...
260324   Latex Choker - Sealed
260324   Occlusion - 59: No Input Wall
260324   Nihil Impvlse - Anabasis
260324   Marta Forsberg - Sjunger För...
260324   The New Boy - The New Boy( Th...
250324   The Stargazer’s Assistant - ...
Latest Articles

The Music of Clay Ruby & Burial H...
Over the last couple of decades Wisconsin native, Clay Ruby has been creating some of the world’s finest dark electronic music under the Burial Hex mon...
280324   The Music of Clay Ruby & Buri...
290224   Sutcliffe No More - Normal Ev...
100124   Occlusion - The Operation Is...
181223   Best Of 2023 - Music, Sound &...
051223   Powerhouse Films - Of Magic, ...
181023   IO - Of Sound, Of Art, Of Exp...
210923   Lucky Cerruti - Of Not so Fri...
290823   The Residents - The Trouble W...
110723   Yotzeret Sheydim Interview - ...
250523   TenHornedBeast - Into The Dee...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2023. Twenty two years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom