Music For Your Tape Recorder

This year started slowly as Lone's Galaxy Garden was still in hard rotation - or whatever technical phrase applies in the iTunes era. In the latter half of last year it suppressed everything else and continued to do so into the first half of 2013. 'Dream Girl/Sky Surfer' overtook 'Roygbiv' as my most listened song and is now beyond five hundred plays. Last time I checked I was listening to it twice a day on average, though I've slowed down a lot since it passed that mark. The rest of the album isn't far behind. Lone released a standalone single in June which you can see only six places into the list, giving you an idea of how little anything else caught my ear. It's a slightly shorter annual list than usual and probably more padded than I'd prefer, but that doesn't mean that there's little to talk about.

While most were creaming themselves at the return of Daft Punk, I was biding my time for Boards of Canada's long-awaited long play return. I held off pre-ordering because, although I was interested in the track they released as promotion ('Semena Mertvykh'), I was very wary of buying into the hype. There was too much opinion going about online declaring it would deliver Geogaddi 2, even though BoC are well known for creating music for themselves rather than releasing half-hearted fan-pleasing fodder. So I have to say I had mixed feelings. It was good, it just didn't grab me. There does seem to be some story behind what they described as the soundtrack to a film that doesn't exist and I toyed with writing a review or analysis, largely to spur my engagement with the record. 'Nothing is Real' was the stand-out track for me because it seemed like a reinterpretation of 'Roygbiv' from Music Has The Right To Children. Something in the musical structure made me feel as if it was a reprise three albums later. Unlike the infectious child-like optimism of 'Roygbiv', 'Nothing is Real' has a sombre melancholic feel as if the reprise reflects a distant optimism that the world failed to live up to. That really fits into the post-apocalyptic vibe that the album gives off. Tomorrow's Harvest doesn't have much wild variation in the lengths of tracks which characterised BoC's albums, and I was disappointed not to have some darker twisting songs like 'Alpha and Omega' which really made you feel like you had gone on a journey and emerged on the other side into daylight. However, I do like listening to 'New Seeds', 'Come to Dust', and 'Semena Mertvykh' in one go which come close to evoking Geogaddi.

In the latter part of this year I've been belatedly getting into the so-called Vaporwave genre. I either like being ahead of the curve or fashionably late, so all the calls of the death of the genre might allow me to get away with the latter. That said, I listed Oneohtrix Point Never's 'Nobody Here' (as Sunsetcorp) in 2010 and came across some other slightly less well-done examples in December 2011, but apparently missed Macintosh Plus entirely. I finally came across it (but can't remember how on YouTube) at the start of October whilst on my extended holiday and was hooked. A good chunk of obscure stuff in the last few months is down to reading the vaporwave thread on watmm.com. Seen as a broad genre, there are two strata of styles. Floral Shoppe represents the most polished of the 80s sampling, chopped, pitch-shifted form while the more denigrated output of that stratum might be characterised entirely as just slowing down a new jack swing song and splicing two parts together - in that case, there was little reason not to simply listen to the original listed below. 情報デスクVIRTUAL (Jōhō Desuku VIRTUAL) - much of the genre embraces gratuitous Japanese text, which I was into when I was 12 and translating imported Pokémon trading cards before Babelfish went live but have since got beyond - is in the other style of more original work. The album Contemporary Sapporo is a bit more obvious when it comes to the genre's ideas about the capitalist aesthetic. Non-music as music, the ambient soundtrack of the megamall and muzak of the corporate promotional video. The politics that is associated with the higher level of the genre is very interesting to me and something I'll be writing about soon enough.

Ceefax shutdown, BBC, 2012

On the lower level, the alleged ease of making a vaporwave track led me to actually upload something to my YouTube account after seven years. Inspired by the appropriation of muzak, I looked to my substantial Pages From Ceefax music (laregly courtesy of the YouTube channel Music From Ceefax). It's usually lambasted as terrible, and admittedly I don't like all of it, but it has a special place in my heart. I downloaded Audacity and played about with some tracks until coming home exhausted one day and suddenly within an hour stumbling upon an arrangement of samples (from 'Great Ocean Road') that was catchy. In the process of trying to find loops I came across a rhythm that was vaguely bossa nova and ran with it. 'Surf Coast Highway' is a bit raw given I'm not working with the original eight or more track recordings, and the first version was improved on after uploading. Also, it's totally legitimate to pad out my list with one example of my own stuff. The next track I uploaded ('It's Much Too Orangey') was far less transformative and kept to the idea of looping a sample repeatedly for effect. The latest, 'Sublimate Away', doesn't even disguise the fact I applied my favourite 45rpm to 33 1/3rpm time shift to Roxy Music's 'Dance Away' and looped part of the chorus. I spent more time trying to remember the name of a video editing program (VirtualDub), ripping the music video off YouTube, transcoding it in VLC, and matching the cuts to the music in Windows Movie Maker. Don't let anyone say this isn't a professional outfit.

Finally to the awards.

The Obscure Alternatives Award goes to tracks that are out of print or hard to find that nonetheless become favourites after someone uploads it to YouTube in 240p quality. Contemporary Sapporo was in the running for its limited CD-R run and thereafter digital only release, but it must fall to Software's 'Island-Sunrise'. When you listen to the other tracks on the parent album they all have a strong 80s new-age sound, yet 'Island-Sunrise' stands right out as something very modern and ahead of its time. I can almost see Slowking having a chill day.

The Roygbiv Eargasm Award must, by definition, go to a song that I can't stop listening to. 'Airglow Fires' could have netted Lone a second year in a row, however, I've gone for the very understated and minimal 'Time' by Internet Club. I haven't listened to it one hundred times in the space of a week like I did with 'Airglow Fires' (seriously), but I do bring up the page quite often and find the video as hypnotic as the music.

Finally, too, here is my year in music. And I've finished this just in time...

1. Now U Know Tha Deal 4 Real - Machinedrum ; Room(s) (2011)
2. Passin' Me By - Pharcyde ; Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde (1992)
3. Physical Memory - Oneohtrix Point Never ; Rifts III: Russian Mind (2009)
4. In Love With You - The Paradise ; [single] (2003)
5. Harm in Charge - Toro Y Moi ; Anything in Return (2013)
6. Airglow Fires - Lone ; [single] (2013)
7. Nothing is Real - Boards of Canada ; Tomorrow's Harvest (2013)
8. Golden Triangles - The Rangers ; Suburban Tours (2010)
9. M4CH1N3 L0V3 - Tapes ; ??? (???)
10. Theme from 'Behind the Curtain' - Skalpel ; Skalpel (2004)
11. Leave It - Yes ; 90125 (1983)
12. What a Fool Believes (12") - The Doobie Brothers ; [single] (1978) -- not new, but a GTAV moment
13. Midnight at the Oasis - Maria Muldaur ; Maria Muldaur (1973)
14. リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー (Modern Computing 420 / Lisa Frank) - Macintosh Plus ; Floral Shoppe (2011)
15. What Doesn't Kill You - Jake Bugg ; [single] (2013)
16. ORGSM - Giraffage ; Comfort (2011)
17. Hibiscus Pacific - Greeen Linez ; Things That Fade (2012)
18. Change of Coast - Neon Indian ; The Music of Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
19. Island-Sunrise - Software ; Digital Dance (1988)
20. Time - Internet Club ; - (2012?)
21. Make it Last Forever - Keith Sweat ; Make It Last Forever (1988)
22. Shop @Home Network LLC - 情報デスクVIRTUAL (Information Desk VIRTUAL) ; 札幌コンテンポラリー (Contemporary Sapporo) (2012)
23. Surf Coast Highway (Ver. II) - Faxual-C ; - (2013)
24. Obtener un Sí - Shakira ; Fijación Oral (2005)
25. Do My Thang - 7 Days of Funk ; 7 Days of Funk (2013) -- never thought Snoop Dogg would appear here
26. Chasin' Sandborn - Victor Feldman's Generation Band ; Call of the Wild (1984)
27. Wider Than The Sky - Quantic ; Apricot Morning (2002)
28. Walk a Crooked Path - VHS Head ; - (2013)

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