PC Music thread

  On 1/23/2015 at 3:26 AM, autopilot said:

In this day & age no electronic music should be without quality production, mixing, & mastering, regardless of genre.

yuck

  On 5/13/2015 at 5:11 PM, autopilot said:

Nah there isn't more to it than that, you hit the nail on the head. This & vaporwave are a bunch of people who've found they can coast on an uninteresting sonic trend (popularized by blogs & messageboards like this) to minor celebrity, despite not actually having the skill to make music interesting enough to not be confined to such a narrowly defined micro-genre.

 

In defense of vaporwave, that's never really hit it big, nor ever will, and there's a lot more underground appeal to it. It exists for the sake of existing sure, but it still mostly exists online and with little money being moved...if any at all.

 

PC music on the other hand - well we have Sophie playing festivals and QT is selling limited edition Red Bull manufactured "QT drinks" for $20 bucks a can. What drives me nuts is how much PC music and similar acts (Like Future Brown on WARP) have it both ways with their aesthetic and intents without actually making any substantive cultural or artistic statements. That RA review at least called it out a bit on it's superficial, seemingly bullshit efforts at irony or corporate critique. I dunno, I just prefer acts that are unabashed in their "fun" sound without all this PR-ridden image building...juke and footwork are a lot more appealing in that regard.

 

edit: link added

Edited May 15, 2015 by joshuatx

i think the production is funny and just off enough to be interesting. i enjoy the melodies and the lyrics are usually so vapid that they must be self aware. i don't go around reading all the press releases pertaining to it so i don't know what message they're trying to spin or care. it's just fun stupid music that everyone i know irl hates ;\

Well to be clear, I like it. Just, I dunno, maybe it needs more time to contextualize. And to play devil's advocate, they can't control all the meaning and discussion lauded upon them by the press. Maybe steer some of it sure, but not all of it.

How could anyone not be seduced by chopped & screwed training videos, muzak, smooth jazz & funk from the 80s and 90s, with colorful cyberpunk themes and Japanese letters as titles? :D

 

I think its the most off the wall, revolutionary, and most weird movement in modern music since punk rock / new wave- and its the closest to them in terns attitude & fun

  On 5/17/2015 at 11:09 AM, Lane Visitor said:

I think its the most off the wall, revolutionary, and most weird movement in modern music since punk rock / new wave- and its the closest to them in terns attitude & fun

  On 5/17/2015 at 11:09 AM, Lane Visitor said:

How could anyone not be seduced by chopped & screwed training videos, muzak, smooth jazz & funk from the 80s and 90s, with colorful cyberpunk themes and Japanese letters as titles? :D

 

I think its the most off the wall, revolutionary, and most weird movement in modern music since punk rock / new wave- and its the closest to them in terns attitude & fun

 

Maybe I just need to go hear it in a shopping mall to really appreciate the dozens of layers of sonic irony at play.

  On 5/17/2015 at 4:34 PM, autopilot said:

 

  On 5/17/2015 at 11:09 AM, Lane Visitor said:

 

How could anyone not be seduced by chopped & screwed training videos, muzak, smooth jazz & funk from the 80s and 90s, with colorful cyberpunk themes and Japanese letters as titles? :D

 

I think its the most off the wall, revolutionary, and most weird movement in modern music since punk rock / new wave- and its the closest to them in terns attitude & fun

Maybe I just need to go hear it in a shopping mall to really appreciate the dozens of layers of sonic irony at play.

Lol well ive found that the irony aspect is only relevant for the meme aspects of the genre... For us ppl who really enjoy it, there seems to be an actual appreciation of the cheesiness, the atmosphere, the relaxing and jazzy nature of the source material. If you can look past the pretentiousness and enjoy the sounds as a conceptual/themed journey, thats where the fun starts. For example, ive always been fascinated with hotels, airplanes, travel, neon city lights, and a lotta vaporwave albums incorporate these elements with the whole virtual plaza / resort thing. Its silly and weird, but i like silly and weird. I just think vaporwave resonates with certain people that are able to enjoy big dumb silly pretentious shlock- not for irony sake, but because it's fun and is an escape from the often seriousness of most art today.

 

Another thing i like about it, is the dystopian ultra-digital side... PrismCorp Virtual Enterprises put out two releases that are essentially a collection of keyboard demos, ringtones, etc- all the cheesiest midi beats you could imagine, but all very well orchestrated tracks with sounds ranging from blues to prog rock to ragtime to lounge to fusion- but all in very basic midi and stock sounds. It's assumed that she did't compose this music but rather assemble and package the tracks and fit them to themes like a heavily conceptualized movie soundtrack. The resulting experience is the most bizarre combination of vapid/hollow/cold/digital/non-human with quirky/fun/happy/exciting/innocent/playful/colorful... It's this juxtaposition and context that makes it a somewhat creepy, somewhat hilarious and a very interesting album listening experience. There's a mystery in both wondering where the source material is from (did Vektroid maaaybe compose it or parts of it or is safe to assume it was arranged from various found tracks that were originally made in the dusty studios of some Japanese keyboard demo composers circa 1991, CD-ROM studios, etc) and also in the musical journey itself.

Edited May 17, 2015 by Lane Visitor

  On 5/17/2015 at 4:34 PM, autopilot said:

 

  On 5/17/2015 at 11:09 AM, Lane Visitor said:

How could anyone not be seduced by chopped & screwed training videos, muzak, smooth jazz & funk from the 80s and 90s, with colorful cyberpunk themes and Japanese letters as titles? :D

 

I think its the most off the wall, revolutionary, and most weird movement in modern music since punk rock / new wave- and its the closest to them in terns attitude & fun

 

Maybe I just need to go hear it in a shopping mall to really appreciate the dozens of layers of sonic irony at play.

 

What happened that made you so cynical.

 

Its just pop music that's a little bit weird and fun. If your gauge of how good music is is only on how ironic everything is then lets all make tune out of our farts and call it a day.

Edited May 17, 2015 by chassis

Dude Fartwave is a huge microgenre and I've already written many Tumblr think pieces on it.

https://soundcloud.com/starfin/sophie-ooh

A. G. Cook mixing Shiz Ko E with GFOTY @ 7:15

 

lol at the lights on full blast

  On 5/27/2015 at 6:20 AM, NoResults said:

A. G. Cook mixing Shiz Ko E with GFOTY @ 7:15

 

 

HA class. Great spot.

  On 6/2/2015 at 6:41 PM, funkaholic said:

A rip from the boiler room set.

  On 6/2/2015 at 9:12 PM, chassis said:

 

  On 6/2/2015 at 6:41 PM, funkaholic said:

A rip from the boiler room set.

 

yep, but they've done something to audio so it sounds better then the boiler room youtube?

  On 6/2/2015 at 10:58 PM, funkaholic said:

 

  On 6/2/2015 at 9:12 PM, chassis said:

 

  On 6/2/2015 at 6:41 PM, funkaholic said:

A rip from the boiler room set.

 

yep, but they've done something to audio so it sounds better then the boiler room youtube?

 

Oh yes, some nice fella converted it to mono to edit it and then back into stereo I think. I remember that a while back.

 

Theres a mediafire somewhere around.

No idea what the "silicon product" is but theres 2 new EPs on the way from sophie

http://shop.msmsmsm.com/

PC Music is a bit hit or miss for me but when it's good it's really good. Dunno, it's like old Sega Saturn soundtracks crossed with future J-pop or something, and IMO the wonky production is pretty exciting - I bet you could make some god-level edits out of some of the random details in those tracks.

 

By the way, does the production sound 2015? I guess there are bits that do, and the mastering has that blunt, recorded-on-laptop feel, but to me it sounds more like a videogame soundtrack made on a mix of digital Roland and Yamaha gear circa 1997. You guys weren't Sega fans eh?

Edited October 4, 2015 by poblequadrat

btw

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DClTOh1LPGY

just like electro gave us ae i'm pretty sure someone is making alien sounds inspired by pc music somewhere

Edited October 4, 2015 by poblequadrat

heres one of the tracks thats being released on the newest EPs coming out

 

edit, sorry its m4a ill have to convert it

Edited October 5, 2015 by chassis

Jesus, audacity wouldnt even convert it. A live rip is here

 

http://www25.zippyshare.com/v/HEdEisUu/file.html

this and nitecore are the future of pop music and no joke are IDM's "in" on the mainstream and getting widespead radio plays, imo. some of it is shit some of it really fucking good. it's happened already and it's got a lot of the purist's undies in a bunch, but i see as an insurrection of sorts...

  On 8/5/2014 at 10:45 PM, Zorro said:

And here I was hoping for the soundtrack to The Secret of Monkey Island to be in here

lol I had a very similar thought when I read the the thread topic