Taking a quick break from staring into the void to introduce y’all to our newest Cultr H0R — Phano, vaporwave aficionado, cultural critic, and spiritual being of pure soul, according to an amateur star chart reader who was coming up on DMT at the time. I’ve a feeling he’ll be right at home.
Chad & Phano
WDYT?
One day, in 5th grade, back when I was unhinged and properly zen, I drew the Iron Man from my Iron Man backpack. It looked horrifying. But everyone thought it looked cool. At the end of the day, I gave my drawing to the girl who sat next to me, because I hated it. I hated how it stared back at me, ashamed of its existence and its creator. The girl gave it back to me the next day, but it wasn’t the same. She had colored it in. It made it much worse. But somehow, it seemed to have a certain charm to it now. A charm not present when only I had drawn it. It was complete, and I, in that moment, felt complete in my failure.
Is that love? You decide. All I know is, it’s a familiar feeling for anyone who has contributed the Uber Underground in the hopes of killing it once and all, only to find it still kicking and screaming and promising to give its take on the continuance of life. Maybe I’m just looking for love in all the wrong places, though. Namely, SoundCloud and Spotify.
But I’m here anyway. So, while I wait, have some love songs from the void.
BANGERS
Monger - Synthetic Love
I’m over bitching about Tinder. If you dive deep enough into the Reddit rabbit hole to discover the next stage of human evolution in terms of mate-finding, you’ll find the answer: androids, and the various uses they provide. Maybe you find that disgusting. But it is what it is. Time’s arrow marches forward, and I, for one, have come to terms with it. We were swiping away on this algorithmic machine, but what we didn’t realize was that the machine was also swiping away at us. Are we doomed? Not really. Wait until we separate the abstract unconscious from our biochemistry, then the fun will begin! This is synthetic love. It’s hip right now, so go check Monger out, and try to see the bigger picture.
Radikio - blindness
Most of what we see is not real, and most of what is real we don’t see.
I thought I was over my vaporwave phase, but clearly not. The Internet-est genre of music out there can only be understood as nostalgia-inducing navel gazing. If you’ve ever delved deep into your thoughts while listening to anything resembling vaporwave, you’ve accessed a different dimension of thought entirely unbeknownst to you, plain and simple. The next time you decide to do the same deep-brain processing, however, think about love, instead of pink moons and severed Roman statue heads. Think about the modern generation’s blindness when it comes to finding love in others, while entirely forgetting everything else that deserves more love than the one you give to others. Do it to this track, too.
“It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”
-Bruce Lee
BOPS
Basu - Faith (w/ Ave)
Few and far between are R&B love songs with a feature. Call it egoism, homophobia, what you will. Normally, you get one epitome of masculinity singing his heart out against heartbreak and emotional breakdown. Two SoundCloud artists, singing together, while managing to sound cohesive, coherent, and on the same wavelength of general depression is quite a feat to achieve. Not technically, of course — I managed the same feat consistently back in my own SC collective days — but in terms of the truth that must be mustered to ask your homie to share your heartbreak on a song with you. It’s one path forward for those of you that are somewhat lost or have had your heart ripped to pieces. Call your closest homies. They’ll be there for you. Overall, nice production and lyrics.
CHUNES
outsidenightair - 03.10.22
Different spaces in time have their own flavor. You may well call it ambience, aesthetic, aura. I prefer flavors. It’s like smelling the insides of an intergalactic hydrogen-based luxury spaceship headed towards the Milky Way despite never experiencing it. (Unless that alien abduction wasn’t a mid-weed-induced panic attack after all.)
Sounds make less physical sense without repetitive drums in the background. However, they do make more metaphysical sense, whatever that means. An hour-long amalgam of extraterrestrial ancestral sounds can take you further into the void than you might want, but if you need to come back, just envision yourself ruining the moment by having to put a beat on it. And if you’re further into this metaphor than you might want, to be clear, I am just making fun of the human need to be physically present, rather than daydreaming every second, as I do daily.
Sonahpiste - Silent Ambivalence of the Mother
Do you ever feel that your ancestral mother is shutting you out, despite you trying your best to make amends? Sometimes you can’t reach her because you are too busy moving in another direction. She’s extremely possessive and hates not getting attention. So, you pay her attention indefinitely, only to be met with boredom and indifference. Ah, what a toxic meta universal entity she is. How do you find a solution to this problem? I don’t know. This ambient sound for a strong 10-minute meditation might help though.
WHAT ELSE
- Painless by Nilüfer Yanya, because… I don’t know, I haven’t actually listened to it yet, the Internet just told me I should
- Cameo by Mick Flannery, because there’s no better way to celebrate the Feast of St. Patrick than whiskey-soaked meditations on the meaningless of life
- Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road, because I am invincible in these sunglasses
