In the past, Azusa Suga’s Shortcake Collage Tape project has drawn a feeling of longing for the past…whether experienced or nostalgia for an idea of older times…from samples. His still-absorbing Spirited Summer used clips from an array of sources (anime, YouTube pre-roll ads, classical music) to build an out-of-time listen, more or less a vaporwave…
This isn’t the first time non-sampled vocals have appeared on a Shortcake Collage Tape – but this is the first time the words have really drilled in. “Del Mar” finds Azusa Suga (also of For Tracy Hyde) sampling at least part of a song from last year’s Town Age album by Sotaisei Riron, submerging it…
I mean, its definitely a misleading title on a lot of levels, mostly because to reduce Shortcake Collage Tape down to being just “chillwave” does a great disservice. Yeah, the adjectives that comes to mind for this (Mogwai-referencing?) song fit…hazy, blurred, chilled out. Yet it owes just as much to vaporwave, and even dropping something…
So…vaporwave. It is (was?) one of those Internet-spawned genres that sounds interesting written down…accelerationists! Trash music! Capitalism!…but gets confusing fast when you start trying to figure out what vaporwave actually sounds like. Even if you settle on a sonic definition of what it is…to me, I consider it music built out samples taken mostly from…
Shortcake Collage Tape sounds best when his music seems recorded straight to VHS. New song “✈Empire≈Beach☼” (sorry, no symbols from here on out) resembles the excellent “Polaroid Full Of Kisses” from earlier this year, as SCT filters the whole track through fuzz. It has a tropical vibe to it, “Empire Beach” sounding like it could…