Slushwave?
“Shhhh. Hear that, babe? It’s the sound of 1000 toilets flushing simultaneously. Mmm. Relaxing.”
Ummm… What
Slushwave is a sub-genre of vaporwave based around the works of t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者. The style generally uses samples of music from the 80s and 90s with excessive amounts of looping, reverb, flangers, and delays to give it that classic slushy sound. While for the most part being identical to classic vaporwave, slushwave is distinguished by embodying the onomatopoeia of its namesake.
The style has very little to do with other water-type genres Sea Punk, or Ocean Grunge, aside from its aquatic themes. I feel Slushwave is more closely tied to Mallsoft where sample-based droning is more commonly employed. At some point, keeping up with these micro-genre names becomes a bit tedious. I don’t speak any of this out loud and even less to another person because I’m already eccentric enough, I don’t need someone trying to get me committed to a psych ward. How about we just call your music crazy instead so we know what to expect and subdue disappointment.
Telepath coined the name slushwave to describe their own music in 2014, but I think Neon Indian unintentionally created first iteration of the style in 2009 when they remixed Grizzly Bear’s song ‘Cheerleader.’ Back then this sort of sound was starting to spin off from Chillwave, into a grittier style that was being called glo-fi that I think was the real precursor to vaporwave. I vaguely recall a blog called Altered Zones from that era which had been dedicated to this style, and Daniel Lopatin who would later be credited with creating vaporwave, would often pop up under the moniker ‘Games,’ which included Joel Ford.
Not to discredit telepath, as they have already faced enough controversy online, but this sound was definitely not new when they started making albums in this style. I think that Dream Punk perfected the sound, and moved it in its own direction, whereas slushwave is kept purposely lo-fi. A lot of samples used in slushwave come from City Pop, Cantopop, and various east Asian genres.
Aesthetically, slushwave art is mostly just washed-out depictions of Asian women in awkward juxtaposition to bodies of water, pool related imagery, and lazy edits of VHS stills. Don’t ask me why. We don’t ask questions here. All in all, slushwave is a bit more tolerable than other sub-genres of vaporwave, but the bar is set pretty low.
Slushwave is notable in its questionably long track formats. Tracks longer than 10 minutes aren't unusual. Conceptually, alot of slushwavers are just regurgitated versions of telepath, but undeniably there have been some highlights. The bandcamp tag has some interesting stuff. Definitely support some artists if you like what you hear.
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“Hey cutie, it’s me, your paranoid schizophrenic obsession with water in semi-liquid states.”
AUTHOR
Van Paugam is an Internationally-Acclaimed DJ and leading figure specializing in 70s and 80s Japanese Music, dubbed City Pop. He has organized and hosted over 100 events dedicated to the style, and actively promotes Japanese culture while on the board of the Japanese Arts Foundation of Chicago. He has been featured on CNN, NHK, and many other publications. He is credited with being the first person to begin popularizing City Pop online through his mixes on YouTube in 2016, and subsequently through live events. Learn More…
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