This selection was picked by Gen Z son.

From Wikipedia: “Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, a visual art style, and an Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s. It is defined by its mimetic embrace of Internet culture and its sampling of 1980s and 1990s styles such as smooth jazz, elevator music, R&B, and lounge music, typically manipulating tracks via chopped and screwed techniques and other effects. The surrounding subculture is sometimes associated with an ambiguous or satirical take on consumer capitalism and pop culture, and tends to be characterized by a nostalgic or surrealist engagement with the popular entertainment, technology and advertising of previous decades. Visually, it incorporates early Internet imagery, late 1990s web design, glitch art, anime, 3D-rendered objects, and cyberpunk tropes in its cover artwork and music videos.”

Gen X dad says… Unsurprisingly the vaporwave genre wasn’t on my radar until Gen Z son brought it to my attention.  The Wikipedia definition above points to its “satirical take on consumer capitalism and pop culture.” I’m not sure I get that out of what Death’s Dynamic Shroud, who hail from Pennsylvania, is doing here. Nonetheless I really enjoyed listening to this.

This album, released on a limited edition cassette in 2019, was recorded on the group’s NEO GAIA PHANTASY  tour of Japan in the fall of 2018. It is the group’s 15th release since 2014. A live album by an outfit whose work is built on manipulations of various source music and sound clips seems like an odd thing. But it works here.

Many of the tracks are remixed versions of video game music and K-POP songs along with other sources. Though I’m mostly unfamiliar with the source material (closing track TTFN K? is a cover of Vera Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again, but that’s about all I knew), I enjoyed very much the cut up and manipulated approach taken here. There’s a fragile, ephemeral feel to some of these tracks that’s reminiscent of dubstep legend Burial’s more recent EPs. But these are absent the grime and darkness he sometimes infuses into his work.

Key tracks for me were Butterflies, He Said Be Said, Rare Emoji Collection,  BAE, and 南サンドリア〔s〕.

Gen Z son says… While many of us know vaporwave from its trademark song, Macintosh Plus’s brilliant リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー (“co-written” by Diana Ross and Doug Parkinson), the genre isn’t all just slowed-down 80s/90s pop. Some artists like to experiment with live instruments, video game OSTs, and modern K-Pop or J-Pop.  Death’s Dynamic Shroud, a vaporwave trio – or in this case, duo – coming out of Philadelphia, are one of those.

Their first ever live album, Live From Japan, recorded at their NEO GAIA PHANTASY tour from November 2018, is an ethereal, reverberating, and, at times, peaceful journey. As noted by Gen X Dad, it is also reminiscent of Burial, without all the grimy, dark undertones and a more peppier, chipper sound. There’s Ambient/New Age numbers, too; He Said Be Said eases the listener with a soft, calming piano riff, and the twinkling chimes of 南サンドリア〔s〕are perfect to meditate to.

But the experimental parts of the album stand strong as well. James Webster and Tech Honors chop up the likes of K-Pop girl groups TWICE (hence the name of the first track), AOA, and Red Velvet. The only problem with Ice Cream For Breakfast is that it ends too fast. Rare Emoji Collection and BAE are unique, intriguing takes on the mainstream Dance-Pop we hear today. And, hey, if your band can turn Vera Lynn’s classic We’ll Meet Again into the perfect end to a perfect album, they can probably do anything.

To sum up this review, Death’s Dynamic Shroud’s Live From Japan is certainly a masterpiece, and proves that James and Tech are, simply, masters of the vaporwave genre. Maybe even THE best.