How The Sand Feels: A Glance at Slushwave

A Trek Into Vaporwave's Final Frontier

Discovering new pieces of culture on the Internet is basically algorithm-biased thrifting. If one watches a single type of video, listens to a single type of song, or reads a single type of article, our corporate-defined algorithmic structures attempt to drown us in similar content, a cacophony of automated digital merchants hawking their antiquated content within our market of virtual communication. This pattern of behavior by the recommendation algorithms creates an infinite crossroads of rabbit holes; countless paths down which there is little escape from the obsessive devouring of content.

It was within this context that I found myself listening to some truly strange music from an artist called desert sand feels warm at night¹. I had been binge-listening to vaporwave while working on lore-sheets for my D&D group; and an album from this artist landed in my recommendations. I was immediately drawn to the etherealness of their name and, upon listening, was instantly hooked to the music. I could tell it was vaporwave-esque in its use of 1980s samples, yet the music had been stretched into a hypnotic droning sound, akin to the works of one of my favorite artists, Godspeed You! Black Emperor. As I basked within the detuned soundscape, my curious Google searches produced a name for the music, and I rejoiced that I had discovered another, more recent subgenre of vaporwave: slushwave.