Your FutureSounds staff writers are back with their latest picks and ‘on-repeats’ as we approach the end of a stacked 2024! We’ll be back in the new year with plenty of fresh content, but for now – Happy New Year from all of the team!
Thom’s Pick:
Andy Loebs – ‘Cercopithecoid’ (Orange Milk Records)
My final pick of the year is an ambitious and virtuosic album from Orange Milk artist Andy Loebs that is clever/conceptual, but also very funny. The album name ‘Cercopithecoid’ seems to be inspired by the popular monkey videos of the early internet. I’m reminded of another musical prankster, Geordie Greep, who also talked about his enthusiasm for these in a recent Reddit AMA.
Nostalgia for childhood computing seems to be a recurring theme with the Big Box Dorling Kindersley sound palette, and track names like ‘CD Burner’. Fans of Far Side Virtual or trndytrndy’s streaming smash Virtua will enjoy this for sure. In keeping with the OM house style, Loebs smashes together disparate genres and techniques, from heady IDM to hands-in-the-air EDM; meticulous sound design to General MIDI preset bashing.
Loebs makes a big noise with ‘small’ sounds, best ilustrated by the most direct track on the record, closer ‘Music Festival’ (lol). This one combines PC Music-esque synth stabs, orchestra hits, wildly pitch-bent piano and a slinky 4/4 groove. It’s probably the most fun piece of music I’ve heard all year, and, judging, from a live clip I saw on social media, Loebs’ stage show looks equally enjoyable.
Key Track: ‘Music Festival‘
Groove Remote’s Pick:
Magdalena Bay – ‘Imaginal Disk’ [Mom + Pop Music]
Magdalena Bay’s most recent album “Imaginal Disk” has been on constant repeat since Its release just a few months ago. It’s a pop album EPIC that seems perfectly produced and massively underrated. This album is one of my top AOTY contenders. Also worth noting, look at that cover!! Give me a shirt please.
Imaginal Disk is a cohesive journey sonically and lyrically from start to finish. The band was generous enough to include music videos to guide you through the lore of the record.
The tracklist sports a wide range of styles. Cry For Me sounds like the duo spent a few days listening to ABBA’s back catalog and studying disco string arrangements, while Death & Romance give more of a 70’s Supertramp vibe with the opening piano riff. Love Is Everywhere is a lushful track with a great melody and killer bassline. Image is a dancefloor banger, and finally the Standout track for me, while hard to choose, is That’s My Floor.
The track opens up with ethereal and swirling synthesizers before the drums and bass come in and add an energetic pulse. The track turns into a party as soon as the chorus starts with its fuzzed out guitars and bass. The post chorus has this cool pattern (prophet 6 synth, maybe?) and some gooey la la la las to drive you into the 2nd chorus. MB lets their psyche rock influences kick in by bringing in some sitar to the mix.
At the around the 2:18 mark MB takes you on a detour of an ensemble of sound with fluttering synth patches, an ocean of reverb, and familiar vocal lines. Everything comes crashing together to give you one more chance to dance around to the last chorus and this time adding a gnarly guitar solo to really get you dancing.
Key Track: ‘That’s My Floor’
Fakeman’s Pick:
Enraile – ‘Deepfake Fantasy’ [My Pet Flamingo]
Whilst my pick for December was technically a summer drop, its recent CD and cassette release via MPF put Enraile’s ‘Deepfake Fantasy’ squarely back on my radar as 24 turns to 25. The 9-track plunderful experiment Is as erratic as it is purposeful. ‘Lava Flow’ and ‘Phantom Factory’s’ glitchy precision is followed by ‘Shadowban’s’ immediately recognisable plunder from the depth’s of 2002 Justin Timberlake.
The album holds no prisoners as ‘Electromagnetic’ shifts the gear to a new level of gritty surrealism that shakes you on your ass and kicks you whilst you’re down.. and only then allowing ‘Gateway’ and ‘Mirage’ to give you that gentle hand back to some form a reality.. albeit a reality in dream form. A contradiction in terms, I hear you say.. but that’s where ‘Deepfake Fantasy’ takes you.. to a complex dreamscape but with some rock-hard eggs that will catch you out!
Our 9-track journey ends with appropriately named ‘Eco Pool’. A masterful example of manipulation that drags us back through the the albums journey and the music World according to the millennium, with all its hopes and fears. ‘Deepfake Fantasy’ finds itself at the top of the list of modern Vaporwave. Challenging. Comforting. Dramatic.
Key Track: ‘Eco Pool’
Rob’s Pick:
Lei Wolung – ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ [Business Casual]
Wolung’s short new adventure in plunderphonics is released on Business Casual, and had an enthusiastic listening party to launch it a week or so after it landed on the label’s Bandcamp. It may be slight, but it’s packed with atmospheric vaporwave using some unusual samples which demand repeat listens to explore each sound, and emotion tug.
54-second intro ‘Bosart’ comes in with a looped jazz break – all double bass and descending piano break, and reminds me of a 1980s Mike Leigh kitchen sink drama (funny what baggage we bring to music). Next, ‘Gas feat. Active Presence’ drops big chords and more 80s-inflected instrumentation – a synthesised approximation of a flute here, and a distorted telephone ring there, until it slows into silence. Apropos of nothing, ‘Model in Taiwan’ gives me Christmas vibes, with a pitched down vocal which sounds like it’s singing “ding”, against some festive (at least to me) chimes hitting the feels in the mix.
The next few tracks, all under two minutes, feel like more traditional vaporwave fare, soulful licks and commercial-style samples; at no point does any track outstay its welcome as each in turn evokes a television set playing in another room, or realm.
As we hit the midpoint, ‘Determination of an act’ plays with time and timbre; freeflowing and freeform. ‘Tiberbroen’ greets us with glitchy flamenco guitar and adopts an ominous tone as the string picking is interrupted by a low bass note – stunting the flow with its urgent imposition. Penultimate track ‘Tuxedo Man’ is another collab, this time with 豊平区民TOYOHIRAKUMIN. And album closer ‘Continue?’ has a vocal numerical countdown – telling us simply that we “lose”, as the whole sonic experience ends quite suddenly.
This little gem of an album has been on steady rotation in the lead up to the festive season; it feels authored – each track storytelling and altering the mood as we go deeper. Maybe it is all smoke and mirrors, but Lei Wolung uses all the tricks in his repertoire to deliver a taut listen which I’ve enjoyed very much as I hunt for a festive feeling at the end of a long year.
Enzo’s Pick:
Late Arcane – Prestige [Business Casual]
We’re going in heavy on the Business Casual stable this month and with good reason. I somehow missed the lead-up to the release of Late Arcane’s incredible new album, but I caught up with the launch stream after it aired and it’s been on-repeat since.
It might be recency bias, as we approach the end of a year packed full of great albums in both the Vaporwave and Synthwave spheres, but this jumps straight into best of ’24 contention.
Prestige is yet another collection of genre-fluid bangers, that oscillate between the rhythmic dancefloor friendly and more melancholy passages.
Album opener ‘Equivoque’ sets the tone: energetic and intense, with the trademark catchiness of his synth-work. But the album is peppered with hits, including the sombre and contemplative ‘Servante’ which features lush keys throughout, building into an unexpected creschendo to climax…
But the highlight for me is the euphoric Vapor-funk banger ‘Wanderlust’. (Play it loud, and thank me later.)
Key Track: ‘Wanderlust’
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