Hello and welcome to the second new
album roundup from vapor.RAINBOW
giving you a glimpse of vaporwave, ambient, and synthwave music from around the internet
to help you find your new favorite album or new favorite producer.
I have five more incredible albums to
share, so let's get started.
Perhaps you've heard the joke that
vaporwave is all just made by one guy
under a ton of different aliases. Well,
the person who comes the closest to
actually pulling this off is the one and
only Vito James, also known as
[good vehicle] through the city, Sheriff Mario RPG, 5-HTP and Luxury Simulator just to name a few.
Generalizing Vito's vast amount of work is difficult. 
But two things he seems to like
are fuzzy distorted production and road trips. Both of these elements are in play on
The Only Thing Keeping Me Here which is like saying goodbye around 11:00 p.m., fueling up at a
quiet gas station and jumping on the mostly empty highway for a long night of driving and reflection.
Vocal samples stretched the point of
being uncanny and unsettling providing
bass drone, textures and noise, dissonant
ambience, free-flowing song structure -
new aura comes as the conclusion of the
mysterious six part collection of albums
released over the past year by the
anonymous begotten [suicide],
the finale of the series is maybe the spookiest, most experimental entry.
If you took a wrong turn in the afterlife, and end up somewhere that you weren't supposed to be,
this is the album that you would hear
over the loudspeakers.
desert sands feels warm at night is a producer that I feel has been on fire recently.
Not only producing a string of top-quality
releases, but finishing all of them in a
rapid-fire manner. So it was with much
anticipation that I streamed Beneath the
Hanging Gardens of Babylon and was
treated to an ambient vaporwave album
that draws not only on Virtual Dream
Plaza, the clearest influence, but also a
Mallsoft with nods to pioneers such as
[cat systems] Corp and Hantasi using
this to transport us to a guided tour of
the warm, lush gardens brought back to life.
Lux Amor Machine showcases a wide
variety of musical styles lightly
imprinted upon a canvas of ambient tones with minimalist beats.
On this framework, Renja constructs edifices using IDM and shoegaze mixed with ambient, as well as
trap and hip-hop influence, auto-tuned
R&B style vocals, and folksy acoustic
songwriting, all varying wildly from one
track to the next.
A challenge with ambient music is always keeping it interesting while simultaneously not
foregrounding into the realm of
distraction, and part of how Renja solves
this challenge is to expertly weave
together these different styles into a
cohesive, ambient experience.
After a short intro, Spectral Lament starts off with the explosive second track "Satisfy Me,"
a celebration of fast cars, 80s TV commercials, and that elusive ideal romance that advertisers are always
selling us. Track after track, the album
pulls you in - sinking slowly into the
realm of memory - all while continuing to
relentlessly sell products to
an empty hall of uncaring ghosts.
I like how this album manages to not only tell a story
and lead us through this ghostly lament
while never compromising on the
high-impact, danceable hits that will
keep you hooked throughout the listen,
and have you coming back for more.
Spring is here, and that can only mean
that it's time to make vaporwave albums
about in the summer. 
Seriously - summer is probably the most
vaporwave of seasons, so there's really
no harm in getting started early right?
Summer Romance is a sample free synthwave album that definitely manages to
sound like it was made from manipulating samples of 80s easy-listening summer tunes
recorded from the radio. So even if it doesn't yet feel like summer wherever you are
try spending 30 minutes with Summer Romance by Tape Dispenser
and enjoy your all-expense-paid vacation courtesy of DMT Tapes Florida.
