Digital-Dance by Software (Review)

Vaporwave has overtaken the online music sphere in recent years. While vaporwave spans a wide range of styles, it’s best typified by slowed down and highly manipulated samples of ’80s/’90s-era jazz, muzak, and R&B. The result is a highly atmospheric, nostalgia-laden sound that constantly toes the lie between cheesy and subversive.

So how interesting is it to hear something that could easily be classified as vaporwave, and yet was created by a couple of German composers back in 1988? If anything, listening to Software’s Digital-Dance feels like you’re listening to the blueprints of vaporwave as they’re being drawn up. All of the elements are there: dreamy atmospherics, muzak-ish horn arrangements, and a sense that what you’re listening to should be written off as “cheesy,” and yet it all sounds convincingly sincere.

As I listen to opening track “Oceans Breath,” part of me wants to roll my eyes at the Kenny G-like saxophone and New Age-y keyboard plinking. Same goes for the pan flute-like tones on “Magnificent Shore” and “Sea Gulls Audience“ ‘s synth choir/sax duo. But Peter Mergener and Michael Weisser’s desire to use their “magic sounds” to transport the listener to another world seems so genuine and unfeigned that I’m ultimately fascinated by the end result.