Vapor Sequences by The Green Kingdom (Review)

After 2010’s Prismatic, I’d lost track of The Green Kingdom (the recording persona of Detroit’s Michael Cottone). On a whim, I decided to give Vapor Sequences a spin, and I’m glad I did. I doubt you’ll find a more accurate album title in 2015: the album’s four songs are airy wisps of nearly beatless ambient dub that drift around the listener with nary any resistance. The song titles — “Aetherium Dub,” “Vaporspace” — add to this sense of weightlessness, as does the minimal album artwork, which depicts a distant-yet-gorgeous sky looming beyond some grey, featureless slabs. (A dystopic cityscape perhaps?)

In any case, this is music that makes you want to untether yourself somehow and float right along with it, free from earthly concerns. And like all good ambient dub — especially that of Strategy (which I wrote about several weeks ago) or a warmer, less ominous Deepchord — it’s also great late night/really early morning music. These songs fit in quite nicely with the sort of bleary-eyed, blissed out mood that usually sets in around 2am. Consequently, Vapor Sequences has become my current go-to for post-midnight writing and coding sessions.