Grant Gilbard Professor Fry MUSL 149 December 2011 Chillwave and the Rise of the Internet Microgenre

The American music landscape is now experiencing a dubstep revolution. Electro, house, and European trance are the in for popular music. Some of the countrys largest artists including Deadmau5, Skrillex, Rihanna, David Guetta, and the Black Eyed Peas are responsible for the rise of this pedal to the metal, bass-heavy, anthemic Euro house which has inspired a new generation of ravers nationwide. What I shall discuss, however, is a story of bedroom producers, backlash, and old cassette tapes. Out of this hugely popular genre of dubstep came a new low-fi movement, one dominated not by bands, but by small-time artists armed with synths, searching through nostalgic, kitschy music and filtering it through a hazy cloud of not-forgotten memories.This movement in hypnagogic pop was not based out of a city or certain nightclub, but blogs and retweets. The rise of this sound is a study in buzz, and the how music is distributed, heard, and consumed. Why did this new genre, chillwave, connect with so many people and greatly influence the past three years of independent music in America? Chillwave is an example of an internet micogenre, whose rise in popularity can be attributed to its inexpensive nature, unabashed appreciation for lost sounds, and earnestly charming, yet detached warmth. Chillwave is relatively cheap to make and recalls late 80s and early 90s synthpop. The genre has been described as being characterized by Italo-disco synth arpeggios. Hall & Oates drum sounds. Divebombing video-game effects. Brittle guitar distortion. It is lo-fi, slightly psychedelic dance music in which the lead vocalists voice is often understated and often used more as an instrument helping lead the melody. The use of

vocals is very similar to bands such as My Bloody Valentine or the Cocteau Twins. Examples of proto-chillwave might be All I Wanna Do by the Beach Boys or Wicked Game by Chris Isaak. Its dance music without being quite danceable. It's shoegaze without guitars. It's disco without the smoothness. Something is always wrong in these songs. Chillwave is characterized by its imperfect nature warped cassettes, a vague sense of desperation, and synthesizers and drum machines most producers wouldnt dare touch today. The movements rise can be attributed to being a product of the internet and sampling age, in which creating new material is often about rediscovery and reinterpretation. The Internet is an ever-expanding data sea, and these young musicians are really explorers, voyaging into the past and diving for pearls. Furthermore, it is a rebuke to the Day-Glo-dazzled. club-ready party music of the past year(s). While most mainstream electronic is dominated by huge house and dubstep acts like Skrillex Avicii, and David Guetta, these producers have gone the opposite path, one more centered around Saties Gymnopedies than Wagners Valkyries. Chillwave is ultimately introverted and softspoken a nostalgic homage to analog synthesizers and blissful youth. Chillwave is defined by the feelings it createssun-drenched, lazy summer days such as Deadbeat Summer by Neon Indian, a swimmer floating fifty yards offshore just as the sun is beginning to set in Feel it All Around by Washed Out or Surfin by Memory Cassette. Aesthetically its bright but faded, beachy and pastoral. More importantly, it is a feeling of youth and nostalgia. As Proust posited with his ideas of involuntary memory, good chillwave has an intensely personalized ability to unlock hidden chambers in our memory banks. It is for people who see perfection in those unbearably humid August nights rife with possibility, imagining an alternate universe where the narcotic of choice in danceclubs were Galaxie 500 and Saint Etienne records. The music appeals to young audiences for the way it recreates the glamor and bleary malaise of being young and horny as an

empire devours itself. The artists, Ducktails, said, Nostalgia is a huge part of American culture especially from my generation. I'm interested in expressing memories through pop music and having people's sensations tingle. There is certainly a kitschy aspect to accomplishing this. Chillwave often utilizes vocal stabs and samples that utilize an intertextuality not unlike many hip-hop artists. For example, in the exotic, jet-setting, and sand-covered Beach Party by Air France, Lisa Stansfields song All Around the World is utilized to great effect. Chillwave finds its inspiration in many unlikely places: It's in Atari and Nintendo games. And Tangerine Dream's sellout, soundtrack period. It's that "Happy Birthday To You" song that played at Chuck E. Cheese because the real "Happy Birthday" song is too expensive to license. Stuff even the most devout '80s revivalists, from Lady Gaga to jj and everybody in between, wouldn't deign use to spike their style. Many times people write off music on the basis of its pleasantness, relaxing nature, or sense of nostalgia. Segments of the music listening public are now starting to have shift in sensibility, As in: 'Hey, let's cut the bullshit. New age, on its own terms even, can be pretty good. Chillwave is electronic musics answer to the question of nostalgia. Most dub-steppers are trying to push the envelope of electro, oftentimes leaving little room for complex feelings, but chillwave examines this generally avoided subject in an Eno-esque fashion combined with a pop sensibility. The movements not so much the Mike & the Mechanics tape your dad used to listen to with you but how that tape felt. And how it feels now. And how those now/then feelings conjoin and clash to make something slightly, appropriately off. It is about the weird, deeply personal byproduct of hearing them, two hazy decades ago, at age ten. This sense of weirdness is an interesting part of the genre, and it is because of the opposing sides of this music. The first side is the lo-fi quality of the records and hearkening back to remembered cultural symbols and production techniques.The other side is the sometimes futuristic sounding nature of the music. This retrofuturistic

ideal is best illustrated by the artist Com Truise. A song like Air Cal sounds like something that would be playing in the background of a Skynet VHS tape predicting the rise of a Global Digital Defense Network with analog synths, computer bleeps, and other technical wizardry. Boards of Canada were a likely influence for Com Truises brand of chillwave with songs like Roygbiv. Many fans and artists of this genre have an interesting obsession which cassette tapes, which points to this ongoing contradiction of old versus new. Some chillwave artists and labels have published their music on cassette with great success. Cassette tapes deteriorate slightly every time you play them, helping contribute to this washed out sound. Unlike MP3s which are digital, cold-sounding, and nonexistent physically, cassettes generally have a warmer tone and are a physical, kitschy reminder of these past methods of music consumption and symbolize childhood for many of these artists that grew up in the eighties and early nineties. Earnest Greene of Toro y Moi put it simply, The cool thing about cassettes is that they are made by hand and each one sounds slightly different, so it makes for a more personal experience. Another common habit within the genre is for fans to create music videos for the songs by pairing music with found footage, such as old commercials, movies, or other video clips. The recession which started just before the rise of chillwave in 2009 may be a reason for the genres milieu. Many of the pioneering chillwave artists were impacted heavily by the recession and created this music as a means of escape from their parents basements and show of hope. Its posture is a sonic shoulder shrug, a languorous, musical "whatevs" (perhaps inspired by the bleak job prospects, especially for would-be musicians, in our current crap economy). Because of this attitude, much of the music is remembering better times. Chillwaves great unifying theme is a kind of fond nostalgia for some vague, idealized childhood. Most of the artists grew up in the age of Apple, Nintendo, and Microsoft and the idea of a future made better by advancements of the

digital age. The laptops and synthesizers they use are fairly cheap to obtain, and point to a do it yourself attitude similar to punk in the Carter seventies. The term chillwave was (perhaps unsurprisingly) made originally as a joke by an indie blogger of the popular website, HIPSTER RUNOFF. I am the indisputed creator of the genre name, explained Carles, the creator of the site, The term 'chillwave' did not exist until I created it. Originally created as a weird, niche microgenre, it has subsequently crossed over to the indie mainstream because of the internet. There is no geographical center for the movement, rather it lives on music blogs and sharing sites such as Bandcamp and Soundcloud. Alan Palomo of Neon Indian said, Now its just a blogger or some journalist that can find three or four random bands around the country and tie together a few commonalities between them and call it a genre. Unlike past times when you would see an acts gig, usually at a georgraphic center such as New York, Nashville, or Seattle before passing judgement, the movement exists primarily on the internet. These microgenres are emerging incredibly quickly today, particularly in the realm of electronic music. Furthermore, the huge outpouring of material from these independent chillwave artists is changing the way music is shared. Blog approval means survival for many of these artists, not necessarily if they can fill an arena. A major player in advancing the chillwave movement was Pitchfork, the eminent indie tastemaker. Good ratings from this site helped propel the propagation of chillwave. In recent months Pitchfork created the sister site, Altered Zones, partly because of chillwaves rise. The chillwave movement became characterized by a constant stream of releases. Unlike Pitchfork, Altered Zones does not issue traditional ratings and focuses on underground, do it yourself artists within electronic and indie, the popularity of which was boosted by chillwave. The [Altered] Zones generation, artists and listeners alike, have never really known a time when music wasn't enmeshed with the Web. They have only a tenuous sense that music is something you pay for, and a much-

diminished investment in live performance. For these reasons, live performance is deemphasized in chillwave. Chillwave, however, was not immune to the backlash that inevitably occurs in most successful forms of pop culture. New York Times music critic, Jon Pareles, said the music was annoyingly noncommittal. backing droopy vocals with impersonal soundsa hedged, hipster imitation of the pop theyre not brash enough to make. Some artists associated with the genre have tried to distance themselves from the categorization of chillwave. I hate the term chillwave, says the lead member of Ducktails, although he does acknowledge it as funny. Tyler the Creator said of his friend Chaz Bundicks current project, Toro y Moi, Toro is not chillwave. These artists dislike of the term is because of a desire to be thought of as part of the larger electronic movement. By adopting the classification of chillwave, the artists could be seen as pigeonholing themselves, and (worst of all) opposed to advancing their music. Most of the backlash against chillwave, however, is simply mimicking what always happens in popular music. Chillwave sucks because it retrofits older, better music for younger, more ignorant, stuck-up weirdos and nerds. Sounds like the critique lobbed at every indie trend of the past decade. This kneejerk negative reaction to chillwave is close-minded because because the jibes [are] almost as formularized as detractors make out the music to be: obligatory reference to Hipstamatic + snigger at the name + invocation of nostalgia as a priori Bad Thing = entire region of music dismissed. Some have proclaimed the death of chillwave. Sure the backlash was quick and intense, but as the clich goes, the music lives on. The holy trinity of chillwave: Toro y Moi, Neon Indian, and Washed Out have had continued success in the past year, and have ended up inspiring many artists including Twin Sister, Tycho, Destroyer, John Maus, Craft Spells, Vondelpark, Diamond Messages, Teen Daze, Teengirl Fantasy, and countless others. Chillwave is a case study for how genres will rise in the future as well as a study on buzz and backlash. It will be fascinating in the coming decade to

witness the lasting ephemera of this microgenre and its interaction with music culture and other forms of electronic and indie music. The ever quickening hype cycle could help propagate a lot of great music along with its fair share of rubbish. It would be wise to expect further explorations into the annals of forgotten music in the form of sampling by electronic artists, especially with the effective, total mainstream acceptance of rap, and likely escalation of wider resentment and backlash for over-produced, inane, hardcore dubstep and club ready anthems. Work Cited: Air France. "Beach Party." On Trade Winds. Sincerely Yours, 2006. MP3. The Beach Boys. "All I Wanna Do." Sunflower. Brother Records, 1970. MP3. Boards of Canada. "Roygbiv." Music Has the Right to Children. Warp, 1998. MP3. Chris Isaak. "Wicked Game." Heart Shaped World. Reprise, 1989. MP3. Cohen, Ian. "Memory Tapes: Seek Magic, Album Review." Pitchfork.com. 30 Sept. 2009. Web. 2 Dec. 2011. Despres, Shawn. "Whatever You Do, Don't Call It 'chillwave'" The Japan Times Online. 18 June 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2011. Erik Satie. Gymnopdies. 1888. MP3. Grandy, Eric. "Triumph of the Chill." The Stranger. Index Newspapers, 10 Nov. 2009. Web. 2 Dec. 2011. Hood, Bryan. "Vultures Brief History of Chillwave." Vulture. New York Media, 14 July 2011. Web. 2 Dec. 2011. Hogan, Marc. "Neon Indian: Psychic Chams, Album Review." Pitchfork.com. 13 Oct. 2009. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.

Lisa Stansfield. "All Around the World." Affection. BMG/Arista, 1989. MP3. Memory Cassette. "Surfin." Rewind While Sleeping. Something in Construction/Acephale, 2008. MP3. Neon Indian. "Deadbeat Summer." Psychic Chasms. Lefse, 2009. MP3. Pareles, Jon. "Spilling Beyond a Festivals Main Courses." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 21 Mar. 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2011. Reynolds, Simon. "Leave Chillwave Alone." The Village Voice. 26 Mar. 2010. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. Richard Wagner. Ride of the Valkyries. 1851. MP3. Soderberg, Brandon. "In Defense of Chillwave." The Village Voice. 26 Mar. 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2011. Washed Out. "Feel It All Around." Life of Leisure. Mexican Summer, 2009. MP3. Williams, Wyatt. "How Washed Out Became the Poster Boy of Electro's Chillwave Movement." Creative Loafing Atlanta. 23 Mar. 2010. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.