Kawaii Diaries: My Creative Process, Sichuan, Love and The Incomprehensible
My opinion on Chiptune and Video Game Music
Touchy subject for Alt-Jpop… The typical Alt-Jpop scenario:
Ordinary Human: Your music sounds “video gamey”
Alt-Jpop: Really? Are you trying to ridicule my swagless beats with your Uncultured Standards? jk.
The dialogue above is obviously a joke, I think the “video gamey” descriptor is not necessarily wrong but it’s not the best way to market my music. Still, I’ve been inspired by certain games but these inspirations aren’t musical. I like the idea of menus, of non-musical elements that contribute to a (non)musical experience. The idea of the inputs, especially in highly technical games, is an undervalued aspect of video games as art. We often emphasize the musical and visual elements a little bit too much. In the end, Video Games visual element is accidental, what you see in the screen is almost an illusion that isn’t that important. There are moving parts, there are inputs, they have cause and effect in a visual sense. I’m not interested in in the visual consequence the player has when they press an input, I’m interested in the Speculative consequence. This word may not mean anything, but let’s say that Alt-Jpop Deconstructs the “video gamey” factor of Video Games. Metaphysically, people divide each element of a work of art—or video games—they create a separate category of the hyperreal, they have a hyperreal of music, of the gameplay, the sonorous, these categories are social constructs. Music is not an element in the universe just like everything else humans have created.
Alt-Jpop’s song titles and what we can learn from Vaporwave
I don’t think Spotify has let me put every original Alt-Jpop song title, that’s why Spotify should be boycotted. People are obsessed with the idea of “fomat”, correct paramaters that permit circulation. You see a frequent obsession with Mastering, Grammarly, symmetry, Proper Release Schedule, Editing, etc. First, mastering is obviously an invented career, a middle-man type career, no disrespect to Mastering Engineers. What is wrong and what is right? Does that even exist? What is Heterosexuality and Homosexuality? Are traps g+y? Right or wrong is always tied to the the process of exchange. Most of these middle-man processess hide intellectual and creative poverty and create barriers for artist or people who don’t follow the mandated “format.”
I always insist in the idea of making impenetrable art so why not make impenetrable titles? I was never a Vaporwave person, but I always liked how song titles looked. They were incomprehensible and tended to contain a subliminal message, I love spreading “controversial” messages via song titles... I try to make my song titles as absurd as possible but this doesn’t mean they are meaningless. Didn’t Lacan say this? The Real is not crisis of meaning, The Real saturates the world with meaning. My music is nihilisitc because it’s saturated with meaning, maybe the Baroque is a more precise word for Nihilism.
Love, sex, melodies and cuteness
When we think of Kawaii, we always associate it with pink, and by consequence, the feminine. We all have preconceived notions of what cuteness is. It feels good to a lot of people, others are disturbed by it. I think cuteness has been normalized. I feel the kawaii was more controversial some years ago. With the normalization and commodification of e-girls, the kawaii is more prevalent than ever. I don’t necessarily see this as something negative, I see this as an opportunity to raise the question, what is the Kawaii? What is cuteness? Are humans supposed to enjoy sex?
A movie that impacted me a lot was Showgirls, props to my Spanish friend who recommended it to me a few years ago. I think Showgirls is the true Post-Apocalyptic scenario, sex, enjoyment and capital permeates every being, it is what gives things its possibility. The future is not a moment, the future is an idea. The end of all beings is not an event, it is a recognition of The One. Showgirls—and Catherine Breillat’s films(something I’ve commented in the past—reflect this. Most movies represent love as feel good and hardship as lack of “feel good.” These films create a dimension of the real where hardship is not represented as lack, it is represented as how things are, these “how things are” creates a realm for augmentation, it is not inflation, there are no hyperreals, the Real is always augmented while the hyperreal not. The Real is augmented because it’s not a place or an all-encompassing substance, the Real is a concept.
Sexual enjoyment, just like other commodities, is in hands of a determined number of people. I sometimes ask myself how Gender Theory or Sex Ed is possible, a lot of people don’t bang, especially young men. Do you need the phallus to experience true sexual enjoyment? If that were the case, how come consumer culture promote sex so much? I always laugh at the idea of Involuntary Celibate women, some women claim to be that, I know plenty of men who are willing to have unprotected sex with any being of the Earth… While I find it ridiculous, I like this idea of the Involuntary Celibate Woman. What are the Ontological Paramaters of this so called Woman?
Is Alt-Jpop Queer music/Theory?
A lot of people have been asking me this question throughout the years. What’s my stance on Queer Theory? Do I agree or disagree? Just like everything, any movement ends up being commodified, as reactionary as it sounds, we can all agree there is a Consumer Culture around the Queer. I don’t think this is that relevant, I just say this because I’m going to give my own view of what Queerness implies. Spoiler alert, I don’t have a stance on anything… Jokes aside, I’m always on the Shadow Biosphere of every movement. Some years ago, I made mix of every Yunomi remix I have made, I titled it Hacking Yunomi. I presented it as a non-Other of Kawaii Future Bass, I would say it was proto-Transcendental Kawaii Future Bass statement I made back in the day. I’m interested in the concept of Reversal/Counter. It’s a concept that tends to be mostly prevalent in Fighting Games. There is this character from Guilty Gear named Baiken, it’s a cheap character that consists of countering the opponents attacks, it’s fighting without fighting, it blurs the line between offensive and defensive. We could say that Baiken shadow of the opponent, a Third element with no relation. When one thinks of a fight, there is one vs one, the concept is the same even if there are more fighters, but here there is an intense lack of communication. You technically don’t fight, your opponent is truly alone. Baiken is the sumbliminal message, permeates every future-input of the opponent. Baiken does not take any decisions, only the opponent. The same as Baiken, I don’t take any decision, I’m not in my opponents thoughts, I cannot read his mind, I can anticipate and speculate.
Regarding the Queer, I know nothing of this Other, I’m only part of their thoughts, he does not think these thoughts, this thought is just a thought in-the Universe. Alt-Jpop is a Nebulous Shadow, an ambiguous shadow of Kawaii Future Bass, of Queerness. It is the still to be developed terrain of augmentation. Alt-Jpop is an augmentation of such ideas. The subliminal elements of these ideas, it’s its kami. Of course, the man and the woman are finite concepts, there is no nature, no necessity, no correlate between Earth and Man.
Commentary of my latest tracks and my release with コレクティブ愛
a twinkle lil star in sichuan (devil look at me)
Probably my less schizophrenic title, my most formatted song title. It still follows Alt-Jpop’s general Philosophy of titles. “devil look at me”, I had to go with that because my music is supposed to be a little bit satanic. Melody is an underrated element in modern music. Melody doesn’t mean anything, still, there is something powerful about having an extremely defined melody. A melody that speaks, so melodic it’s impenetrable. A lot of people focus on Sound Design, and that’s ok, I focus on that too but I couldn’t care less about the Ontological Importance of Sound Design. When I listen to other people’s music, It shocks me a lot, my music is very different, people tend to loop more, make longer songs. My songs are very short, this one in particular is 1:13 in length. Random af but you wanna who inspired to make short songs? XXXtentación. When his Trap metal songs released, they inspired me a lot, a lovr the idea of climatic and instantaneous music. There is really no need to make a +3 min song. There is something shamanic about making a short song with constant changes. From an electronic and pop perspective, it’s quite difficult to make songs like these but I honestly find making songs relatively easy, they do take me like 9 hours or more to finish. I’m not really OCD, I rarely change stuff. I like to take it slow when I make a track because I make music for free……. Still, Alt-Jpop is touchy thing to monetize, I’ve sold a couple of beats but not enough to make a living. The biggest hurdle of monetizing music is that one ends being a slave to a community or audience. You will always end up being limited by your costumers. I’m open minded but dogmatic, I will always be open to unconventional ideas since I endorse the unconventional but if ever get the opportunity to produce to a big artist, I would like the production to follow 100% my criteria.
Sichuan, I used to talk with girl from there when I had an app named Tandem. She used to send pictures of strange looking soups and spicy stuff. Nevertheless, this song is not about Sichuan or her. Don’t you find crazy that people all over the world see the same Sun? We sometimes forget that the sun is a star and the Earth is a planet.
「IUUIUIUWw!✿✿━☆ﾟMAGIC!!! 🌼✿🌸❀✿✿✿🌷☆ﾟ☁️」」」」♩♩♩ዲያብሎስ
What is the Kawaii? Is the Kawaii a sound? A social construct? For me the Kawaii reconciles contradictory elements. Is kawaii music serious or comical? Most genres tend to have it ultra definined regarding seriousness or lack of seriousness. With Kawaii music is more ambiguous. People who identify with Kawaii music focus on making feel good music. I hate this, music isn’t supposed to make you feel good about your life… I feel my music follows a very specific way of being hyper. Most people talk about being neutral or musically diverse, I don’t believe in happy mediums, that’s why I like the concept Harajuku Culuture/J-pop music, there is no flexibility but this flexibility is so flexible that artists like Alt-Jpop exist!
Don’t you think that festivals like Coachella are extremely vulgar? Most hipster music festivals are vulgar. It has normalized that people listen to top 100 music. I’m skeptic about music festivals. I think people need to be extremely specific when they make art, be specific without being a gatekeeper. J-pop is an extremely ambiguous genre but strangely specific. In an ideal Kawaii/J-pop show you can expect extremely different things, lots contradictory ideas. Ontologically, in J-pop as long as you are cute you get the pass. If you overcome this barrier, anything is permitted. Though, Alt-Jpop’s music is extremely radical compared to a lot of stuff—not better or worse—just radical. Alt-Jpop aka Lenin of J-pop…
F-ZERO xxX ☽☽☽ Xxx JUSTICE-UNLIMITED(*))⚖️17444km/h ☦☦☦
Besides Smash Bros. or Melty Blood I think that F-Zero is my favorite Video Game Series. I don’t think there is anything like it. It’s been two decades since we haven’t had a new F-Zero. In a very strange way, F-Zero lives as specter. Most Zoomers associate Captain Falcon with Super Smash Series. Captain Falcon is a venerated idol in Smash Bros. His iconic moves, his gestures, the knee. Captain Falcon is Captain Falcon. Without Captain Falcon Smash would be very different. The nostalgic element of Captain Falcon is its best aspect. Captain Falcon represents a past of what racing games could’ve been. F-Zero is an extremely common sense idea, who wouldn’t have thought of making racing game with Futuristic Vehicles. There may never be another F-Zero but Captain Falcon lives as the possibility of promise, a promise that will never be fulfilled.
✴POWER METAL ♱♱♱♱
Whenever I go to Jacksonville I always tell my sister that the Greek Orthodox Church near her house looks like something out of Pokémon. In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl there was a very cryptic Cathedral. Of course, Christianity doesn’t exist in the Pokémon universe, it is represented as a falsification, as Religion without religion. This type of falsification inspires my music, to reproduce the same thing without being the same thing. When you see the Cathedral, you are like “hmmm, this place looks very familiar,” you never end up being able to localize that memory since that memory belongs in another untranslatable universe.