Macintosh Plus- Floral Shoppe ALBUM REVIEW

hello my needle drops Anthony Fantano
here
the Internet's busiest music nerd and
it's time for a review macintosh plus
floral shoppe macintosh plus is the
pseudonym of a music producer from
america and macintosh pluses latest
release along with a few others are
currently being celebrated as the
dawning of a brand-new genre and yes I
understand if you're skeptical given the
inconsistency of the last three new
genres that we've had like C Punk witch
house and chill wave but this new genre
is vaporwave vapor wave vapor wave vapor wah yes it does sound ridiculous however
let's not slag a piece of music simply
because of a term thrown onto it because
some music fans or music writers are
desperate to feel like they're on the
cutting edge of something if vapor wave
is in fact a genre and does end up being
recognized seriously as a genre then
it's it's most likely going to just
become a sub-genre of plunder phonics
sample based compositions songs that
take pieces of other songs to build
those songs however I'm being told that
the artists that are falling under this
category of vaporwave are stylistically
different from guys like DJ shadow
avalanches negative land girl talk as
well as John Oswald the man who coined
the word plunderphonics and I guess
primarily what makes vaporwave different
from other plunder phonics styles is its
source material many projects in this
genre of music that are most notably
found on the beer on the rug Bandcamp
page stick pretty passionately to using
samples from smooth jazz incidental
music from maybe commercial
television shows from the late 80s late
90s contemporary R&B maybe even adult
oriented rock new age music and synth
funk as well like the kind of sounds
that Brian Eno was creating for Windows
back when he was creating the Windows
sound and maybe it's music that you've
had contact with if you've watched funny
videos or TV commercials on everything
is terrible calm or even seen a few
sketches on Tim and Eric awesome show
great job if you're at all familiar with
those last two things you know that this
kind of music is is constantly made a
joke of by a lot of people however there
is a growing post-ironic desire to
listen to and and wholeheartedly enjoy
this kind of music which is just the
weirdest thing to me not that it's not
enjoyable but it's funny that in the
internet age you can pretty much find
and listen to anything and almost
anything can find an audience and there
are plenty of other artists that have
made use of the sounds that vaporwave
consists of for their own musical gain
artists like Neon Indian for example
maybe Arial pink as well and and
especially an artists like James Ferraro
now vaporwave takes this kind of music
and manipulates it cuts it loops it
maybe pitch shifts it as well and
specifically in the case of Macintosh
plus it's almost like a chopped and
screwed version of all these genres in
the source material so again
stylistically theoretically not that
different from other plunder Phonics
artists it really relies heavily on the
kind of music it's sampling and the vibe
that it gets from that and that vibe
consistently from track to track on this
LP is smooth synth-heavy kind of sexy
the second track on here is a slowed
down version of Diana Ross's your move
with a few choice grooves in the song
cut and looped over and over and over
and over until Macintosh Plus finally
decides to kind of give up the chorus
and the end result with these really
vocals crooning out it's just a
combination of sweet and eerie it does
have a good and kind of interesting
sound to it but I have to attribute that
more to the songwriting and the way the
song was produced as opposed to how the
sounds were manipulated because how
Macintosh Plus edits a lot of these
songs it's it's kind of boring it's it's
really uninspired
it really lets the song do all of the
work it's not like taking a song and
turning it into a new song it's really
kind of like making a slowdown dance
edit of the very same song that you're
editing around the middle point of the
track there's some slapback echo it gets
super slow toward the end but there's
really no hint of some very creative
loops or cuts on the fourth track
Macintosh Plus kind of lets the sample
the song rather do the work again it's a
revision of the pace song you need a
hero which again has a likable sound but
is not impressively assembled it's not
until the third or fifth track on this
LP that Macintosh plus’ editing skills
actually get used to make a different
song out of its source material on track
three there are a lot of Skippy loops
and edits to kind of build some original
grooves out of the samples there's some
deep bass and really silky smooth
synthesizer and macintosh plus repeats
some pivotal parts of these beats in the
way a DJ would if the song were being
cut live but I really have no assumption
that anything on this album is being
done on the fly and on the fifth track
here all of these synthesizer loops all
these piano sounds are taken off of a
track and looped placed over one another
and just kind of repeated reverb was
thrown on top and it becomes a bit of an
ambient piece but honestly it was a
little underwhelming the only more
ambient style piece on this album that I
thought was really impressive was the
seventh track actually like that from
beginning to end the layers of
synthesizers on that track got really
ethereal and I like the way the
saxophone kind of melted through it if
anyone is going to be impressed by this
LP it's most likely going to be people
who have not heard the songs that are
sampled on this album first because by
sample-based music
the editing the looping again just the
execution is is really underwhelming
leaves a lot to be desired there's
nothing on this LP that wasn't done
better on an album like Oneohrix Point Never’s replica or Daniel o‘Patton's other project Chuck Person's
eccojams Volume one which samples a lot
of the same kind of music and is
actually way more bold with its editing
and it's looping and it's stretching of
some of the songs that it uses aside
from being underwhelmed by most of these
tracks there were a lot of songs on here
that I did not like it all like the
opening track where it's basically one
section of a song crashing violently
into another section that just sounds
terrible and just incongruent and on the
bonus tracks that come with the latest
edition of this album there is a
horrible stretched out version of I only
have eyes for you the the zapp cover I
actually find sample-based music to be
pretty interesting I think the
possibility is truly are endless but
Macintosh Plus is is not even trying to
explore a lot of those possibilities and
and that's my number one issue with this
LP I'm actually feeling a decent too
strong for on this album certainly it
sounds nice it has style but there's
really not much there in terms of how
its assembled if you've given this a
listen what did you think of it did you
love it hate it why what should i review
next and that's it Anthony Fantano.
macintosh plus, vaporwave forever