Do you feel like checking in on Phew? I feel like checking in on Phew.
Oh! Speak of the devil!
You know how I’ve been slowly chronicling Prince’s studio career album by album, year by year since 2018? Well, I never announced this before – or even ever consciously accepted that I was doing it before – but I’ve actually been doing something similar with one of the most exceptionally avant-garde musical artists of the last 40+ years: Hiromi Moritani AKA Phew formally known as Twitter.
Aw man, I feel gross even referencing that storyline, And yet here I am. Am I really better than the rest of you. Yes. But perhaps not as much as I once believed… No. Still as much. I just checked. Phew
We’ve already learned what magic can be created by the combination of Los Angeles and Newcastle-upon-Tyne but, guess what? Yorkshire by way of the Nigerian Igbo ethnicity creates magic that’s just that little bit better! There is but one question on everyone’s lips though:
Ow! No, seriously, owowowowow! I can actually barely type right now, both my arms are seriously kejiggerd. Owwwwww! After the (I think we’ll all agree, era-defining) Magdalena Bay post, I went downstairs to get a new cup of tea. My dopy, disabled, Cauda fricking Equina infested body wasn’t paying enough attention to its much compromised balance, I slipped on the stairs and fell down the fucking lot of them!
So, although I planned to write about the wonderful CHVRCHES return to form tonight, I am in no physical shape to perform my usual duties, so I’ll be leaving it until tomorrow. I’m still going to leave this bit in though, because I am meta as fook, you hear?
Just to let you know, dear reader, at times in this article it may sound like I’m derogating the general situation or decrying a loss of civility in wider society or lame things like that, but I am actually complaining about you personally, as your own behaviour is at the centre of what I’m talking about and it is completely within your power to address it. And, I’m sorry, but if you consider yourself left wing then you really are chiefly what I’m thinking of. We cool? We cool??
If you are left wing, you are (generally, generally, generally!!) concerned with supporting the community rather than the individual but also want the state to make it as easy as possible for a human being to express themselves freely and with a truly equal framework of opportunity. That’s cool and- you know what?- I probably agree with you. If you are right wing you are (generally! Gen-er-motherfuckin’-ly!!!) concerned more with allowing the more successful people as little impediments to their achievements as possible, you think the best state is one that interferes as little as possible, that things like high taxes and overzealous bureaucracy only discourages human potential. You (GENERALLY!!!!) thank that to support the less successful financially is actually just encouraging people to ‘do nothing’ and removes the impetus for them to truly excel. That’s cool. I don’t agree, but we both honestly believe that our positions on society are what’s best for either the good of the community/country/world or just, y’know, yourself and your own family. Maybe the latter’s more important to you. Maybe the former’s more important to me only because it will increase the good of the latter. Maybe we both think that the former plays a part in improving the latter but without the latter being dealt with the former has no chance but without the former being stabilised we don’t even have a latter but then what is the former if not just a larger collection of latters and the latter and the former both need to somehow work in synergy? Yes, that’s probably the one statement we can all agree with.
One of the greatest/worst aspects of life in 2019 is how we all have the power to fine tune and curate exactly what world we live in, edit and personalise what news we hear and what bent ideology it pours from. When I was a bairn, the whole country basically had the same experience, all the time. We all heard Love Is All Around until we all wanted to ruthlessly and repeatedly embed a screwdriver deep into our own eardrums until the flowing blood hopefully drowned out Marti Pellow’s smirk (not me though, Love is All Around is a fuckin’ choon). We all watched Coronation Street last night, so could debate the meaning of Mavis Whooptuck performing a blood sacrifice in order to bring Harold Hupptickle back from the dead (my memories of Coronation Street are a bit cloudy, I’ll admit). Most importantly, we all got the same news. Sure, many people would still buy utter horseshit like the Sun or the Daily Mail- or The Guardian if they were a little more middle class and, let’s face it, a bit twatty- but we kind of all agreed that if it made it to BBC News, then it was likely correct. Likely due to laws restricting the bias of TV news in this country and the very charter of the BBC forbidding any bias or political inclinations in the news reporting. It’s, of course, not perfect*, it’s not always 100% observed, but it’s at least enshrined into law and aimed for, meaning that everyone always tuned into the TV news at the end of the day expecting them to brush the propaganda from the day’s events and tell us what really happened.
“Julie, for fuck’s sake, can you put the brandy down for five minutes??”
(*there were shocking scenes earlier this year when a BBC news reporter had the temerity to suggest that, growing up with an Indian mother and Mauritian father, racism was actually really gross and that Trump’s racist comments actually sounded very familiar. That’s how seriously we take impartiality- a woman of Asian descent isn’t allowed to call out the racist president for saying racist things and say that racism was bad. Apparently, a lot of viewers were still undecided on racism and didn’t want the crazy hippy idea that it was somehow a negative thing shoved down their throat. A white BBC news guy said similar things, but nobody complained about that, because… y’know…).
I was never even aware of the existence of the ‘Vaporwave’ genre maybe as recently as six months ago. Vaporwave is electronic music that utilises 1980s mood music and smooth jazz via tropes and distorted samples, mainly to provide a satiric commentary of some of capitalism’s and consumer culture’s worst excesses. It’s different, it’s making a statement, it’s at once disgusting and thrilling, it sounds quite unlike anything else, and it jumped immediately to being one of My Favourite Things. It’s experimental, it’s abrasive, it’s self-aware, it’s challenging, it’s exciting. I love it. I’d be proud, honoured and- dare I say it- woke if I were to be considered one of the notable early adopters of the movement.
Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to be happen, as vaporwave has existed since the early 2010s after emerging as a more ironic take on ‘Chillwave’ (another genre I was not aware of). Me being considered an early adopter of vaporwave because of the handful of shouts on this list (and there will be more) is like me naming Brian Eno on my 2014 list marking me out as an integral part of the early success of Roxy Music. Yes, I know Mojo Magazine made that claim in a 2017 cover story, but I’ve actually attempted to distance myself from that article many time in the past. Anyway, in August the guy who used to be in The Monkees claimed himself a fan of the genre, so now it’s officially over.
Necessary Evil 