Broken Transmission #1: Telepath Breaks His Silence
News, releases and mixes from (post-)vaporwave and barber beats
My new series Broken Transmission presents roundups from the (post-)vaporwave world across subgenres such as classic vaporwave, slushwave, signalwave, mallsoft, future funk, vgs styles and barber beats. I will compile new releases, re-releases and DJ mixes that I’ve recently enjoyed, and add other notable links and stories.
I view vaporwave as a subgenre of ambient and a form of experimental electronicmusic. If you’ve signed up strictly for ‘traditional’ ambient/experimental music, just ignore these emails – the next issue of my Best New Ambient series will be landing in your inbox soon enough.
But I hope you’ll enjoy this curation and discover some interesting releases in here. The borders between (post-)vaporwave, ambient and drone music are blurring increasingly, and in my humble opinion, artists from the vaporwave scene produced some of the best, most adventurous electronic music of the last decade – even though the traditional music media has decided to largely ignore it.
Wishing you a calm and healthy start into the new year,
Stephan
Telepath breaks his silence
“At its best, vaporwave is anonymously made art for anonymous people”, David Russo alias HKE said in a legendary interview in 2014.
Luke Laurila alias Telepath, a close friend and collaborator of Russo’s and his partner in the 2814 duo, isn’t fully anonymous, but he’s definitely a reclusive figure. I recently wrote that “in a small niche of the music internet, Laurila is a bonafide legend, though he never had a hit record, never gave an interview to the press, never had his picture taken for publicity purposes and avoided live-performing for years.”
Just a few weeks later, the producer from Akron, Ohio, gave his first in-depth interview in a long time to music journalist Nick Caceres. It was published on Dec 19, 2025, on the Rate Your Music platform. Laurila had been on a comeback streak all year, releasing four new albums under his classic Telepath moniker, the last one in early December. [EDIT: A fifth one would be released in late December.]
After so many years of radio silence, the content of that conversation feels slightly disappointing, mainly due to Laurila’s stubborn reluctance to actually engage with Caceres’ thoughtful questions. I imagine this interview must have happened over email or chat, but definitely in written form. Many answers remain elusive and nebulous, but that’s probably how Laurila wants it.
Here are some of the more interesting quotes:
About people expecting him to be beholden to vaporwave: “That is their choice to live that way. But, with all things in life, one should learn to expect the unexpected, to not only appreciate what is familiar.”
About inventing slushwave: “(…) part of the original intention for creating (…) slushwave [was] to create a sound that feels as if you are remembering a dream, or another life.”
About making original synthesizer music: “I wrote about fifty original albums under other aliases prior to sampling music as [Telepath], so I’ve been familiar with synthesizers for a long time.”
About influences on his Lovers Entwined project: “Sonically, anonymous library music.”
About art and anonymity: “The focus should be on the art itself and the meaning it carries – not the creator, not how it was created, and not some explanation of why it’s ‘good.’ If the piece on its own isn’t enough, then it’s not very good. That’s why I prefer anonymous art: it helps prevent everything outside the work from getting in the way of what actually matters.”
Final words: “With Love, all things are possible. I don't ask too many questions, because I have complete faith in this great Love. Instead of sitting around thinking about what you want to do, GO, DO IT, NOW! No excuses. There is only NOW. Love is what you DO.”
Full article: Sonemic Interview with Luke Laurila | Telepath
Producer Mix: Pizza Hotline
London-based producer Harvey Jones was inspired to start making electronic music by Soichi Terada’s classic Ape Escape soundtrack a good decade ago. He dabbled in drum’n’bass and dub techno before discovering vaporwave, then returned to his videogame music and jungle roots but kept that specific vapor lens.
This year, his Dream Select album ended up as one of the most popular releases in the genre – an appropriate follow-up to his 2022 viral success Level Select. After his Daydream Cast mix, which was dedicated to the ambient side of late 1990s and early 2000s videogame soundtracks, he’s now put together a producer mix of original tunes, remixes and unreleased/forthcoming bits.
“It’s [a] very Y2K atmospheric jungle/DnB mix with wide pads, rolling breaks, and nostalgic lead lines. Whack this on for late-night drives, coding, or when you just want to disappear for a while.”
Pizza Hotline: Producer Mix Vol. 1
Some New Vaporwave Albums
秋 – フーガ (2022/2025)
(fugue) was first released on Bandcamp in March 2022, but the label Deep Sea released a limited cassette version in December 2025. Behind this mysterious 90-minute album is apparently Guinevere Laurent, born in 2004 and based in Richmond, Virginia. They’re making music under about 30 different artist names. This one, the Japanese character 秋, stands for autumn.
These six tracks really take their time – the shortest clocks in at ten and a half minutes, while the longest is over 18 minutes. There are synth drones and repetitive little keyboard melodies, and sometimes there are slow, programmed drums. Sonically, it reminds me of classic dreampunk; the second song even carries a Telepath reference in its title – at least that’s what my translation tool tells me. It’s provided soothing solace over these calm days at the end of the year.
MICROMECHA – Underwater Quest (2025)
Another fictional videogame jungle soundtrack in that Pizza Hotline vein. The Italian producer scanned 1990s sample CDs and samples from PSX soundtracks. I happen to enjoy this style a lot, as it brings back memories from that Y2K era – hanging out at the apartment with your friends all night, PlayStation running, ambient D&B floating in the background. Good times.
Kratzwerk – ℂ𝕪𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 (2025)
German experimental electronic musician with a highly idiosyncratic take on post-vaporwave. For some of his conceptual releases this year, he’s recreated the aesthetics of early 1990s eurodance pop and produced a vaporwave take on liquid drum’n’bass. For this surprise 12-minute piece on mid-1980s futurism, he’s mixing samples and musical tropes from the era with manipulated interview snippets from early PC and VR enthusiasts that sound like ghosts from a future that never happened (or did it?).
Aexion – Twilight Night (2025)
Going through this prolific and versatile Indonesian producer’s discography, you will find releases from almost every edge of the vapor universe – from future funk to broken transmission. This new one features some dreamy smooth jazz manipulations in that late night lo-fi style pioneered by Luxury Elite.
Florida Rains – corporate skylines (2025)
More classy weather channel smooth jazz. Bump this on your Bang & Olufsen in your high-rise corner office with a view of the metropolis at night.
Mall Talk Collective – Mall Walker 몰 워커 (2025)
“Solid classic mallsoft”, as a Bandcamp user says. Clearly not a new idea, but executed really well. Samples are curated thoughtfully, and the typical mall speaker mix is on point. Does what it should.
officeレディ– dare me (2025)
Enigmatic ambient/signalwave release on a limited 3.5” floppy disk. A magical 14-minute sound collage of haunting loops from TV themes, holding line music, dialogue snippets and radio static.
Psicadence – 繋がりの狭間で (2025)
Gorgeous, dreamy slushwave from Brazil. Came out in the summer, but received a deserved tape release now. Very ambient, very soothing. Sunset music.
Barber Beats Corner
In this segment, I’m listing and linking new and notable releases from the popular barber beats subgenre. I love listening to these tapes at work or in transit.
In true barbershop fashion, these are curated compilations of pre-existing music. They follow the plunderphonics template of slowing down and manipulating songs from 1990s/2000s electronic music genres such as trip-hop, downtempo, acid jazz, nujazz, drum’n’bass, house and library chillout lounge music.
These December mixtapes remain on heavy rotation right now:
Anaximander – Largest Wilderness On Earth
DΛRKNΣSS – eleutheromania
GODSPEED 音 – Lost Audio Vol. II
known artiste – Fauxtopia シリンダー (remastered)
LAWFUL CHAOTIC – Ikigai 起床
Macroblank – Clowns
Macroblank – In the end, we’ll all become stories (year-end mix)
modest by default – Ꚛrtodoxia III (الولاء)
Remittere Momentum – PRAEDO MDCCXXX
Classic Vaporwave Release
Lindsheaven Virtual Plaza – Transversal Worldwide Shopping (2013)
Cesar Alexandre of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, made electronic music as Lindsheaven Virtual Plaza, Mount Shrine and under a bunch of other names. He tragically passed away from COVID-19 in 2021. This is a vinyl re-release of one of his earliest published works; it came out at a time when you were still free to go wherever you wanted within the template provided by vaporwave.
The album is truly designed for the LP format, as it consists of just two long-form pieces, “Polydreaming Mall” and “ISAL Networks”. The former samples “Cluster One”, a song off Pink Floyd’s 1994 album The Division Bell, mixed with birdsong and other nature sounds for almost 17 minutes of blissful, atmospheric ambience.
The B-side is the real belter – a dark twisted 21-minute illbient journey layering ethereal wordless vocals and a marching trip-hop beat that distantly reminds me of Graham Massey’s instrumental for Björk’s “Army Of Me”.
May Cesar’s beautiful soul rest in eternal peace.
Some of my previous vaporwave coverage
I Still Love Vaporwave (5 classic releases from 2010-15)
I Still Love Vaporwave, Part 2 (10 classic releases from 2015-25)
ZS History of Vaporwave, Part 1 (proto vaporwave from 2008-10)
ZS History of Vaporwave, Part 2 (first wave from 2011-12)
Telepath's stance on anonymity cutting through the noise is interesting, especially that bit about the art needing to stand alone without explanation. The slushwave-as-dream-memory concept ties into why those textures work so well for late night listens. I remeber back in 2016 stumbling on his collab work with HKE and being struck by how the anonymity actually added to theexperience rather than taking away from it. The Pizza Hotline jungle/DnB mix sounds like exactly what I need for coding sessions this week.
The angle of anonymity is so interesting to me. I'm a lifelong singer/songwriter/bandleader and I plan to release some experimental work this year that is unlike anything I've done before. I'm thinking about being anonymous because I get frustrated with how much identity -- especially in terms of addiction and trauma -- matters in the genres I've always worked in (indie, Americana).
Stephan (or others) -- do you have a sense of how anonymous artists begin promoting their work? Is it as straightforward as creating a name/presence and networking wherever possible (Reddit, Soundcloud, socials, etc.)? Thanks for any insight you can provide.