Vapor Talks #18: SOUND2次元
Steeped in social activism, the Italian producer infuses vaporwave with elements of cyberpunk and dub techno
After releasing two acclaimed albums within less than six months and performing at 2025’s Slushwave festival in Belgium, SOUND2次元 (pronounced ‘sound two jigan’) has quickly become one of the most promising new projects on the contemporary vaporwave circuit.
The Italian musician behind the project, who’s also known as Marshall Schneider, grew up on alternative rock and later moved into experimental pop and electronic music. After moving to the Netherlands, he’s immersed himself in the online vaporwave community, finding a new musical home.
His cinematic album Dreampunk Story (Underwater Computing, 2025) featured sample-free synth ambient compositions with a strong cyberpunk vibe, inspired by Japanese anime and classic Dream Catalogue releases. The sophomore EP Memoirs Of A Wandering Walker (Virtual Mall, 2026) brought in new influences from dub techno, enhancing the hazy drifts of slushwave with slow, muted 4/4 rhythms.
The music of SOUND2次元 is regularly embedded in fundraising campaigns for non-profit organizations dedicated to environmentalism or the fight against transphobia and misogyny.
Hey Marshall, where are you based right now?
In the Netherlands, in a small city called Nijmegen, close to the German border. I moved here with my partner a few years ago when she decided to pursue a master’s degree at the university.
But you were born and raised in Italy, right?
Yeah, I’m Italian, grew up in a city nearby Rome and lived there for a long time. After I got my university degree, I moved to Bologna, where I spent almost eight years, until COVID started. Then I had another period in a smaller beach city at the east coast of Italy, before I moved to the Netherlands. I work remotely, so I could just continue to do my work from here.
Marshall Schneider is a bit of an unusual name for an Italian...
It is. (laughs) It’s an artist name I chose in the 2000s. Back then, I had a band in Italy, and we were singing in English, so I wanted to have a name that sounded a bit more international. It was inspired by a character from this manga I used to read at the time. I spent my childhood reading mangas, and that passion established my connection with Japanese culture quite early. I was so fascinated by that style.
Back in the 80s and 90s, these Japanese animated series were running on TV in Italy – not the main national channels, but local stations. I used to draw and write my own stories as a kid, and I even wanted to become a manga-ka, a cartoonist, but I was living in a rather small city and it was hard to get my hands on new books and information.
What kind of music did you grow up on?
As a teenager in the early 2000s, I saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers on MTV – this was right after Californication. A bit later I discovered Nirvana. That was a game-changer for me, and that was when I started to play the guitar. I was so deeply influenced by Kurt Cobain and his story. Then I got into progressive rock and post-hardcore as well. I was really into bands like Tool and the Melvins for a while. I was just inspired by all sorts of alternative rock music – that was my passion.
When did you drop the guitar and start producing music on a computer?
Towards the end of the story with my band, I started to learn about Ableton Live. We were trying to record and produce our own music, so at first we were mainly using it as a recording platform, but then we also started inserting some electronic parts. This is around the end of the 2000s. It became more of an instrument to me when I started working on my solo music.
When I broke up with my band, I was kind of lost, because there were a lot of expectations and dreams attached to that. I needed a new place to channel my energy and my ideas. I was studying at the university at the time, and I didn’t have much time, but I started recording some sketches on my little crappy mp3 recorder. I wasn’t too sure what I wanted to do. I even considered singing in Italian, because I was really into some Italian alternative bands, and I was trying to find my own style as an artist.
I ended up with a version of what could be considered experimental pop. I was listening to a lot of Elliott Smith and David Grubbs, a lot of Smog [Bill Callahan], and I would mix that with my screamo influences. There was a 2000s emocore band from Seattle called the Blood Brothers. I loved the fact they had two singers screaming at the same time.
How and when did you discover vaporwave?
In 2017 or 2018, I was living in an apartment in Bologna with my housemate, and we were both musicians working from home most of the time, so he used to put on some music in the background. At the time, he was often putting on some albums from the vaporwave scene. The music really caught me, because it was very experimental. An album I particularly remember listening to is I’ll Try Living Like This [by death’s dynamic shroud], and I also remember discovering §E▲ ▓F D▓G§.
I was looking for a platform to release my own music, and when I started to use Bandcamp as an artist, I also started to use it as a listener. I noticed that vaporwave albums were often among the cheapest, or they were name-your-price downloads, so I was happy to buy a lot of them. I just happened to become a bit obsessed with it. I had my vaporwave and synthwave playlists on when I was working all the time, but I didn’t even know much about the different genres. There was a lot of confusion.
When I moved to the Netherlands, I became more seriously involved. I learned more about the beginnings and the evolution of this music. I really started studying vaporwave by watching documentaries and listening to podcasts like The Virtual Ocean, because somehow I figured the next step of my own music could be related to that.
What’s the story behind the project name, SOUND2次元?
When I moved here, I still didn’t have any idea what to do with music. I just could not find my way. So I decided to improve my skills and take some lessons with teachers in Ableton. I also got interested in DJing, which was completely new to me. I was really into barber beats at the time, so I started DJing with that stuff. When my DJ teacher asked me for my project’s name, I didn’t feel that the name of my former Italian experimental pop project was still the proper name to go along with it.
I was quite regularly visiting my parents in Italy for longer periods of time, and there’s one radio station that’s been around since I was a small child. It’s called Dimensione Suono 2, and they’ve always been playing the same 80s and 90s Italian hits. You’ll rarely hear a new song on there. I remember cooking dinner and listening to this station, which I used to hate as a child because I was so bored of these old songs. But this time I thought, if vaporwave takes inspiration from old music to create new environments, then maybe I can take inspiration from this station’s old name, which translates to ‘Sound 2 Dimension’, and 次元 [jigen] means ‘dimension’ in Japanese. This is my way of interpreting vaporwave from my memories.
What was your original vision for the project and how did it develop until your debut release?
I had a lot of sketches from years of producing electronic music. I wanted to create some sci-fi cyberpunk and ambient vibes, reconnecting to my manga and anime passion. I was inspired by the imagery of that popular anime, Ghost in the Shell. I was studying cyberpunk culture, reading a lot of sci-fi literature dealing with the ethical issues of consumerism, imagining these future dystopias where money would trump human rights. I was also very active with social communities and collectives close to issues of gender imbalance. My idea was to somehow bring these issues into my music, by telling the story of a femicide through a vaporwave album.
In 2023, I discovered the Slushwave Social Club Discord server and the Slushwave festival through the YouTube channel Vapor Memory. I didn’t know anything about slushwave at the time; I’d never even heard about it. But I used to listen to Vapor Memory compilations on YouTube, so I tuned into the festival to see what’s going on, and it opened up a whole world for me. There were so many people on these servers and channels, and there were opportunities for producers to partake in online and IRL events and label compilations. I took part in an event in L.A., and I had some sketches for my debut album ready and decided to create my set based on that music and those early drafts. I kept creating more tracks for various compilations, and that’s how I learned about different styles and subgenres. I needed to reinvent myself constantly and create music that was coherent with an idea or a brief.
After two years of working on the album, I reached a final version that was quite different from the original draft I’d made for that festival in 2023. It's completely original, except for one track which is inspired by the Joe Hisaishi movie soundtrack Sonatine and contains elements of a 90s Italian pop song. Other than that, there’s no samples. I’m still really proud of the outcome. It’s a bit short maybe – in slushwave it’s quite common to have these endless four-hour albums, and Dreampunk Story is actually more of EP length. At the listening party, they played it three times in a row. (laughs)
I sent the album to some labels, and fortunately, Underwater Computing were very glad to release it. I also played the Slushwave/Naturewave festival in Belgium around the same time, met a ton of people, and felt really enthusiastic about it all. The day before my performance, Jornt alias 猫 シ Corp. chose to buy my album out of all the records at the merch stand. I even signed it for him. (laughs)
Right after coming home from the festival, I produced the second EP, Memoirs of a Wandering Walker. The idea was to blend cyberpunk textures with slushwave effects and dub techno drums. I’d gotten a lot of compliments from people who really seemed to like my music, so it was much easier now and I felt much more confident with my style and my tools.
How has your production process changed?
My process is always very non-linear. I’m trying hard to not replicate myself, and I’m trying to escape my comfort zone all the time. Most of my work is done in Ableton Live; when I started to study it seriously, I realized how powerful it is as a tool. There are still a lot of devices I’m fascinated with that I haven’t gotten around to properly study yet. I like to build my own instruments, create my synthesizers from scratch. I’m even trying to create new devices for generative music.
Sometimes in the past I’ve used hardware devices like a crappy monophonic lo-fi sampler, which I’ve also used in some of my early live sets. I also tend to record my live performances in order to improve specific moments of the set. I might chop up certain sections of the performances and use them to start new tracks. There’s a lot of layering and processing, and sometimes there’s a combination of digital and analog tools, just trying to get it to sound unique. The process is always changing and expanding. It’s really a journey.
Who’s inspiring you in slushwave right now?
First of all, I need to say that I love the slushwave scene in general – not only the artists, but also the listeners and supporters. It’s such a lovely community, and I’m just constantly inspired by that community itself. Those people are very kind and supportive of the artists, which is pretty unique and priceless. I’ve never seen this in other music communities.
I try to listen to almost everything. I love artists like desert sand feels warm at night, you still feel them out there, don’t you, 18 DAYS and 818181, whom I’ve had the chance to meet and speak to at last year’s Slushwave festival. But I keep my mind open and I’m still influenced by a lot of electronic music outside of vaporwave, like ambient techno and dub techno, even drum’n’bass.
Which directions are you still aiming to explore with your project?
Ever since I started to produce electronic music, I’ve felt the need to create danceable tracks. I do like dance music a lot, and I enjoy the idea of people dancing to my music. It’s totally different from being an artist who’s singing and playing guitar to an audience that’s mostly silent and staring at you. It feels more like being a DJ, and you don’t even exist as a musician – just your music fills the room and people are having a chill time. I really want to create those vibes that can be enjoyed not just on headphones, but in a real club or even a larger venue.
Listen to SOUND2次 on Bandcamp
SOUND2次元’s Top 10 Vaporwave Albums (unranked)
2814 – 新しい日の誕生 [Birth Of A New Day] (Dream Catalogue, 2015)
猫 シ Corp. – Palm Mall Mars (self-released, 2018)
t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 – 現実を超えて (self-released, 2014)
Equip – I Dreamed Of A Palace In The Sky (self-released, 2016)
Nmesh – Dream Sequins (AMDISCS, 2014)
Windows彡96 – One Hundred Mornings (Business Casual, 2018)
아버지 [Father2006] – reflection (self-released, 2016)
ll nøthing ll – NOW THAT I’M GONE (self-released, 2020)
t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 – ロストエデンへのパス (Dream Catalogue, 2015)
Lindsheaven Virtual Plaza – Rainforest Hill, Vol. I + II (No Problema Tapes, 2021)