Vapor Talks #19: Magdalene
The Michigan-based producer on barber beats, the ethics of sampling and refurbishing portable tape players
Magdalene is the main alias of a prolific vaporwave producer from the Grand Rapids area in West Michigan, who’s only been releasing music since the summer of 2023.
Starting out as a plunderphonics curator in the barber beats style, Mags’ creative practice soon expanded into other areas of the culture like slushwave (as forgotten sinner), mallsoft, signalwave and everything in between.
One of the most intriguing aspects about her work to me is her thoughtful approach to ethical sampling, which is reflected in her choice to only plunder and manipulate music from royalty-free databases. Most of her album liner notes also include the disclaimer: “I take credit for the vibe, not the music.”
I recently jumped on a Zoom call with Magdalene to discuss musical inspirations, philosophical aspects of creative production and some of her more nerdy interests, like repairing old Sony Walkman portable cassette players.
How come so many vaporwave artists are from the Midwest? Do you have a theory?
I think it has to do with the built-in boredom. There isn’t a ton of transportation and communal aspects in the Midwest, if you’re not in one of the hub cities. I’m now in Detroit, which is pretty helpful for having an art community, but vaporwave, being such an online genre, lends itself to places that may not have as dense of an art scene. I see a lot of malaise and apathy in the music, and having such neutral gray weather tends to contribute to that as well.
Angel Marcloid mentioned similar aspects when I spoke to her.
Yeah, I identify with a lot of what Angel puts out there thematically. They’re a transgender and queer artist living in the Midwest, which is not always the most friendly to it. I see a lot of elements of escapism and fantasy in their work, and that really hits home for me.
What kind of music did you grow up on?
I grew up in a traditional Lutheran household, and my musical upbringing was very stereotypical. We listened to a lot of Christian religious music. My parents had a tight control on the media that I was watching. When I ended up leaving the church in late high school, I gravitated straight towards metal and dubstep, anything that had crunch in it. I discovered Anthony Fantano’s The Needle Drop and things like indieheads on Reddit – just a lot of online music communities.
I got really into post-rock, that was my awakening. I have a tattoo of Lift Your Skinny Fists [Like Antennas] to Heaven by Godspeed [You! Black Emperor] on my ribs. That’s when I realized that music was not just something that could be pleasant and inviting to an environment, but also could be its own profound form of art. The work of Tim Hecker is incredibly important to me too, and Daniel Lopatin’s early ambient stuff is foundational for what I listen to.
Did you get any musical training and/or play in bands?
No musical training proper. I screamed in a band, so I did metal and punk vocals.
I read somewhere that your first job was at a record shop.
Yeah, a big corporate CD shop in a mall. I worked there when I was 15. They gave me a waiver to work before I was technically supposed to, and I got a bunch of promo CDs there, like Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories – I remember getting the red one from Columbia. My co-workers all had really strong opinions on music.
How did you discover and get involved with vaporwave?
During the pandemic, I found my musical tastes shifting dramatically towards more calming and soothing things. I got deep into hip-hop beatmakers and ran across Macroblank and Oblique Occasions albums. I am a graphic designer by trade, so I was inspired by that and referencing it mainly visually. Then I realized there’s all these calm, lovely beats underneath it, and discovered how transgressive and different this music was in the way that it was sampled and not very manipulated.
That led me to learn more about hauntology and the concept of communal songwriting, looking back at traditions like The Great American Songbook, where it’s less about ownership of specific compositions and more about interpretations. The joy of this genre [vaporwave] seemed to be the accessibility, the ability to connect and reinterpret and put elements of a communal idea into your own framework. That was really why I decided I wanted to get involved.
Barber beats is all about the curation and manipulation of existing tracks and samples. How did you go about finding those?
When it came time to source my samples, I decided to go for royalty-free or commercial samples in all of my work. I can see how that might to some people signal it being a little less morally gray. But the idea was really to take something that was never intended to be isolated as the focal point, considering that certain pieces maybe weren’t ever meant to be art per se. That’s why I’ve ended up making music on a computer, because of this communal element and the conversation that it was having. I felt like it was so much more than the back and forth that I was feeling by screaming into a microphone in front of a few people in a basement.
“I’m a younger millennial, elder Gen Z, so I don’t have as many references to the CRT television fuzziness that a lot of vaporwave hits on. My references are more to the 2010s world of online content and media. (…) My childhood wasn’t as much watching the TV as watching YouTube videos.” (Magdalene)
What are you looking for when going through royalty-free databases?
What I’m looking for is sounds and motifs that would speak either to the emotional state that I’m trying to convey, or the concept behind an album. A lot of times I’ll have a playlist of the album before it’s ever been manipulated. There’s a familiarity aspect too, in trying to find elements and sonic pieces that are connecting. I might be pulling ideas and sounds that may be familiar from a peripheral place – you can’t even place it exactly, because you weren’t paying attention to the song, but it might put you back in that same space as when you experienced it the first time.
I’m a younger millennial, elder Gen Z, so I don’t have as many references to the CRT television fuzziness that a lot of vaporwave hits on. My references are more to the 2010s world of online content and media. A lot of the music I’m pulling is also where people who are creating content online are pulling – I’m thinking of YouTube creators especially. My childhood wasn’t as much watching the TV as watching YouTube videos, so I started recognizing songs from these video essays.
As the times continue, young people who find the genre will continue to pull in samples from their respective childhoods, and it’s only going to move forward what we’re pulling from. ‘80s sounds are on the radio now. The whole tongue-in-cheek cheesiness of vaporwave has been taken wholesale into pop music. There’s room to progress and start considering the way that other parts of our history are haunting us. Like, some albums right now are referencing Microsoft Encarta Kids – a learning software from the early 2000s that was a staple for some of my computer lab classes as a child.
So far, you’ve released 36 albums under at least three monikers on your Bandcamp page: There’s Magdalene for barber beats and vaportrap, there’s forgotten sinner for slushwave, and you also have a mallsoft and signalwave alias (マグダラのショッピングモール). What’s the chronology here?
The barber beats and classic vapor stuff was my jumping in point. The aliases came from learning more about the slushwave tradition and getting involved in Discord servers and online forums, where I’m learning more about how people are operating. At first I thought about putting it all out under one name, and forgotten sinner was just supposed to be a one-off Bandcamp Friday project for a limited cassette, but I ended up returning to the sound and it’s progressed in its own way.
I had a questioning period where I really thought about dumping all of the barber beats stuff, wiping it from my page. It wasn’t personally resonating with me as much. I go through these ups and downs with just being a little bit more manic or depressive. The signalwave stuff came from wanting to find more artistic credit, or maybe prestige? I’m trying to find the right word… In the vaporwave space, the more fuzz you’ve got on your samples, the more archaic and bleak it sounds, people tend to give you more artistic credit. Those projects that have that mallsoft moniker in my head are the ones that are more high-brow, because they relate more to sound design, creating my own space versus just curating samples.
In terms of the aliases – Mary Magdalene is the original sinner. The mallsoft alias translates to Malls of Magdala. And forgotten sinner, with slushwave being so manipulated and far away from the samples, the sinner – Magdalene – is basically forgotten at this point. It’s just a bit of wordplay.
You’ve alluded to your mental health struggles. I’ve spoken to many artists at this point, and there’s clearly a statistical clustering of neurodivergent people in the scene. Why do we gravitate to this music so much?
I don’t think it’s unique to vaporwave; a lot of insular online communities feel more welcoming to those types of artists. You can create your own persona and remove character from yourself online. You can put out ideas that you’re more nervous about putting out attached to your own name. Any insular community that offers a certain degree of camaraderie is going to be incredibly beneficial.
It also has to do with the founding figures in the community – looking towards Macintosh Plus, looking towards Angel [Marcloid], knowing that there have been pushbacks against fascist, transphobic and racist assholes. That pushback just communicates to people that we’re looking at ideas here that are a little bit outside of the box, and we’re not judging people for bringing up those ideas. That is going to be naturally where people gravitate towards, especially in places like the Midwest. People in those type of groups are going to be more urgent than ever to be looking for an online community that provides that to them.
I wanted to speak about a couple of my favorite albums from your catalog, just to hear more about the concepts and genesis of these projects. Let’s start with Frederik’s Holy Garden, which I love dearly. I understand it’s a mallsoft album but dedicated to a public park?
So that one, on its face, is an homage to Frederik Meijer Gardens in the Greater Grand Rapids area where I grew up. It’s an art gallery, a botanical conservatory and a sculpture park. It’s really an artsy kid’s dream, miles and miles of space, and you just walk around and see sculptures larger than you ever could have conceived of. It was the first place I’d ever seen a Calder sculpture as well.
I have fond memories of visiting that place with my very religious grandparents. Most conversations I had with them were centered around the church and God, but here it turned into a conversation about the glory of human creation and art and the wonders of the natural world. They have a wonderful event there, where they have a ton of moths emerge into butterflies at the same time. It was this really profound, life-changing experience for me. I fell out of favor with looking at things through a specifically Christian lens and was much happier to look at the joy of the world through humanism, just the experience and the creativity of people.
The album is trying to capture the way it feels to wander into that space. I wanted to create a sense of wonder with the samples that I chose; they were meant to evoke that divine connection where everything in the world is profound, and you just have to find your own way to appreciating that without having to take someone else’s framework.
You released two Magdalene EPs in 2025, Impromptu and Idyllic, which have been compiled for a physical release recently. What’s the concept behind those?
For a longer period last year, I didn’t really want to make music because I had something in my head about it being counterproductive and not what I needed to be doing at the time for my own personal sake. But then I just really wanted to make music, so I crawled back in bed and had my little impromptu night over with making barber beats again. It felt like an affair, and I was trying to figure out why I felt so guilty about continuing on with making music and returning to it.
Impromptu was about that addiction to creating and wanting to be back in a medium that you’re familiar with. It’s one night, in a metaphorical sense, of visiting an ex that you shouldn’t be visiting, and Idyllic is the apology moment, the recognition of the ways that making music wasn’t what I needed at the time, but also how I wasn’t holding myself accountable in the way that I wanted to. It’s basically an apology that I couldn’t make the relationship idyllic.
I also wanted to touch upon my current favorite from your catalogue, Honeycrisp Lament, from November 2025. This record was apparently inspired by the GlenOAX album Narvon Nights, a true signalwave classic. How did it inspire you, and how did you discover it in the first place?
Well, I actually went backwards, so I first heard CT57’s Road To Nowhere. I put it on a few times at nighttime, you know, going to bed after hours, wife’s already asleep, and I’m trying to keep it low volume. At first I was like, “Alright, so it’s songs with truck noise under it. Cool, what about it?” But soon I started craving it, because it felt so comfy and cosy. It was just really evocative with how strange the broadcasts were and the way that they would cut in and out.
CT57 had the references to Narvon Nights and TV2’s 1450Khz at Broken Grove [in the Bandcamp liner notes], so those just became part of the listening rotation as well. It got to a point where I didn’t really listen to any music that wasn’t including its own environment ambience. After a month of listening to only that music, we had a death in the family, so my wife was gone for a long weekend to go to the funeral and help with preparations. Something changed and the environments didn’t feel comfortable anymore. While she was gone for 72 hours, I needed to find comfort, so I ended up making Honeycrisp Lament.
It started with wave sounds on a beach – here in Michigan, we’re surrounded by all these great lakes, and when it came down to what space is going to actually get me to calm down, it was Lake Michigan. So that one is really me at the beach and then walking back through the wood trail to my car in the parking lot. It’s what I needed at the moment, and so I thought, why not share it?
This style has almost become its own subgenre, combining elements of signalwave and mallsoft. Narvon Nights and Broken Grove both have these layers of cicadas, Road To Nowhere has the truck noise, and Honeycrisp Lament works with wave sounds.
There’s also an M1 t e l e v í z i ó album with a similar concept about a summer in Hungary. That one is incredible as well, really awesome stuff – another cicada-heavy one though.
That album cover of yours, is that an actual childhood photograph?
Yeah, it’s just blurred for a bit of privacy.
You’re not sharing any photos of yourself on the internet, are you?
No, I don’t really do public persona. I used to have something that was an image of me, but it had some graphics and stuff.
Are you part of the vaporwave online communities on Discord?
I’m a bit of a lurker. I’m in five or six servers. I’m a collector of physical releases, and I also work on refurbishing Sony Walkman [portable cassette players], so I will post on audio gear channels every once in a while. Actually I just managed to get my hands on a Bean, this really cute plastic Walkman from Japan. This one is green, but they have a lot of different colorways. I just popped this one open and got a new belt in there. I love repairing them, I’m such a nerd about it.
How did you learn to do that?
There are some YouTube channels on vintage electronics. I usually go looking for manuals and then just get in there and try and solder and clean up any belts that have turned to goo. There’s only one variety of cassette mechanism manufactured anymore, so pretty much all anybody can do to make it better is soup it up with better metal parts, but the actual construction of the motor is pretty thick, so I really like the vintage ones because they have technology that’s frankly been lost to time.
You’re also running a DIY cassette label, Valkyrie Tapes.
Yeah, I’m just doing home dubs on a little Aiwa tape deck next to me here, and then using a paper cutter and a bone folder to make J-cards. I’ve also partnered with Rabbithole Club, who are doing our European distribution.
Which vaporwave producers are currently inspiring you?
known artiste is frankly just the cream of the crop when it comes to barber beats. Lately I’ve been really enjoying the way that he makes albums that are fully engaging, not just background listening. Now he’s gone through the barber beats to signalwave pipeline as well.
Magnum Innominandum is absolutely incredible. If you’re into some freaky funk, the most recent album by his band Harpo Jarvi is amazing. And I don’t know them personally, but all of CT57’s catalog is incredible too. I recommend you just go through every album and keep notes.
Which one of your more standard barber beats albums would be a good place to start into your discography?
If you want some calm music that will get your friends nodding their head, Profaned has always been my favorite album of mine in that style. Also the most recent one, Modern Violence – Beheaded Queens Declare Their Victory; if you’re American and you’re really frustrated right now, this one’s for you.
Anything else you want to plug?
Only thing is New Visions Detroit, a live show we’re doing in May in Detroit. It’s put on by Hushtones and Doki Doki Beats, two incredible labels where you can get a lot of really unique vaporwave stuff. If you’re looking for crazy drum’n’bass, Doki Doki has recently diversified with what they’re doing, and it’s sick.
Listen to Magdalene on Bandcamp
Magdalene’s Top 10 Vaporwave Albums
(unranked)
Oblique Occasions – Anathema (2022)
猫 シ Corp. – Palm Mall Mars (2018) or OASYS ♁ 博物館 (2016)
GODSPEED 音 – 情熱の追求 (2023)
GORE – デス・ディスコ (2023)
CT57 – Road to Nowhere (2024)
modest by default – THE SIREN METHOD (没有出口) (2022)
Macroblank – 色あせたエコー (2023)
氷河 – Tone Collection (2019)
desert sand feels warm at night – 水に流す (2019)
Looking Through Sheets – Death’s Full Regalia (2024)