Vapor Talks #30: Macroblank
An in-depth conversation with a master curator of barber beats
If you’ve ever checked out the vaporwave charts on Bandcamp in the last five years, there’s a good chance you’ve noticed the name Macroblank at the top. You’ve probably seen one of his eye-catching, distinctive album covers, which have played a major role in his success – Macroblank is not just a prolific curator and DJ, but also a talented graphic designer.
In the second half of the 2010s, the anonymous vaporwave producer Haircuts For Men developed a distinctive style based on trip-hop and downtempo music from the late 1990s and 2000s. This style was soon dubbed “barber beats” after its original creator and inspired a number of successors who helped the subgenre experience a huge surge in popularity during the pandemic. Macroblank was one of them – and probably the most successful.
In most cases, “creating” barber beats isn’t about the actual music production, but rather about selection and compilation. (The exception proves the rule.) At the heart of this practice is the search for largely forgotten lounge and chillout tracks, which are then slowed down, edited and compiled into mixtapes that reflect a specific mood or atmosphere and are usually intended as background music.
It’s only natural that this style is discussed rather controversially, not just in the music world in general, but also within the vaporwave community itself. Personally, I’ve been a massive fan and listen to barber beats mixtapes regularly; I think they’re in line with the original anarchic spirit of Plunderphonics, and I consider Macroblank one of the outstanding curators in this scene.
Through our exchanges via email and Discord, I got to know an intelligent, thoughtful and articulate young man who is very clear about his role. In this in-depth interview, he talks openly about his teenage years as a dubstep YouTuber, his enormous success in the barber beats genre, and his thoughts on the criticism his subgenre, and even himself as a person, have faced since its inception.
Where did you grow up and where are you residing?
I grew up and still currently reside in Bucharest, Romania. I’ve spent pretty much all of my life here and I’m not sure if that is going to change any time soon. I’ve had various plans of moving out into foreign countries such as the UK throughout my life, but God simply made it near impossible for me to do so. Looking back, I’m really thankful for that, actually.
What styles of music did you grow up on? What did your family play around the house?
The music my family played around the house when I was a kid was actually a mixture of both Romanian and international classics from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. I treasure those memories to this day. That time of my life actually sparked my first interaction with cassette tapes and CDs, since those tracks were all compiled on random mixtapes that my parents likely picked up from stores.
Recently, I’ve been trying to find all of that old music and archive it digitally, maybe pass it down to my own kids at some point. I’m still in the process of searching for all those songs, though.
What kind of music were you into when you were a teenager?
As a teenager in the late 2010s, my main music taste was Electronic Dance Music. I was especially into dubstep and the whole wave of artists freshly inspired by Skrillex’s Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites and Bangarang EP. Beyond that, I loved the sound that was pushed by classic EDM promo channels, such as Monstercat, DubstepGutter, Trap Nation, NoCopyrightSounds, MA Music etc. It’s that exact era of music that everyone now associates with Call of Duty montages and Minecraft PvP edits.
And yes, I have already archived like 95% of the stuff I used to listen to (in HIGH-QUALITY MP3s, mind you), which felt like a near impossible task. I did it because I still enjoy listening to this genre, especially when I’m designing some artwork.
Did you ever get any musical training and learn any instruments?
I tried to play the guitar (once on a classical and the second time on an electric which I still use sometimes, like how I did on my BADBADNOTGOOD remix), but I am by no means an actual musician – I really suck at playing instruments. Though, I do have a background in music production.
In my teenage years, not only was I really into EDM, but at one point in 2016 I started playing around in FL Studio, trying to make dubstep, since my brain could not comprehend how one could achieve such crazy sounds. And with that, I started learning how music actually worked – not only “in theory” (like making beats, writing chords and melodies), but also under the hood, digitally (how to mix, master, and how to achieve certain sounds through effects and sound design).
So, when I started Macroblank in 2020, I was somewhat prepared, since I already knew the gist of things, even though the music is still all stolen. But whenever I need to chop, loop or add my own drums, that’s where that background really comes in handy, which I am really thankful for.
As a piece of fun trivia – my first ever release gatekeeper 門番 was initially a full-length 10 track LP, with 5 tracks being fully original (because I wasn’t yet aware at that time that barber beats was actually a genre based off plundered material), while the other 5 were sampled (I added those after finding out the truth of the matter). I ended up not being satisfied with the release, so I cut off 4 tracks. But the current EP still follows the same structure – half original, half plundered (the original tracks are 01, 03 and 05).
How and when did you discover vaporwave? What did you like about it, what drew you in?
My first ever encounter with vaporwave was in 2016, during the explosion into the mainstream of リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー by Macintosh Plus. And it wasn’t even through the original track itself, but through a meme edit of the classic vine “Why are you crying?”, made to sound like the Lisa Frank 420 song.
That day I also found the original, which I fell in love with. The graphic design of Floral Shoppe’s cover art really spoke to me, and still heavily does to this day. It’s just something about the bright colors and abstract shapes that I absolutely adore. And the music – I didn’t quite understand why it felt so “ironic”, yet so smooth and relaxing at the same time. This song was essentially an instant classic to me the moment I first heard it.
Now, during 2016/17 I dabbled lightly into vaporwave, mostly on YouTube, through channels like Sun Levi and maybe a bit of Sound Station, which made me discover other artists like Saint Pepsi and Telepath. But that’s the extent my knowledge of vaporwave went. In my mind, it was just a silly online genre that sounded really a e s t h e t i c. It remained mostly a meme to me, which I still enjoyed playing every now and then, whenever I wanted something relaxing to listen to.
For some reason though, I ended up dropping vaporwave completely for about two to three years. Around late 2019, early 2020, I suddenly remembered the genre, and I deeply wanted to rediscover it. This time, I truly wanted to pay more attention to it, not just brush it off. The main way I was doing that was through vaporwave mixes on YouTube, especially the legendary ones off the SPLIFF RADIO channel. I’m telling you, for a while that was all I was listening to.
Slowly the algorithm started pushing more vaporwave content to me, but not just music. I started discovering people like Pad Chennington, who really opened my eyes to the “world” of vaporwave, and how the genre is actually much deeper than just slowed down 80s songs. In short – this period of time was basically me starting to know more about the big players, as well as most of the classic albums that people still cherish to this day. Vapor Memory was becoming my number one source of finding gold, truly.
How did you discover barber beats then? In 2020, when you started, not many producers outside of the godfather of this style, Haircuts For Men, had actively tried their hand at it.
I vividly remember how one delightful evening of 2020, the album ダウンタンブルと死にます by Haircuts for Men suddenly popped on my feed. Turns out, YouTube was slowly pushing this album to people just like me, who enjoyed chill and obscure internet music. I remember the video was just getting some traction in terms of hype.
I can’t really put into words just how magnetic this album was to me, even before actually giving it a listen. I mean, c’mon – you go on YouTube, scroll a little, and you suddenly see this bright, colorful cover art, with really cool and weird graphic design. You read the title – it’s written in two languages? The English says “Haircuts for Men”, which is really funny, and when you even try to comprehend the long-ass Japanese text, you simply fail. Of course you are going to click on it!
The moment you give it a listen, you actually get rewarded for giving it a shot, because the music truly bangs. That right there is the essence of barber beats to me. Awesome cover art paired with dope music, that doesn’t sound quite like lo-fi hip hop, but neither pure vaporwave. Just perfectly in the middle. All wrapped in this aura of mystery and intrigue.
After that first contact with HFM’s style, YouTube essentially started bombarding me with more of his works. I’m talking когда зло господствует, 大理石のファンタジー, 壊滅悲しみ, 手遅れに実現, 逃してしまった関係, 1982, you can trust me, 必要, 下からの光を食べます. I mean, damn! Never in my life have I found an artist that fell under the “no-misses” category for me.
It truly felt like this guy essentially created his own world, full of this chill music that you could dive into, knowing it could easily fit in any day-to-day activity. It was never distracting, yet if you wanted to pay attention to it, you’d really enjoy it. And the graphic design – I can confidently say it felt even closer to what I enjoyed visually than Floral Shoppe. It was still colorful, abstract, yet a lot more modern and slick at the same time.
While shuffling through these albums on YouTube for a couple of months, I remember I was aware of the existence of Bandcamp as a music website, but for some reason I just preferred staying on YouTube, due to convenience. After finally deciding to dive deeper, I checked out his Bandcamp page, and that’s when I realized just how much deeper the rabbithole went. I ended up stumbling into more gold, such as 共振, これ以上の嘘, 私は家を取りました, 010429, 19-83, the EARLY TAPE WORKS series and テンペスト地域.
How did you learn to curate barber beats?
Around spring of 2020, during peak pandemic, whenever I needed to disconnect from life’s craziness, I would play some of HFM’s stuff in the background, and just carry on with my day. I don’t know how to explain it, but during such an unpredictable time of my life, knowing I had something to turn to that would give me a little break from things really meant the world to me.
Initially, I wanted to see if more people did anything similar to him, but I hardly found anybody (thing is – I wasn’t looking hard enough). Because of that, I decided to give myself the responsibility of recreating for others what HFM’s works did for me. I really wanted to offer something good to people – a world that they could fully dive into. An interesting place to check into whenever they wanted, especially if they felt life getting too overwhelming at times.
So, around May of 2020 I started writing the music for my first release, gatekeeper 門番, because I came from an “original music only” background, and I had no clue how vaporwave was actually made. When I was 5 tracks in, I realized that HFM actually straight up ripped whole songs and just slowed them down a bit (figured what WhoSampled was). So, of course my initial reaction was pure disappointment. At the same time, I kind of asked myself “well, how else could he have released such an insane amount of music in only a couple of years?” – it did make sense. Yet, if it was all stolen, then how come it all sounded so consistent in sound and quality, as if it was all made by one guy?
With that question came the intrigue of understanding the skill behind “curation”. I never cared much for it, but vaporwave forced me to develop this skill and to look at the bigger picture when it comes to artistic projects, not just individual bits and pieces. Because the purpose was no longer to “show off”, but to create an experience for people.
Macroblank is not a self-driven project, but something that always was in the hands of the external. Not in an unhealthy, people-pleasing way, since my projects still express something that comes from within. But my goal has always been to put out something professional and satisfying for others. I’m really big headed sometimes, but if my gut ever tells me that “I should make certain artistic changes, because it would serve people better”, then that’s the inevitable thing I go for.
The first project where I fully focused on curation was 絶望に負けた. And funny enough, I made that album in about 2-3 days. There was a new-found freedom in simply trying to search for “the best material” out there. Though, with it came the pressure of maintaining the standard that HFM has set before me, which I religiously held onto during the first few years of Macroblank. For instance, I would only release an album if I deemed it as “worthy” hahah. Both cover art and music had to be just right.
I still hold a standard for myself to this day, but I tend to be a bit more relaxed about it, and actually allow myself to have fun with it. God has really blessed me with achieving everything I’ve set out to achieve regarding Macroblank, so I am at a point where I try to honor what I have and not hold onto it too tightly, the way I used to.
Who were your favorite producers and the formative curators that influenced you?
I’ll be completely honest with you – I still might be the biggest “classic HFM” fan you will ever meet. His early works were truly the main guide for me on how to do barber beats. I literally would sit down and try to figure out why I enjoyed looking at his artwork, like what was the “theory” behind it. Or why did he choose to curate music a certain way; what particularly made his releases special from other vaporwave albums. Countless hours spent analyzing, surfing the web for samples, and just trying to understand what made it tick.
Though, outside of HFM, I have to say the second artist that heavily influenced me in the early years has got to be Vektroid. Literally each release she’s ever put out is extremely special in some way. The visuals are always incredible, and I simply love how much freedom and creativity there is in all of the sounds she’s explored throughout the years. I will always remember when Sick & Panic came out, during a time when I was just slowly rediscovering vaporwave. It was insane to see another official Mac Plus drop after such a long time, that sounded wildly different from Floral Shoppe.
As a relatively young member of the community, did you ever feel the need to go back and study vaporwave’s history?
I still do feel that need, even to this day! It always feels like there’s something new to discover about vaporwave and its history. But yes, I really did feel that need initially, when I started out. I wanted to truly grasp the genre, the scene, and to just get the gist of things.
The most amount of learning I’ve done was during my early years as Macroblank, especially since I was working with Aloe City, who has been in the game for much longer than me. Through that, I managed to get in contact with a lot more people who would share their experiences about the genre and its history. It was a fun little community that slowly got me integrated into the larger scene.
You started releasing music as Macroblank in the pandemic. Any musical projects before that? Did the pandemic have anything to do with you starting to make and release stuff?
Yes, I have had multiple musical projects before Macro, actually. But none of them had anything to do with vaporwave. The most notable one was my first attempt at music production, under the alias Wubbix. I’m not sure how many people in my audience even know about that one, but I still see some comments mentioning it every now and then, which warms my heart.
I started it in 2016, when I was 13 years old, and when I knew absolutely nothing about music. But I had a big dream in my heart of successfully creating Dubstep tracks, just like all the artists I was listening to at that time. I kept going with it for about 3 years, time in which I learned so much – how to actually produce music, how to make YouTube content, and I even how to do a live DJ set (I got to play a couple of gigs in my home country). I will forever cherish that era of my life.
But, at the time, I was growing a bit of resentment towards the project. Not only was I known more-so as a funny YouTuber than an actual artist, but I was starting to feel a certain pressure that I needed to grind out content, in order to “stay relevant”, all while trying to reach the 100k subscribers milestone. It was kind of weird, because I felt like I couldn’t put music out, unless I also had some tutorials or videos ready for my audience to watch. I still cringe at the content I was putting out and the jokes I was making (apologies in advance to anyone who wanted to check out these videos).
Though, the moment I hit the 100k milestone, I was quickly met with the classic realization that, no matter how much you chase goals, you will never be satisfied, because you will always end up wanting more. You either keep lying to yourself, or you just move on with your life. And that’s what I ended up doing – I put an end to Wubbix around mid-2019.
The project that followed, called Kaijo, was still centered around Dubstep. This time, however, I wanted to take it a bit more seriously and create music that could actually be played at DJ gigs or festivals. It also gave me a bit more freedom to experiment with electronic music. That’s how my single Hive Mind and the Nano EP came to be. Both were released in 2020, during a time when life was becoming increasingly uncertain and my teenage dream of becoming a full-time DJ was slowly fading away. Little did I know what the future had in store.
As another piece of fun trivia, during the pandemic I put out a super-secret album called Daewood – an experimental electronic LP released under the duo alias Odd South, a project between me and one of my best friends, ode dyne.
On that note, make sure to check out ode dyne on SoundCloud, Spotify or Bandcamp. He makes some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard, and has always been one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to art, self-expression, and just about anything in life.
The Odd South project was a bit of a joke between me and him. We took everything we knew about electronic music production and essentially threw it out the window in order to make something that sounded really stupid, but was a lot of fun at the same time. It was a nice opportunity to step back and make cool art without any restrictions. Even today, I still look back on it fondly and sometimes wish we’d get the chance to make more music together, just like in the good old days.
And yes, the pandemic did play a huge role. While it genuinely was a really bad time for everybody, to me it opened a door of endless possibilities and exploration. Just a time where I could do whatever I had in mind, without a whole lot of pressure. I know my experience isn’t the same as everyone else’s – the pandemic represented a lot of hardship and an overwhelming amount of abuse of power in people’s lives. But even then, I try to look on the bright side. I am thankful I had a time where I could concentrate all of the outside chaos in life into something meaningful.
I discovered you in 2021. In the following two years, you had an immense hype. Your releases were always on top of the Bandcamp charts, and any physicals were immediately sold out. How did that feel?
It was definitely one of the most insane moments of my life. No other project of mine has ever reached the heights that Macroblank reached.
The craziest part is that I was completely convinced the project would never find any real success, even within the vaporwave scene. In my mind, there were two major problems: first, it would never escape the “HFM clone” label; and second, HFM was simply the lucky one out the bunch who got picked up by the YouTube algorithm in 2020. I thought there was no way that could happen twice, especially to someone openly drawing from the same style. Little did I know that the emergence of the barber beats wave was about to become one of the driving forces behind the shift in YouTube’s algorithm.
To this day, I’m still left speechless by how everything unfolded. On paper, it shouldn’t have happened. Yet somehow, it did. I give all the credit to God, because this was truly an impossible feat for me alone. Even before the explosion of barber beats, seeing my tapes sell out when I was essentially a nobody – it was humbling. I realized there was a real need for this kind of sound and aesthetic, and I was happy to provide for it.
While the hype was really building throughout 2022 and 2023, a number of issues also began to surface.
It was absolutely surreal seeing my own releases appear on the Bandcamp charts, but in hindsight, it really was one of those moments of Icarus flying too close to the sun. An overwhelming amount of attention is rarely a good thing in the vaporwave world.
During that period, I was also accumulating a growing number of copyright strikes on my Bandcamp page. Eventually, those caught up with me, and in September 2023, my original page was taken down. I suppose that’s just how life goes. Everything has its ups, but also its downs. Take your portion and be grateful for it; there’s no need to ask for more.
My first Macroblank album was 行方不明, released in January 2021. True that this one got some great feedback and marked a stepping stone in your career? Why do you think that is?
Yes, it’s true. This album was the first release of mine to receive a genuinely unexpected amount of attention.
I remember a YouTube channel called theuppermostinlife uploading the full album, and that video ended up having the same kind of “magnetic” effect that ダウンタンブルと死にます by HFM had – except probably ten times stronger. If I remember correctly, it reached a million views in about a week. So far, the album has been hit with at least two copyright strikes: one on that channel’s upload, and another on my own.
It was always funny how people would click on the cover art because “it looked very metal”, just to bump into chill, downtempo music. It was quite the recurring reaction you’d get from the audience, which I wasn’t actually expecting.
I definitely see 行方不明 as a stepping stone in my career. I believe this album also helped barber beats get further solidified as a real, legitimate subgenre of vaporwave, not just “a copy of HFM’s style”. To me, it marked something completely unexpected, something that forever changed the trajectory of my life.
A fun fact about the album I could share – I think that less than a week before I was meant to officially release it, I actually scrapped like 80% of the material, and decided to essentially just re-do it. Absolute insane and manic decision I managed to take, but it seems it was for the greater good.
The reason why things like these happened during that early stage of my career was because of my debilitating perfectionism, and that continuous aim to “uphold the standard”. If there was anything I wasn’t fully satisfied with, I wouldn’t be able to let it go. I’m really glad I have a completely different approach nowadays, it is much better for my health.
From 2021 to 2023 I religiously followed every album you made, and looking back I am seeing that as the first golden era in the Macroblank catalogue. After that your work became a bit more experimental, would you agree? If so, was that on purpose?
Yes, I would definitely say that period can be seen as its own era. Most of the releases between 2020 and 2023 follow a very specific lounge style that people typically associate with my work, even though there were occasional departures like OCCULT or dungeon of lust.
I rarely experimented in major ways back then. The differences were usually subtle - more about shifting the feel of the samples from one release to another rather than changing the core sound itself. In a way, that was kind of my intention. For the first few years, I didn’t really want to branch out too much, because I was focused on exploring everything I could within the classic barber beats style that HFM had already established.
Around the end of 2023, I did start becoming more comfortable with experimentation. Not in the sense that I abandoned the original style, but more that releases began to naturally drift into different directions, sometimes sounding quite different from what people would expect.
It wasn’t really a deliberate shift. It just sort of... happened. I think I had reached a point where I had explored most of what I personally could within that original sound, so since 2024 my attention slowly moved toward whatever I currently find most interesting in the genre.
At the same time, I was also going through a major transition in my life. As mentioned earlier, the end of 2023 was marked by the sudden takedown of my Bandcamp page, which forced me to reassess a lot of plans I already had in motion. This came at a time when there was already a lot of pressure building up – the second edition of the Barber Night live show was scheduled in the UK for early 2024, alongside plans to move over there and branch out into different avenues with Aloe City.
When everything collapsed, the Bandcamp takedown felt like the first domino in a chain of events that ultimately changed the trajectory of my life (again). Looking back, it was a difficult and chaotic period, but also a necessary one. In some way, I’m grateful it happened, because it led things to where they are now.
I think the music that followed reflects that shift. I had to get used to life not being predictable, and to stepping outside my comfort zone. It’s definitely easier said than done, but there isn’t really any another option.
From the very beginning, barber beats was a controversial genre. Some people see barber beats makers more as DJs and curators than as actual producers. Your page always said you take no credit, and everything is plundered. How would you define your own role in the music?
I agree with the people that say that I am more of a DJ/curator, than an actual producer. The only time I act as a producer is whenever I actually compose and write music from scratch. I try my best to credit everybody that I sample, but I royally suck at keeping track of all the plundered material, so I may miss a few ones every now and then.
It’s funny that, at one point, the only thing you’d find on Reddit about me was people asking, “Does Macroblank just steal?” I understand where their confusion comes from. After all, I was in their shoes when I first realized that this genre isn’t really about musical skill.
But now, much of my audience also sees me as a DJ, and there’s this level of understanding and appreciation for the art of curating music that is really humbling to see. I am an advocate for honesty – I think it triumphs over everything else, and the more honest you are about it, the less of a disconnect there will be between you, the vaporwave artist, and your audience.
Of course, your typical vaporwave fans may already know what’s going on under the hood, but I believe barber beats has reached a much larger audience that simply may not know what this is all about, and may even be getting introduced to the world of vaporwave through barber beats.
I believe all the controversy and copyright takedowns over the past few years have been completely legitimate. There is real dialogue to be had when it comes to sampling – what’s acceptable and what’s not. It’s really difficult to draw the line between what is truly transformative and what isn’t, because everyone sees it differently. That’s why there’s an ongoing debate within vaporwave audiences about how much samples should be altered.
I believe the blunt truth about the genre is that it’s never been about technical skill, but rather about the taste each artist has to offer the world. The really fun thing about vaporwave is that, truly, anybody can do it, and they will inevitably end up with their own unique voice, distinct from everyone else’s.
How do you actually go about finding samples? Do you dig only digitally or are you a record digger too?
I barely dig through analog sources. Very rarely do I come across a CD that I go through track by track (and even then, I usually find it ripped online anyway). At best, the only time I find samples outside of the digital world is when I’m at a coffee shop or restaurant and hear some cool downtempo music playing in the background. Shazam is my go-to in those situations.
So almost all of the digging I do happens online. The main platforms I use are Spotify and Beatport. Spotify is amazing because its algorithm is actually very well tuned – I find a lot of gold by accident thanks to it. Beatport is also incredibly useful because it’s the only platform I know that gives me direct access to entire record label catalogs.
My methods of surfing the web are simple: checking artists who have been sampled before, exploring related artists, and going through discographies to see if there are any hidden gems. The “Appears On” section on Spotify is awesome, because it often surfaces Various Artists compilations that the artist you’re checking has been a part of. Through these compilations, you can identify prominent record labels within the scene you want to sample from, which most likely released other great compilations that are ready to dig through.
Last but not least, playlists on Spotify. The user-made ones are peak, but so are the genre-specific playlists that Spotify generates for you (that’s the algorithm at work). Another cool feature is that if you create a playlist with music you want to sample, Spotify will recommend similar, often obscure tracks at the bottom of it, that you can check out.
So why all of this Various Artists, record label, and playlist digging? Because it gives you a level of randomness that is still filtered through other people’s taste. You aren’t aimlessly wandering through genres – you have a real sense of navigation that still feels somewhat unpredictable. It’s a matter of trusting the process and knowing that you may eventually stumble upon something that fits the vision you have in mind.
How do you select which tracks to sample, do you go mainly by mood or instrumentation, or do you have other criteria?
This question ties directly into my actual process of putting together a release. My albums revolve around specific themes and sounds that work hand in hand. Each project is meant to express a particular atmosphere or idea, functioning as a self-contained experience from start to finish.
Naturally, whenever I browse samples, I keep in mind what I’m trying to build. I usually filter them through three criteria, in this order: 1. quality, 2. vibe, and 3. sound.
If a sample is simply not well produced, I will usually skip it. Good production often means that the music also has a clearly defined mood, or atmosphere. When I find something that meets the standard, I start thinking about where it could fit within the projects I’m already working on. The final category is the sound itself. The instruments, textures, and overall character can determine a lot of things – from the genre I’m working within to the direction a track ultimately takes.
In the end, this process of curation is meant to build smaller worlds within bigger worlds. You can choose to dive into the extensive discography I’ve built so far, but my goal is actually for it to feel like you may not know what kind of experience you’re going to stumble into each time you click on a release.
In a sense, it’s like recreating for the listener my own experience of finding this stuff and putting it all together. At its core, vaporwave represents the act of sharing, rather than claiming things as one’s own.
Have you gone more into original music production in addition to curation and sample manipulation in the last couple of years?
Yes, actually. Last year, I started work on the ShantyTown OST, my first full-length original soundtrack. I’m beyond blessed to have had the opportunity to compose for such a great project. I finally got to release it a few months ago, alongside the official release of the game itself.
I’m really proud of having successfully produced almost an hour and a half of music, where each track serves its own purpose. It’s like taking what I already do through Macroblank, but on a much larger scale. Instead of finding music that fits a certain atmosphere, I try to pull it out of my own brain. And instead of creating a single release around a theme, you’re composing individual tracks that fit specific moments within the game.
My latest Kaijo track, “FLOW”, was released three whole years ago, and there hadn’t been any new original music from me until now. So it’s been a while, but it feels really good to be back. And in a way, it’s a lot more fulfilling than any dubstep track I’ve ever produced. To me, fulfillment is found in serving others rather than serving yourself. I may be weird, but every project I’ve ever made “for myself” feels quite vain in retrospect, and I barely even remember most of them.
There’s also more soundtrack work happening behind the scenes that I can’t share too much about right now, but all I can say is that it’s very exciting. I’d love to continue down this path. Vaporwave will always remain one of the first genres I fell in love with, and I don’t plan on ever quitting. But there’s something special about sitting down and pulling an artistic vision straight from within, without depending on pre-existing material to achieve certain feelings or emotions. It just feels a lot more authentic.
Vaporwave is a great entry point for learning how to organize ideas and concepts, but I can say without a doubt that getting into the weeds of composition and trying to make something from almost nothing is a step above. Because you’re the one in charge of every detail.
You’ve collaborated with Oblique Occasions, GODSPEED 音 and slowerpace 音楽 in the past…
…and what a blessing it is that I have managed to collaborate with such amazing artists. I wish I had the opportunity to do it more often! It is extremely fun to work with other people, because it’s an act of blending different styles and visions into one – something that is truly unique. It’s easy to overlook how integral collaboration is to keeping a scene interesting and fun.
Are you in contact with many other vaporwave and barber beats artists?
I’m not actually in contact with that many artists within the scene – mostly just the ones I’ve already worked with. Even then, we don’t get to talk as often, simply because life gets busy. It can be difficult to keep up at times.
So in reality, I’m quite disconnected from the scene. In the early years, I was much more integrated into the broader community, but that isn’t really the case anymore. Aside from the artists from the Aloe crew that I still keep in touch with, the only person I regularly talk to within vaporwave is Celadon Plaza, who I work with on all of my physical releases. Through him, I manage to catch up on whatever is happening.
I loved what you did with slowerpace 音楽 on The Era of Information, one of my favorite projects of your discography. Any specific concept or background on that one?
The concept of the album was entirely thought out by slowerpace 音楽 himself. He is an absolute legend; his mind is literally wired differently when it comes to these conceptual releases. He really has that skill of bringing “vaporwave” back into barber beats. It’s not a lie when he says that he “reimagines great hits to tell stories.”
He had the Utopian Scholastic aesthetic in mind from the get-go. I was immediately on board with it, and we came to the conclusion that the best sound for the album would be a combination of his classic barber style and the general sound of my “avalanche” album.
He already had something cooked up for both the music and the artwork before I could even do anything myself (absolute madman). The initial artwork he sent me was actually the one he ended up using on his ENCARDIA ‘99 release. I felt like the art was already extremely good – basically almost finished – and I didn’t really have anything to add to it. So the red statue bust that people are familiar with was actually my attempt at bridging the gap between the Utopian Scholastic vibe that slowerpace 音楽 initially came up with and the more classic barber beats aesthetic.
The process of putting the music together was really about me and him inspiring each other with the directions we both had in mind. First, he sent me some material, then I tried to build off of that and match it. Finally, he replaced some of his own tracks to further solidify the sound that was present on both ends. The result is exactly what you can hear today – I was incredibly surprised by how well it all flowed from track to track.
One of the craziest things to me was when I saw that he wanted to do the Intro Theme for the album. Never in my life had I seen anything like that on a barber beats release. slowerpace 音楽 is truly one of a kind within the genre, and he’s genuinely dedicated to delivering a great experience to the audience.
What do you think about the relationship between the vaporwave community and barber beats?
It’s undeniable that barber beats was the next big thing in the scene shortly after slushwave had long reached its peak in popularity and was already in a slight decline due to oversaturation. I think we’re reaching a similar point now with barber beats, and unless you genuinely try to innovate or explore different avenues, you’ll probably get left behind by repeating what’s already been done over the last few years.
In terms of the general attitude you see from the broader vapor scene when it comes to barber beats, I think it’s quite a mixed bag. Some love it, some hate it. It’s crazy to me when I see people being so dedicated, building full collections filled with so many classics, while on the other side of the spectrum, you still see purists complaining about barber beats being “low-effort plagiarism.”
I respect people for choosing not to engage with certain media for moral reasons, and I don’t condemn them. But I think there’s some irony in how quickly this audience dismisses barber beats in a genre that was founded on stolen music. I think that’s the critical point where the conversation should shift. Why do we enjoy vaporwave? Is it really because of how “technically moral” or “complex” it is? Or is it because of the potential it unlocks for building any experience the artist has in mind?
As I always state, no credit is ever taken, and I do not try to argue my way into why you should care about barber beats. I think everyone is free to have their own thoughts on it – after all, the variety of opinions is another reason why barber beats is so interesting to me. But when engaging in conversations about what’s valid and what isn’t within the genre, I think it’s important to keep an open mind, especially since we’re already standing on shaky ground.
I’ve heard some criticism coming from other subgenre communities, which basically boils down to two things: 1) Barber beats is low effort music and 2) Because of its success, it’s clogging up the labels’ release pipelines and blocking other styles of vaporwave from getting physical releases. Do you have thoughts or even a response to these arguments?
Before giving my answer to any of the criticisms, it’s worth noting that when a style rises in popularity to this degree (the way other vaporwave subgenres have before barber beats), it’s much more a matter of where the general demand is than any real “unfair favoritism” between subgenres.
Complaining about where the culture’s pendulum is swinging is a bit entitled. This genre isn’t that deep, and if you don’t like where things are heading, you can simply move on to something else. I’m still the biggest fan of the classic barber style, but you’ll never see me complain that it isn’t as popular anymore. I actively seek out what’s new within the genre because it always gets me excited and inspired.
I already partially answered the first objection, but to expand on that critique: even if people don’t immediately dismiss barber beats for the moral objection of it being “just plagiarism,” they may still write it off as a “lazy” form of vaporwave due to its lack of complexity in production.
Again, we have to look back at the roots of the genre and acknowledge that, in reality, stuff like Eccojams or Floral Shoppe is barely any different from barber beats. The only real differences are the source material and the greater emphasis on looping. That’s about it. I still edit my samples whenever I want to remove or repeat larger sections, but I make those edits as seamlessly as possible because I want the music to function as background noise with minimal disruption to the listener’s attention.
I believe vaporwave is “lazy” by nature because, as previously stated, it allows just about anybody to try their hand at it. The barrier to entry really isn’t that high – it’s not a requirement to know much about music production. Therefore, the point of vaporwave may actually be more about what you do with the music than how you do it. The effort lies in how skilled and dedicated the artist is in creating the best experience they can offer: quality samples, a consistent tone, good pacing, and visually appealing artwork. Of course, the level of technical complexity is entirely up to the artist, but the process still largely revolves around curation and actually nailing the theme they have in mind.
Now, to answer the second objection: I think barber beats is also in decline. Its height in popularity was around 2021-23, but there are still releases coming out today that get people genuinely hyped (just not as often). So I don’t really believe labels are as “clogged up” as they once were. It’s true that, during its peak, the vaporwave category on Bandcamp was almost nothing but barber beats. And yes, the same could be said for the release schedules of some of the biggest labels.
While I’ve already stated that it’s a waste of energy to get mad at what people find cool, I believe the situation changes a bit when it comes to labels. The truly lazy thing to do is blaming the “clogging up” on the trend itself rather than on the labels that are jumping on it while largely discarding their original audience. I’m not saying it’s forbidden for a label to explore new avenues – quite the contrary. But I do feel there was a stronger incentive to secure some of the first barber beats releases in the hope of bringing in some new hype, rather than maintaining a sense of their original direction. I can understand the frustration in that case, but I still feel like it might’ve been misdirected.
As you were one of the most successful curators, a lot of the online hate and backlash to barber beats was directed towards you. How did you cope with that? Was it ever an actual problem for you?
I mean, it was a bit weird, not going to lie. I’ve never received such a large amount of hate on any of my projects as I did with Macroblank. I do understand the crowd that gets an emotional reaction out of fact that the music is stolen. Some people simply won’t agree with it, and I respect that. But I don’t think that justifies the anti-social behavior of sending me anonymous emails wishing me some of the worst stuff – I don’t even know these people and I haven’t done anything to them personally.
The backlash was only a problem to the point of having my stuff taken down. I think the original artists should have the freedom of exercising their right of taking down something that infringes on their copyrights. Though, I wish we could solve things more amicably, through email or any form of contact, since my intent is never malicious towards them. I try my best to credit everybody and to make it as clear as possible that I do not own the music that I put out.
The hate, though, was never a real problem. It was definitely something to get used to, but they’re just words. It’s easy to stand behind a screen, typing all of that and feeling good about yourself. But at the end of the day, it’s just cowardly behavior, which doesn’t really mean anything.
This might feel like an unfair generalization, but why do you think is it that some of vaporwave’s biggest artists – and many of its listeners – are weirdos that really seem to enjoy arguing with strangers on the internet?
Vaporwave was born on the internet, and it continues to exist primarily through it. The internet has always been a sort of “separate reality” alongside the real world. Back in the day, the people who spent a lot of time online were usually either deeply invested hobbyists or social outcasts. Because of that, the internet felt like a small secret club that most people didn’t really care about or understand.
The roots of internet culture are, in many ways, by outcasts and for outcasts. So when you create an internet genre, it’s only natural that other people who feel similarly disconnected end up gravitating towards it. Since vaporwave’s inception, countless other internet-born genres and scenes have emerged, and they all tend to attract very similar types of people.
At its core, I think a lot of these individuals simply find their home in the digital world. That’s a much sadder reality than we’d like to admit. I don’t condemn them, because I understand them – I used to be exactly like that myself.
The difference is that what was once a niche phenomenon in the early 2000s has now become widespread. More and more people are choosing the digital world over the real one, and I genuinely believe that’s one of the main reasons why there’s so much misunderstanding, isolation, and hostility today.
Your last album 記憶ONLINE was quite a curveball for many listeners and sounded very different with those Utopian Virtual references. Is that a new direction for Macroblank? Are you going to explore more of these concepts or mostly return to your established standard sound?
I’ve recently started to fall in love with the Utopian Virtual / Frutiger Aero vibe. I was actually heavily inspired by w w w . d e e p d i v e . c o m by CyberDystnt, under the Webinar™ alias. I kind of wanted to try that style out myself, but adapt it to my own sound. As a joke, I made up “utopian barber” as a genre tag and used it on the Bandcamp release.
It’s true that 記憶ONLINE is pretty different from what you’d typically expect from me. I think it feels a lot more “vaporwave” than my other albums, partly because the artwork is so weird, abstract, and yet nostalgic, while the music sounds like something you randomly stumbled upon on your home computer in the early 2000s.
I don’t think I’ve explored this direction before, but I am absolutely fascinated by it. I already have something new in the works that follows a similar atmosphere, and there’s definitely going to be more utopian barber additions to my discography. This doesn’t mean a full departure from my original style - just a new branch I’d like to incorporate alongside the established sound.
This year, though, there’s most likely going to be a greater emphasis on classic vaporwave in my releases. I think I’ve just grown more nostalgic for it myself.
Fun fact about 記憶ONLINE – it’s one of those few releases where I could literally imagine how the artwork was going to look before even opening Photoshop. The whole album just kind of flowed naturally while I was working on it, and that’s usually a great sign - the path of least resistance is what I gravitate towards when making any form of art.
Are you doing all of your artworks yourself? What’s your main inspiration there?
Yes, I do all the artwork myself in Photoshop. Pinterest is a constant source of inspiration when I need to do graphic design, because it offers an endless stream of material that I can work with, remix, and incorporate into my own pieces. Even my visuals tend to follow the same logic as the music – searching for pre-existing images, “stealing”, editing, and then integrating them into a design I’m working on. It’s truly all recycled.
My main inspiration comes from the 2015-20 era of HFM cover arts. As I mentioned before, I used to study his work quite closely, trying to figure out that “theory” behind it and why it worked. Over time, I started developing my own style and taste in how I want graphic design to look.
I love bright colors, eye-catching abstract imagery, and bold texts. Speaking of which, Vektroid is a master graphic designer who perfectly utilizes such elements. I love the amount of controlled yet pleasing chaos in her work. What else would you expect from a vaporwave titan who helped define the genre’s aesthetic?
Aside from these main influences, it’s slightly difficult for me to pinpoint other specific graphic designers, since most of what inspires me on the daily actually comes from Pinterest recommendations, which I then organize into boards. I suppose the main trends in my work are a combination of 80s aesthetics alongside modern “brutalist” graphic design. When I first started in 2020, I barely saw the term “brutalist” being used, but now it seems to be a more common label for the style I work in.
For honorable mentions, I’d also like to include a few graphic designers I look up to: Safehaven, JOYCE and Virgil Abloh (Off-White).
Who’s doing the innovative stuff in barber beats currently? Who are the current top curators, who’s inspiring you?
I believe one of the artists who is truly innovating within barber beats right now has got to be DARK DESIRE. I highly recommend checking out his latest releases, such as HEAT SIGNALS, VANITY RENEGADE, Nothing Powered Soul, and DEIFIED. This man is putting out some of the most legendary stuff right now, and it’s such a shame people aren’t talking about it more. It’s all extremely artistic and emotional, and it offers something that usual barber beats doesn’t. I love the avant-garde / signalwave direction he’s been exploring lately, especially his newer style of heavily manipulated samples, all in pursuit of creating a truly meaningful experience. DARK DESIRE is one of the people who motivates me to step further out of my own comfort zone.
I’ve already mentioned him, but the second artist I’d like to add to this list is slowerpace 音楽. There’s not a single release he drops that doesn’t have an extremely strong theme. He KNOWS how to create a story, and every concept he comes up with is clearly reflected in both the aesthetic and the sound. Each album is truly its own self-contained world that you’re stepping into. I don’t even know how he manages to continuously come up with all these great ideas for album concepts, but I always look forward to each new release from him.
As far as classic barber beats goes, I think one of the artists who is absolutely doing it justice – and killing it while doing so – is GODSPEED 音. His latest LOST AUDIO series is pure peak, and I’ve heard he’s planning on doing a fifth and final installment, which I’m really looking forward to. GODSPEED 音 puts an insane emphasis on drum work and effects. Out of anyone I’ve heard, he can truly make barber beats sound both extremely spacious and incredibly fat at the same time. He’s reached a point where he can grab just about any sample and make it sound crazy purely through the way he reworks it. There’s a different level of dedication in how he approaches his sampled material, and it shows. It’s basically impossible to click on a GODSPEED 音 and not hear banger after banger.
For my last mention, I’d like to bring up an artist who has been focusing on original barber beats for quite a while now – Machina Pensant. The artwork is really unique, and the music production always feels incredibly deliberate. What impresses me the most is how fully realized each release is. It’s all original material in a genre that heavily relies on sampling, and the level of consistency Machina Pensant maintains while doing that is genuinely remarkable. The visuals are always so clean, and they feel like a natural progression of what barber beats looked like in the early 2020s. I’ve known of Machina since the Temple album back in 2020, and I’ve continued to admire the quality of each release ever since. An artist you absolutely need to keep an eye on.
What do you listen to outside of vaporwave?
My favorite music outside of vaporwave typically falls into the electronic genre. Besides gaming dubstep, some electronic artists I keep coming back to, that I consider to be modern-day geniuses would have to be LORN, Skee Mask and Burial. The level of complexity and skill these guys have is beyond me. They have this sheer ability of expressing their vision of this world so authentically. Inspired doesn’t even begin to describe the way I feel about their works.
Outside the more “artistic” side of music, I also listen to anything that I can play in the background. 80s music, house, and sometimes dub techno.
You have such a rich discography. Where would you suggest a new listener to start, which album(s) are you the most proud about?
I believe the best entry points for anybody that wants to get the general gist of my discography is by diving into my mixes, actually. The order I say would be best is:
They capture a wide range of music that I feel might be the most accessible to the average listener, while still managing to capture a decent enough atmosphere.
Or, if you want to have no strings attached, and just use the music purely for some background noise, you could straight up play my 24-hour 研磨剤 COLLECTION, and it would work quite well - no need to take guesses.
If you want to dig through actual albums, then I’d say the best way to get started is:
ヒーロー v2 (the friendliest and most appealing release, in my opinion)
痛みの永遠 (some of the strongest vibes in my discography)
行方不明 (if you want to check out some of the classic stuff)
絶望に負けた (if you’re into more ambient sounds)
Honorable mention: ラストチャンス for the straight jazz (also a fan favorite)
This is the only guide that I can give to someone I’d imagine to be completely uninitiated. But I do like the concept of opening my entire discography and just checking out random releases, having no clue what to expect. It’s kind of what makes it fun, actually.
Is music actually a career for you at this point?
Yes, and I thank God first and foremost for taking such great care of me. He has blessed me with the opportunity to make a living doing something that I genuinely love.
None of this would be possible without the support of the people who have followed my work over the years, whether through a listen, buying a tape/vinyl, or by simply sending me a kind message (you have no idea how much these things matter to me and keep me going).
I also want to give a special thank you to every one of my Patreon members who continues to support what I do. I’m beyond humbled by the amount of love I’ve received over the years, and I still can’t fully comprehend how so many people actually enjoy the things I do. More than anything, I try to make people’s day a little better, since they’ve shown such kindness towards me. I never thought it would be possible to get to this point, but here we are.
Again – thank you to everyone who is still part of this journey. Wishing you guys all the peace and love in this world.
What are your plans for the future?
I could best describe my future plans as “wherever the wind takes me”. I don’t have anything specific in mind, but for now – more OST work, crazier Patreon exclusives and more experimentation within my main releases.
Also I’ve been having tons of fun getting into graphics programming, actually (like OpenGL). Maybe some Macroblank software coming out at some point? Who knows.
Listen to Macroblank on Bandcamp
Macroblank’s Top 10 Vaporwave Albums
(unranked)
Macintosh Plus – Floral Shoppe (2011)
Haircuts For Men – 大理石のファンタジー (2016)
猫 シ Corp. – Palm Mall Mars (2018)
Luxury Elite & Saint Pepsi – Late Night Delight (2013)
midnight television – midnight television (2011)
t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 – 現実を超えて(2014)
Windows96 – One Hundred Mornings (2018)
2814 – 新しい日の誕生 (Birth of a New Day) (2015)
esc 不在 – Black Horse (2011)
Webinar™ – w w w . d e e p d i v e . c o m (2021)
Bonus: Updated Floral Experience by Vapor Insider, if you can’t get enough of Floral Shoppe and want a great unofficial sequel to it.
Hola , Macroblank En Unos Pcos Años Se Ha Convertido En Una Leyenda Del Vaporwave. Un Saludo.