Vapor Talks #35: УВБ-76 (UVB-76)

The signalwave producer about his punk background, mental health issues and being a late bloomer

I’m still recovering from signalcon, a three-day online festival organized by the artist 直子coed (naoko coed) in her YouTube channel. It was actually mind-blowing to witness such an outburst of creativity in this most experimental of vaporwave subgenres.

Signalwave is clearly having a moment right now. Many participating artists just started their journey a few years or just months ago; many are in their mid-20s, like the lauded newcomer Strmi or 直子coed herself. But that new (signal)wave is also home to a certified late bloomer, a Gen X’er who goes by the artist name of УВБ-76 (UVB-76). His real name is Michael Mitchell, and he’s from Wilmington, Delaware.

The now 55-year-old producer, shortwave radio fanatic and record collector grew up on a diet of punk, gothic and industrial music in the 1980s and 1990s, dabbling in the local underground before leaving music-making behind for a long time. Discovering signalwave in 2025, he found back into a regular creative practice routine, processing decades of mental health struggles in his uncanny soundscapes made from sampled shortwave signals.

In just a few ultra-productive months since November of last year, Mike has been able to solidify his status as one of the most interesting newcomers in the scene. He’s released a bunch of captivating works, from an unnerving hommage to his crime-ridden hometown, Murder Town USA, to a trilogy of albums diving into his history with mental illness and substance addiction: Long Road to Recovery, Product of my Environment and Patient No. 18.

Most recently, he’s been experimenting with original synth music in a dark ambient style, as well as exploring samples of traditional East Asian folk music or Gregorian chant. A decades-deep collection of weird experimental records might come in handy when you’re trying to make strange sound collages.

Over the last few months, I’ve been immersing myself in the УВБ-76 catalogue, following Mike’s journey and evolution in real time. In June 2026, we jumped on a videocall to talk about his musical biography and how finding his peers and an audience through vaporwave is just a big blessing for him.

Trigger warning: This conversation at times dives into topics like severe depression, self-harm and suicide, so if you’re potentially triggered or retraumatized by such material, you might want to opt out of reading it.

Mike Mitchell alias УВБ-76; all photos and images courtesy of the artist

You’re based in Wilmington, Delaware. Is that where you grew up?

No, I literally grew up in the middle of a cornfield in Maryland. My father had been a farmer for years. The family house was in the middle of just all these corn and soybean fields, so I had nobody around me. It was a desolate place to grow up.

Did your family listen to any music at home?

My dad listened to country music, my mom would just put on the radio. It was my brothers that really had the influence on me, and what I listened to. One of my earliest memories is when my mom and dad had a cocktail party at our house, I just remember going into where the stereo was set up and putting on the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour and “The Fool on the Hill” came on. I was absolutely captivated by it. I just kept playing that song over and over and over.

What type of music did you get into as a teenager?

That would have been the early 80s, and by that time, my brothers’ influence really waned, because they kept listening to the same things: Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, that kind of stuff. But I was getting into other left of center for my conservative upbringing type bands that were coming out, like [New wave band] The Fixx. We used to go to a record store at the mall every Friday. They’d be like, “Ever heard of a band called King Crimson?” They would hand me a copy of Discipline [from 1981, ed. note], and I’d take that home and I’d be mind-blown because I’d never heard anything like that.

The people at the record store were always introducing me to new music, and when I was 16, I actually got a job there. They were just like, “When you’re old enough to drive, you got a job.” I thought they were just bullshitting, but sure enough, I walked in one day, and they’re like, “Oh, did you drive here on your own?” “Yeah.” “Well, let me get you a job.” Working at the record store was huge for me, because there’s just all these tapes and records and promo stuff coming in, so you’re always grabbing something and throwing it at the stereo and seeing if it sticks.

Did you get musical training or play in any bands?

I took some guitar lessons when I was younger. It was nothing that I stuck with, because the instructor that I was with, he was wanting me to play standard folk type stuff, but I wanted to learn “Fly by Night” by Rush, you know? I actually did get switched to a different instructor, and he taught me “Fly by Night”, and then I quit lessons. I just learned some basic stuff like chord progression and things like that.

It wasn’t until ‘91 that I started a punk band with two friends of mine that I knew from working at the record store. We called ourselves DeERtiCk [capitalization intentional, ed. note]. We were really heavily influenced by The Cramps, and this [punk/blues] band called Mule on Touch and Go Records. We just had fun with it for a while. We went into the studio and cut a demo, and then we never did anything with it. We only did two shows, and at one point the drummer quit. We got a different drummer who turned out to be a real asshole – he insulted my wife, so I quit the band, because I wasn’t dealing with that.

After that, were there any other opportunities for you to do music?

A little bit. The guy that played guitar in my band, he kept playing and he got together with a couple other guys, and he was like, “Why don’t you come out and see if there’s something you can do?” But there was already a bass player, which is what I played in the previous band. He pretty much had guitar down, and the drummer was there. So I have one of those little... I forget what they’re called, but it’s the thing you blow into, and it’s got the keys…

A melodica?

Right. I have one of those, so that’s what I played for a couple of gigs. It didn’t sound very good, and then I just dropped it. Then nothing, until I started doing UVB-76.

That’s like, what, a 20-year gap?

Easily, maybe even 25.

Was there ever a time when you got more into electronic music, before discovering vaporwave?

Yeah, absolutely. I got a lot of electronic music in my background too. Even when I was younger, hearing Vangelis’ epic soundtracks for Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner, and getting into Tangerine Dream. I actually bought a Roland Juno 106 keyboard back when I was 16, to try and replicate that type of music, and of course I never did.

I remember when Slowdive reformed and started coming back around [in 2014, ed. note], I remember seeing them live and seeing Rachel Goswell still playing that keyboard. Realizing that people are still playing them, I wanted to get mine fixed, but it was just one of those things, like, what am I actually going to do with it when I get it fixed? Maybe I would use it, maybe I would not, you know?

When I first listened to your stuff, even just without knowing your background, I didn’t really see it just in a vaporwave context, but rather in this lineage of experimental music, noise, industrial, sound collage, musique concrète et cetera. Is that completely misguided?

No, that is totally accurate. Like I said, being in that record store, I started getting introduced to a lot of off-center type bands, like Current 93, Sixth Comm... especially Nurse With Wound is a huge influence on me, I think Steve Stapleton is a bonafide genius. From there, I got into avant-garde classical stuff: John Cage, Stockhausen, Isao Tomita, Xenakis… In my first year of college, I took an electronic music class, and that’s where I got introduced to Philip Glass and Steve Reich, especially his tape stuff, so that all really colors what I do.

A little bit later on, I started getting really into dark ambient. Inade is probably my favorite dark ambient band, I think they even took it a couple steps further than [Brian] Lustmord did. That’s just my opinion, but their stuff is absolutely captivating to me. Rozz Williams is another huge influence on me – [his band] Premature Ejaculation inspired me to want to jump into doing this type of sound collage work. Because I’ve only been into listening to vaporwave for about a year, you know?

That’s what I figured. During all those years when you didn’t make music actively, between those punk bands and the UVB-76 project, were you always listening to tons of music and collecting records?

Yeah. And that’s gotten me in trouble. One of the bands that I collect is The Residents, right? And they’ve got so much stuff, hundreds of releases, so it’s easy to get in trouble with.

Some of them are quite expensive as well.

Big time.

So how did you discover this weird genre called vaporwave?

It was actually through my kids. This is going back a few years. Because I was into electronic music, they told me about vaporwave and gave me some names – Saint Pepsi, Luxury Elite, Macintosh Plus, so I downloaded a bunch and started listening to them, and I could see where that stuff was coming from. But it just went in one ear and out the other, you know, because it all depends on what or who I’m really into at the time. That’s one thing about autism, that thing about just focusing on one thing at a time, that’s very real, you know? So that was just not on my radar at the time.

It was just a couple of free download things from Bandcamp that caught me about a year ago – one was an album by 818181, and Astrid and I have gotten to be great friends. It was one of her albums and a couple others, and something just clicked so I was like, “What else is out there?” Of course there was tons of barber beats stuff, and I started listening to that. At one point I heard a Florida Rains album and a CANAL+ album, and I was just captivated, so I started investigating some other signalwave artists and it just snowballed from there.

So after downloading and listening to loads of albums, you just started making it at one point?

Yeah, I was trying to get as much vaporwave and hear so much of it, because I thought it was so interesting to have this genre that’s got all these subgenres, but it’s already a small genre in itself, so it’s these little mini-slices of things, and it absolutely fascinated me. I don’t know what it was, but there was just one night I decided I’m gonna go pull up Audacity and see what I can do.

The first track I did was on my Demo EP called “Frankie’s Ghost is in the ether”. I connected to this shortwave station, they were playing “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and this guy was just like talking all over it, right? So I just hit record, and basically that’s all it is. A couple days after that, Paco [Moreno] from PMP was asking for tracks for a compilation, so I thought, “The hell, I’ll submit it.”

After that, I got the EP out there, and then I started getting a little more ballsy, and I reached out to Paco like, “Hey, I have that one song on your compilation, how would you feel about doing an album?” He was just like, “Absolutely, I loved what you did.” And I’ve just taken off from there.

I’ve read up on UVB-76, this mysterious shortwave radio signal called The Buzzer, which is somehow related to the Russian military…

…well, supposedly. We don’t know that for sure.

Right. Why did you pick this alias?

Knowing the direction that I wanted to go in, I just wanted shortwave to be the main thread of everything, so I must have found an article that came up when I was searching for shortwave stuff. I just liked the story and the mystery behind it.

Your first album came out shortly after that. The cover shows a pill dose of this prescription drug and tranquilizer, Clonazepam. In general, you’ve been quite open about sharing your personal history with mental illness and depression. Is music a way for you to process these struggles?

It really is. It’s that and more. When I would be in a really dark place, there were some albums that would keep me there, but some albums could actually get my head above water. There’s nothing else but music that can evoke so much in a person’s psyche, their emotions and memories of what they were doing at a certain point in time. It’s hard for me to describe what music means to me. It’s everything to me, and has been since I was really young.

Like I said, there’s stuff that can keep you in a dark spot, but there’s stuff that can bring you up from that spot too. There’s also taking those matters into your own hands, and that’s really what my music is born from. I just released a tape through Molten Aqua, it’s a compilation of my first two albums and the demo tape, but all the songs are reordered and mixed up. I’ve put out so much more stuff since then, but listening to that with fresh ears again takes me back to that point.

I remember I had to take a six month sabbatical from work, because my mental health had deteriorated so horrible, and I went into an intensive outpatient program to deal with it. In the group, they kept saying that it’s really good to have a hobby, because it’s something that can take you out of your mindspace. Something that you actually enjoy doing can help start to lift the fog, and it was shortly after I got back to work in November 2025 when I said, “All right, I’m gonna do this.”

That tape on Molten Aqua is called Out of the Depths, because it really came out of the depths of my depression, my anguish and my burnout. It meant a lot to me that they wanted to put that stuff out, because I thought of it as just my starting, and I felt like I’d evolved from there, but there’s something so pure about it. Not only was I just trying to find my rhythm, but it was just me expressing myself and getting myself out of that depression space.

With what you’ve just called hobbies, the autistic hyperfocus can help, because you’re really zoning in on one activity, right?

Oh yeah, a couple people have said to me, “God, you’re really prolific”, and I think, “Am I really?” Because there’s other people who are putting out tons of stuff, and I don’t even think I’m in that club. Maybe I am, I don’t know. But there’s so much in my head that I want to get out, and every chance I get I’m just constantly getting this noise out of my head, out to somebody else who may click with it.

You didn’t have a way to express yourself artistically for a long time. When we spoke over Discord before this interview, you mentioned all those struggles you’ve had with mental health, alcohol addiction and substance abuse…

Yeah, I’ve got 50 years of shit to get out in one sitting. It kind of piles, I guess. Looking back, I’m 55 now, and it’s been a hell of a ride. It really has been. I’m fortunate to still be here, honestly. I owe that to my wife and kids. If I didn’t have them, I might not be here.

I’m happy you’re still here.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I’ve been there so many times, but just that thought of what am I doing to them pulls me out. I just could never go through with it.

It’s not a surprise that a lot of your music sounds very dark and unsettling. I suffered from depressive episodes in my life and I’m neurodivergent too, so I can relate. Some of us, when we are in what you call a dark place, we need to lean into those emotions and explore them, others just need to chase them away.

Yeah. You know what, to me it’s kind of funny that people say the music is so dark, because it’s just an extension of my head, and anybody that knows me, knows me as a smart-ass, smiling and joking and cackling and laughing, all that kind of stuff.

We’re all learning to mask over time.

Exactly, it’s that whole Robin Williams thing. But I didn’t intentionally want the music to be dark. My whole method of recording is to find the shortwave tracks first; there’s a couple different programs that I just scan to find a noise or somebody talking or music playing or whatever, and I’ll record that bit. I’ll get 20 different tracks, say, and then I’ll go back to it later and see what’s that evoking in my head.

For whatever reason, I just know what to use. I’ll go and grab a dialog sample, a drone to sample or whatever. It all just happens so quickly, and then I don’t think about it again until the whole album’s done. All that time, it just never occurs to me that it sounds dark or depressing or whatever. A lot of that shit’s just in my brain.

There is a certain humor to it as well. That aspect actually reminds me of Nurse With Wound, where it’s dark but it’s also ridiculously funny at times.

Absolutely, I hope that my stuff’s kind of like that too. Recently I haven’t really been into doing song titles much, because it can get really prescriptive, but the albums I did about the mental health struggles – Long Road to Recovery, Product of my Environment, and Patient No. 18 – I definitely wanted to have titles for them, because I’m trying to really give people a photo book of that point in time of my life.

Is it all samples though? Are you doing any overdubs at all?

For the most part, it is sampled. I’ve just done a dark ambient EP on Wave Racers, that is all me doing the music instead. There’s also an album on Botanica1 that has a lot of samples of Eastern music from Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and so forth, but the music behind it, I did all that. It just depends on what I want to do for that album. It’s all digital stuff though, I don’t have any way to bring my bass guitar out and hook it up into the computer. I’ve not gotten that technically advanced yet.

For such a late bloomer, you’ve gotten a lot of love from the signalwave community, haven’t you?

Yeah, at first I wasn’t even aware that there was such a tight-knit community around it, so that was just a happy accident finding that. It was really Astrid [818181, ed. note] who put me on to the Discords, getting me the invites to join the Slushwave and Signalwave servers. Getting on there and seeing all these people, it was definitely a way to connect. S u i t e B and I did a collaboration together, just because I met him through Discord.

Coming from a punk and gothic background, those scenes try to portray themselves as if they were really united and supportive, but it’s really the most backstabbing environment to be in – it’s actually maddening. So far, I haven’t found that with vaporwave at all. Everybody is just so cool and really supportive. That’s been a great benefit for me. I don’t even talk too much in the Discords. I’ll join in a couple conversations here and there, but I think my age gap with a lot of those people is probably one of the reasons why I don’t try and communicate more.

It’s the same for me. Not that I don’t want to talk to younger people, it’s just that I sometimes feel really disconnected from what they’re talking about and how they talk. I realize I sound really old now.

(laughs) Yeah, it’s kind of crazy, that age gap.

There are some older heads in the scene though. They’re probably like us and not too active on the Discords.

Yeah. I was just talking to ホテル shampoo the other day, and he was saying there should be an old folks vaporwave retirement home with people like me, him and Kratzwerk. (laughs) No, I mean, it’s very helpful having so many people that are out there genuinely rooting for you. It’s just so nice, and it’s really unlike any group I’ve ever been in before.

The diversity of the scene is fascinating, not just in terms of age, but in that it’s truly global, and many people in it are neurodivergent, trans and/or queer – just a lot of people who are not seen as the norm in society.

Absolutely. And personally, I didn’t come out as bisexual until five or six years ago, just because my upbringing was so redneck and so anti-anything that wasn’t hetero, so I had to suppress that part of me for a long time. My father was also a local politican so I really had to hide it. My best friend is actually gay, and my parents never understood that. They were like, “Why are you friends with one of them?”, that kind of thing.

That hurts.

It really does. I just have no tolerance for people with that narrow mindset anymore. Coming into this community which is so accepting, it’s just beautiful, and I really, really appreciate that.

You have to tell me about Stuck at Everest Base Camp. It’s such an outlier in your discography, but I love it so much. How did you make it?

It’s funny because I wanted to get an album on Bogus Collective. He’d reached out to me and was like, ”We don’t do anything that’s overtly political or controversial.” The stuff I talk about is often quite heavy, so I was like, “Here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to find some really good tunes, and I’m just going to put a shortwave noise over it, maybe add some reverb here or there, and that’s it.” I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did put 100% into that album too. My song choices on that album – or a couple of them, I should say – really mean a lot to me. It’s not like I just glossed over it.

I was nervous about putting it out, because it’s so different from any of my other stuff, and it just made me happy that he loved it. Then I was hearing you talk about it, and everybody’s saying it’s really good and they like it, which feels weird because it’s the album I put the least amount of effort into. My youngest does music also, and she just said, “It’s always the one that you least expect gets the most attention, and the one you want to get the attention doesn’t get it.”

Well, it just reminded me of this strain of signalwave albums with one very specific ambience noise that goes back to GlenOAX’s Narvon Nights and has since been picked up by TV2, CT57, m1 t e l e v i z i o, Magdalene, Strmi and a bunch of other artists.

Yeah, now that you mentioned it I can definitely see that thread, because I used this one constant fuzz noise that runs through the entire album. I’m just imagining somebody who’s stuck there with this crappy little radio, and it’s the one station that’s coming in, and they don’t touch the dial, so it just kind of stays there and this is what they hear, like it or not.

Any other recent projects you’d like to plug?

Children of Vapor put out an album of mine called Chant. You have to remember when Gregorian chant was all the rage in the early 90s?

Sure, with Enigma having #1 hits and all that.

Yeah, so this is very reminiscent of that. I’m so happy that they accepted me into that group, Children of Vapor. They’re just the most accepting, nice people in the world. Especially Pool Plants has been so good to me. [Pool Plants, an artist from the Children of Vapor collective, did the cover artwork for Chant, ed. note]

If you had to highlight one album from your catalog, one that people should really listen to, which one would that be?

Probably Long Road to Recovery. That one felt the most like an exorcism. It’s the one that really catches my essence at its most pure. I’ve been asked before why I use shortwave on all my tracks, and that’s just because being autistic and having depression, PTSD, OCD, and I’ve also gotten tinnitus due to a medication, so there’s constantly noise and chatter in my head. With shortwave, because of the narrowness of the bands, you always get so much bleed over and that’s how my head sounds, so that’s why I use it in every single track. Especially on Long Road to Recovery, it is so symbolic of what I’m putting out. It’s like, if anybody wanted to take a picture of my soul, it’s that album.

Listen to УВБ-76 on Bandcamp

УВБ-76’s Top 10 Vaporwave Albums

(unranked)

• Florida Rains – Airport Lounge (2025)

• 夢想家 bliss – 水商売 (2024)

• 猫 シ Corp. – Palm Mall (2014)

• Kagoshima Tangerine – Kent, 1956 (2024)

• Ancient Fan Death Studios – Late Night Sci-Fi (2020)

• International Telecom – 3 a.m.S i g n a l s (2023) or T e l e c o m (2023)

• Western Digital – Wasted Digital (2015)

• Mom and Dad’s Computer – Aquarium I-V (2023-25)

• victory over death – code 不滅 (2025)

• 818181 – Life After (2025)

Special shout out to my fave album so far of 2026:

• all that I once was – tempest (2026)