There is a quintessential vaporwave sound, informed largely by Vektroid’s genre-defining Floral Shoppe, which non-listeners will forever associate with the genre. That nothing special, nothing wonderful (the new album from haircuts for men) fits this formula so snugly is not to its disservice. Rather, the album spools out like a virtuosic jazz cat playing standards.
The fundamentals—screeching saxes and looping, apathetic, and beat-driven funk riffs—are executed in great style here. Dreamy synth tones waver subtly below the surface of tracks, deepening their texture. Samples are selected and deployed well. The album keeps a bitter-sweet edge, rather than suffusing to sardonic, insufferable cynicism. Beats are littered with just enough frills, fills and flourishes to maintain interest for the duration of nothing special….
On tracks like ‘my wife is on tinder’, the combined effect of these elements is something that sounds like an MF DOOM beat. Funky, but a little jagged and misshapen. Rich, warm; shot through with the tension of balancing humanity and inhumanity. It also boasts a deep house feel which is continued throughout the album—something like Coil’s recent reissue of The Gay Man’s Guide to Safer Sex, and many a porn soundtrack of yesteryear. The track is sensual but oddly disengaged (something you could say about a fair few vaporwave tracks). It benefits from an unusually powerful mix, which emphasises some massive kicks without losing high-end clarity. It’s not the shopping centre’s tinny ceiling speakers—it’s a boombox across the street.
Elsewhere, ‘sweatpants’ combines its samba beat with vast reggae dub bass—a pool of sampling material almost unheard of in a genre defined by 80s pop and funk—to magnificent effect. And some soaring, disconnected vocal samples carry the album’s house throughline for some internal consistency.
nothing special, nothing wonderful attempts to nullify its own existence with that title. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking or unfamiliar on the album. But if that’s what you came to vaporwave for, maybe you’re missing the point. As haircuts for men says, “everything is plundered.” But, as plundering goes, this is more of a casino heist than a drunken scrump.
nothing special, nothing wonderful is available for purchase and streaming here.
Words by Andrew O’Keefe