Warning: reading this post may result in spending money on cassettes, vinyl, CDs, and MINIDISCS.
“Signalwave” and “Broken Transmission” are subgenres of “Slushwave,” which has been one of the best musical discoveries I’ve made this year.
They’re the soundtrack to decay.
I think of them as concept albums portraying memories of good days long gone.
It’s what Liches listen to when playing Second Life online to feel human again.
These artists have their entire catalogs hugely discounted on Bandcamp.
On the other hand, the Liminal Horror Twisted Classics Jam has begun.
So what’s so great about “Signalwave?”
Look at CT57’s discography.
Their album art is a ready-to-go d10 table you can insert into whatever “Twisted Classic” you’re working on. You even got an NPC in the top right corner.
All of their albums are amazing.
My favorite release is “Distant Sounds of Desolation.” Released March 22, 2024, It sounds like what I picture corpse dance lessons to be. May the track list be your spark table. You can purchase any of their albums for $1 or their entire discography for $6.
The songs aren't too short but aren't too long, and the pace is great. The tracks blend smoothly into each other to give you enough time to "meditate." I like that there are no commercial ads. The melodic vocals in "Weeping Willow" are haunting. I feel like this album has a lot of up-and-down movement, like the lovely pipes in "Memories of Good Days Long Gone." Maybe it's not even pipes; it's got chimes or wood blocks.
Let’s look at another release from this year. Dead Hues by Localdecay. Released April 3, 2024, are you starting to see a pattern of the genre yet?
The first song is a fucking banger. It just rips you right into the rhythm. Pulsating piano with saxophone and fucking railroading drums. Just all drenched with reverb. You could work out to this one. Then it ends with a raven-sounding synth that caws, and I fall into the track "Analog Decay." I feel like this is what it sounds like to be in a hot spring in Iceland. With the mud. If you see foggy power lines on a cover, it's a banger.
街灯 by ビリヤード場 (Street light by Billiard Hall) Released February 2, 2024, this one is great because not only does it introduce UFOs (or whatever the government refers to them as now) to our countdown, but we finally get some vocals sampled. Sampling is mostly all “Signalwave” is.
The track titles are listed in Japanese, so I’d like to translate them here to use as a spark table after you purchase their album.
i'm still wearing the shirt you gave me
a midnight walk in the middle of nowhere
the streetlights shine a subtle blue
don't look at me
i shouldn’t
bird
starlight / city of light bulbs
it’s getting late…
I recommend viewing your “Twisted Classic” through multiple lenses, like a copy of All Dogs Go to Heaven on VHS. However, the VCR is connected to a projector, and there’s no screen. It’s playing on a garage door, being filmed by a Sony Nex 6 camera that’s had its sensor converted to infrared and streaming to the internet.
Next week, we’ll sink our brain fangs deeper into “Signalwave” and “Liminal Horror.” I promise to challenge your tastes.
Until Next Time, Consider the following inspiration:
Outlaw Comics:
Battalion: The Return of the Living Dead, or more recently, Junji Ito’s adaption of the Lighthouse, among many other “Twisted Classics.” Battalion is a bootleg manga released in a Japanese magazine at the time of the American Film’s Japan release. This blog takes a deep dive into it. Manga has filled my summer reading.
Vacuum Decay. All five issues of this horror comic by various artists are free to read online or can be purchased via their website. It’s worth reading each issue for the overarching “Twisted Classic” take on The Simpsons, “Shadows Over Springfield,” which is also available to purchase standalone.
Literature:
The Sword-wielding Statue of Liberty in Franz Kafka’s novel Amerika. Kafka never visited America, but he saw many pictures and wrote his own twisted version. The ebook is free to read, and it’s hilarious.
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