Having read, The Mall, Nostalgia, and the Loss of Innocence: An Interview With 猫 シ Corp., what's most fascinating for me is an exploration of the reason for using a sound that's so reminiscent of the 1980s/1990s - and how that connects more broadly to western music's obsession with those decades:
"[猫 シ Corp'] cryptically tells us [his work] provides “an image of a (past) world that we love to escape to because our old world died in 2001.”
"[...], it becomes much clearer when we consider another recent album—NEWS AT 11—and realize that his records share in the same intriguing worldview, one which partly involves blocking out the troubling turn world history took after a certain catastrophic event. As hinted at by the album’s release on September 11, 2016, this event was the 9/11 terrorist attack, which the producer confirms “was indeed the subtle, but yet very obvious, theme of the album.” He explains, “When the Twin Towers were hit on that day in September the old world died. It’s like the whole planet suddenly opened up and changed, [and] not for the better. Gone were the peaceful days.”
“Vaporwave relies heavily on 80’s consumerism, fashion, stylish malls with palm trees and late night drives on neon lit streets,” since these tropes help artists such as himself — and perhaps society as a whole — to deny that history has branched off in the way it actually has, and to act as if things have continued as their nostalgia reconstructs it.
[...] it’s the memory of simpler and more innocent times that plays a big part here in 猫 シ Corp.’s artistic vision. He also thinks it plays a big part in the vision that drives much vaporwave, describing the genre as “a glorification of a past that never was."
