Hardvapour

On 29 November 2015, Canadian vaporwave producer Wolfenstein OS X (or WosX for short) released End of World Rave, the earliest notable hardvapour release, The album featured music that intentionally opposed aspects that were typically associated with the vaporwave sound. which announced the "death" of vaporwave and a "new era." The album features a spoken word track with the lyrics, “Now, in the beginnings of the end of the world, vaporwave is dead. From now on, it will only be… the hardvapour.” ==Musical characteristics==

Common elements include thick synthesizer sounds, programmed drums, fast tempos, and influences of acid house, big beat, broken beat, gabber, speedcore, noise music, hard techno, industrial techno, hardstyle and drum 'n' bass. The 56-track compilation album Hardvapour. by DJ VLAD, released worldwide via Antifur's Bandcamp page, showcases elements and influences from a variety of styles, such as techno, industrial music and trap. Hacking For Freedom by Wolfenstein OS X's pseudonym Flash Kostivich was characterised by journalist Matt Broomfield as a "unique sonic space somewhere between early Clicks and Cuts compilations and the soundtrack to the 1995 anime Ghost in the Shell." Thump contributor Rob Arcand interprets the hardvapour sound as a rebellion against vaporwave that sometimes toys with elements of punk music. Examples such as "Humanoid Sound (гуманоид звук)" by Trende borrow the three-chord song structure of punk, while "Immortal" by DJ Alina features basslines distorted in a similar fashion to the works of Circle Jerks or Dead Kennedys. Arcand views hardvapour as somewhere between vaporwave and a genre journalist Adam Harper calls distroid, a style that was "hi-fi to the point of actively fetishizing the hi-frequency hisses and twinkles that lo-fi was unable to produce." According to Arcand, in common with vaporwave, hardvapour uses similar music software tools "not out of any special fixation with them, but simply because they're now the cheapest and most accessible tools around." ==Subcultural identity==

The hardvapour aesthetic is influenced by Eastern European culture and some of its producers are thought to be of Eastern European origin; the J-card of the hardvapour. compilation album reveals that around a quarter of the producers included and involved were from Russia, Ukraine and Croatia. Thump writer Rob Arcand noted hardvapour's self-mocking aspect to be another major part of the culture with track titles such as "Long Live Hardvapour" and "Welcome to Hardvapour" that "either directly referencing the movement itself or obliquely mocking how the sound will be interpreted online (or eventually declared "over") though an endless proliferation of bizarre .gifs and nihilistic photos and videos." ==Reception==

Hardvapour was called "exciting" by the publications THUMP, and the British magazine Dazed According to Dazed, hardvapour garnered criticism from many vaporwave listeners as an "over-worn in-joke" mainly due to the "arcane backstories" that conceptualised most releases of the style. Any discussion of hardvapour is banned from the official subreddit for vaporwave. Hong Kong Express responded to this banning: "Some people can't take things with humour in seriously for some reason. It’s closer to Dr. Strangelove – a serious message with a dark and humorous slant.” == See also ==