My Bandcamp music collection continues to grow through various methods (discography purchases, subscriptions, etc.). In a perfect world I would listen to everything thoroughly as soon as it appears; alas, this is not possible, time being what it is and whatnot. Nevertheless, I do not want all the music to just languish there in the cloud, so I thought I’d challenge myself to find something new (to me) to listen to and share.
I truly wanted to select something in an arbitrary fashion, so for this inaugural entry of Random Bandcamp I decided to use the “beer method”: I took the name of the last beer that I drank (Chai Imperial Stout – a Bourbon Barrel-Aged offering from Boulevard Brewing…excellent, by the way!) and I started typing in the Search to see what came up…C – H – A…
…And there it was: “n∅ll-sp∅c∅s” by waavypanda x chaosbrokenmind. I was a bit confused for a moment, but then noticed where it had picked up the “CHA,” so here we are.
First, I tried to do a little research on the artist(s). I hit many dead ends, but believe I pieced together that waavypanda and chaosbrokenmind are both from the Bahamas and may, in fact, be the same person. Oh, and pjpriiincess on Bluesky may be waavypanda, but I am really not sure of any of this. It’s an enigma. I’ll happily clarify if I’m clued in at some point by the parties involved, but you know what? Like David Lynch movies, occasionally there are story elements that never resolve clearly or the true meaning is never answered and that is OK by me. We can just enjoy the ride.
Which brings us to this music. Opening track “crushed hearts” gives us (a bit deceivingly) about a minute of gentle ambient music, and then a distorted pounding beat kicks in. From there we travel through the aural funhouse that is “n∅ll-sp∅c∅s.” At each turn you may hear glitchy beats, sampling, highly sped up components, etc.; it can a bit of sensory overload at times, but there is lots to enjoy. Throughout, though, no matter what else is going on you’ll hear many upbeat ingredients which keep the overall feel of this music lighthearted. The final track, “failure type beat,” dials back some of the chaotic elements found in the body of this album, offering a bright tune of beats and poppy electronics to usher us out of the Hall of Mirrors and back into the real world.
This album is courtesy of VNR (Vacuum Noise Records). You can subscribe to VNR at prices so low I legally can’t mention them; let’s just say an annual subscription may be the best value on Bandcamp.