The Wave

Music has the ability of shifting the soul, transforming it, or being its only friend. This defining quality is so abstract it cannot really be categorized, although we have tried, assigning different sounds to categories we call genres- pop, jazz, hip-hop etc.  We have categorized and packaged this indefinable thing that is music. However, there seems to have been the apparition of a whole new type of music, a whole new… genre? Or is it a lifestyle? It is a unique collation of eclectic and electro beats that seems to defy all classifications, by individuals that defy stereotypes and aim to color outside the social borderlines. The product is one with its creator, and both endorse an all new and all encompassing school of thought we shall call The Wave.

Theophilus London_Flying Overseas

Primarily, “wavy” music, as aforementioned, is on the indie side of electro music. The sound is usually produced from the expert manipulation of technology, futuristic but with the ironic propensity of nostalgic elements that give it an oxymoronic organic tinge. Flying Overseas by Theophilus London is a typical example of a sound that transverses between urban garage bass and whimsical retro harmonies.

Toro Y Moi_Talamak

Furthermore, a lot of improvised subdivisions of this type of music exist.  For example, Chazwick Bundwick, better known as Toro y Moi, calls his music “chill wave”, a more laid back and softer digital audio delight. Yannick Illunga from Popskarr describes his sound as “Noir Wave”. It is all to the discretion of the artist, and the crux of it all is the artist’s point of view. Conceptualization plays a huge part in the art, and elaborate background stories form the foundation of the lyrical content… sometimes it’s complicated, but humans are a complicated species, an essence well captured by the wave. Your tolerance for vulnerability and truth, and artistic literacy determine whether you feel these types of joints or not.

Commercialization is the devil in this case. The aim is not to be catchy, but ironically a lot of attention has been stolen by this genre to the point of a snowball effect in reference to the following. It is a movement, a sort of subliminal revolution, almost a cult. The effect is not only on your eardrums, but becomes translated in the way you wear your hair, and the clothes you wear… “wavy as fuck” you become. The eccentricity of the music endorses the connection of cultures, an effort to broadcast the acceptance of every different type of human being and a rebellion against social conventions and racial or cultural segregation.

And what results is an inspired audience. The interactive experience that is listening to “wavy music” is unlike that of other genres… the freedom is infinite, and the transformation of your own person is definite. The artists possess unimaginable well rounded talents, but they aren’t gods, and don’t pretend to be.  Distilling all the quirkiness or leftwardness, the message they’re sending is clear: that of living with no fear of drowning and just surfing the wave.

 -Fenix