Netscape ‘98 - Clarity

 Released: July 26

Falling roughly into the realm of post-vaporwave, Clarity is a plainly spooky sounding album the whole way through. Recycling chopped up and mangling pieces of nostalgic audio, it combines things in a way that has a very ghosts as memories kind of vibe. The titles of the tracks themselves solidify this aesthetic with names like “she died” and “life slowly passing by.” The former of which is the opener for the EP that starts out with this unsettling repetition that sounds much like the spoken words of the title, but so washed out that it feels almost indiscernible. It slowly moves into more tonal elements with distorted singing that is equally indiscernible. 

I felt that a key element of this album is this feeling of a type of snowy feeling that sits on all of the tracks. Kind of like a rather cold fuzz that permeates every other element. There’s an extremely surreal feeling that taps into a feeling of misplaced nostalgia, like all of these memories are haunted and barely recognizable. There’s moments throughout that feel like they may become a sudden moment of clarity, but then are quickly washed away in the fuzz. The final track of the album attains this mild clarity right at the very end as the fuzziness tapers itself and allows the tonal voices to come through ever so slightly. It makes for an interesting conclusion, as it feel a bit like slowly waking up from a dream. Not a particularly comforting dream, but not a particularly scary one either. Just stuck in this weird kind of limbo that leaves one a bit confused, disoriented, and with a misplaced sense of longing.