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Style: barber beats, vaporwave
Primary Emotions/Themes: the spirit of rebellion as interpreted by a smooth jazz band
Thoughts: Let's be honest for a moment. The dominant force in vaporwave for the past few years has been within the barber beats genre. Originally this was only practiced by Haircuts for Men, but as time progressed more came into the fold and then it just exploded with participants.
In this newest wave of lounge music inspired vaporwave Modest by Default has distinguished themselves as one of the better artists to throw their hat into the ring. While seemingly anyone can take chill music and put a vaporwave beat to it, there is something about the way that Modest crafts their music that stands out.
Maybe it's the way that the music flows together effortlessly. If you didn't tell me this was plunderphonics I would never have known. Maybe it's the way that vocals are so often incorporated in ways that are less common than most other vaporwave. They are used as an additional instrument and rarely actually sing lyrics. Maybe it's their uncanny knack for finding an undeniably groovy beat. Maybe it's all of these things, or none of them... maybe it's a simple case of the sum is greater than the parts. I'm not entirely sure but truly this is some great stuff.
The Siren Method is not the strongest album I have from this artist, and quite honestly it goes on for just a bit too long for my liking. There isn't as much variety here as some of their other works and that does also count against the album... but when I want something to chill out to, barber beats is certainly at the top of my list and The Siren Method is on the short list of albums that hit the turntable regularly in these situations.
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