glaciære is a new vaporwave artist in the scene who recently dropped two well-received tracks on his Bandcamp page, and will be debuting a full-length album later this summer. As per his moniker, glaciære utilizes themes of water and ice in his productions, creating a relaxing and pleasant milieu. Sunbleach reached out to glaciære for an interview with regards to his new music, in addition to thoughts about the scene from the perspective of a new producer. Check out our talks with him below:

S: So, let’s start off with the usual topics: welcome to Sunbleach, and thanks for doing this interview with me! Where are you from? How did you come up with the name “glaciære?”

G: Thanks for having me! I’m happy that people are already this interested after only releasing two songs.

I am from Sweden. I took the Swedish word for glacier (glaciär) and replaced the “ä” with the Danish/Norwegian “æ” and added an e at the end to further differentiate it from “Glacier”, which is already the name of a few bands. Very few results on google, since glacier is not “glaciær” in Danish or Norwegian.

S: What themes and milieus are you looking to explore with this project? The name “glaciære” imparts kind of a cold, icy aesthetic.

G: Basically anything around water/ice and summer. I set out to do ice-themed music, but I had to branch out because I didn’t have enough ideas for it.

S: How did you get into vaporwave? Any artists in particular who were your gateway drugs – so to speak?

G: Found out about it on a music forum back in 2013, but I didn’t really get into it until 2015. ESPRIT 空想 and Luxury Elite were probably the artists that got me into it. They’re both on Spotify and both are awesome. I started making vaporwave in summer 2015 under a different name, which helped me get into the scene.

S: What non-vaporwave artists influence the kind of sound you’re exploring as “glaciære”?

G: Porches’ latest album “Pool” is the biggest non-vaporwave influence. But also chillwave-y stuff like Washed Out, Garden City Movement, Brothertiger and Giraffage.

S: Any non-musical influences to speak of?

G: Nothing for this project. Well, I did look at pictures of pools.

S: You have your debut album coming up – what can you tell us about it?

G: Basically, it’s retro synths (emulations of Yamaha DX7 and Roland JX-8P mostly), cut up vocals and a ton of reverb. All summer/ice/water-themed as mentioned above. I’m trying to get a different sound than my other vaporwave projects and this is the result. There are some chillwave influences, but it’s mostly influenced by ESPRIT 空想, ECO VIRTUAL and Bodyline (not that it sounds like them though). Will be released sometime during the summer.

S: What inspired you to forsake sampling? How does non-sampling themes and aesthetics in vaporwave influence the listener differently from sample-based media?

G: I’ve never really forsaken it as I’ve never really learnt to make sample-based music in the first place. The album is not completely sample-free since there are vocals that I’ve cut up (from legal sources though, no copyright issues here). The main reason I’ve never gotten into sample-based stuff is because I don’t want my music being taken down over copyright issues, and I can’t afford to clear any samples. So it was easier for me just to continue doing sample-free stuff when I first joined the vaporwave scene.

G: There’s some people fighting over sample-based vs non-sample-based, but I hope that in the end they will be treated exactly the same. Its different techniques, but the end result doesn’t need to be that different. They don’t feel any different to me.

S: I agree, I think there is some fighting over sampled music vs. non-sampled; and a lot of it not very well-founded. Some of the best vaporwave albums use samples entirely, and others don’t have any at all! It just depends on which avenue best facilitates the artist’s intent.

G: I totally agree. I love both sides of vaporwave.

S: What makes you feel most connected to your work? In other words, when you produce music and vaporwave art, what are you expressing about yourself – if you feel like you’re expressing anything?

G: I dunno, I really just make music because it’s fun. I sit in my living room (well, the only room since it’s a one room apartment) and make the music I want to hear while my cat attempts to stop me by lying on the midi keyboard and blocking the screen. My music is not very deep in that sense. I try to stick to a theme with everything I do, but I don’t think the themes really say anything about me.

S: My dog was like that when I played heavy metal music. He’d fall asleep during the louder sections, but for whatever reason would walk away or look at me expectively during quieter sections.

G: It was your dog telling you to play more extreme metal.

S: You created your album artwork using the Blender program – what was that process like?

G: Absolutely awful! I still don’t know much about Blender, so I’m sure the process could have been much smoother. But it was a lot of clicking every single square that was to have a different color, spending a long time getting the plant to not have branches all over the place and making sure the tiles were reflective, but not too reflective. Rendering it took, I think, 16 hours and nearly killed my computer. I’m sure a modern computer would have only taken half an hour or so.





Check out glaciære’s newest track, “Pool water dripping from the diving board,” below:

Pool water dripping from the diving board by glaciære