It’s been described as the first musical genre born out of the Internet age, a genre that feels like a dystopia filled with long forgotten memories of Windows95 computers and Miami Vice style fashion that floats through the ether like a dream. That genre is vaporwave and no label better epitomizes that dreamlike quality than the Dream Catalogue itself. I spoke with label founder and vaporwave producer in his own right Hong Kong Express to discuss how he got involved in the vaporwave scene, his highly successful 2 8 1 4 project, and where he sees his label going in the future. What is your musical background and how did you first get involved in the Vaporwave scene? I started out making music about 12 or 13 years ago with a cheap electric guitar, jamming fake jazz solos over random songs and teaching myself music by ear, as well as working on my own electronic music on easy-to-crack DAWs from that time period. I really got serious about it around the time I turned 18 and installed Reason 3.0, which was about ten years ago now. I started out making a lot of knock-off IDM music, psytrance, house or whatever else I was enjoying at the time, as well as progressively learning the basics of music theory. I never understood how people could focus on one particular style of music for long periods of time, so I was always trying my hand at different styles and reckon if I went through all my hard drives, I could probably pull out 5000 unreleased tracks that barely anyone has ever heard before. I still use Reason today, and just bought Reason 8 earlier this year which I can’t recommend enough to any electronic music producer who wants to get serious. I think it would be the DAW everyone uses these days if it was crackable because it’s just so good, but since it’s not cracked most people seem to use Ableton Live or FL Studio right now. I felt kind of burned out on music for a quite a while, but discovering vaporwave really changed my whole perspective on what music could be on many levels – it turned all my previous notions about music upside down, especially in regards to things such as artistic presentation, anonymity and bringing the art of music to the forefront before personality. I really enjoyed how vaporwave in the past was like music that had been discovered as if by accident – like ancient relics you would come across in a museum, disattached from any human context. In more ways that one it felt like a rebellion against the music industry as a whole, both in this regard, it’s disregard for industry norms, and in some cases it’s overuse of sampling which bordered on outright theft in many cases. All of these things that vaporwave brought at that time, as well as its concern with futuristic and surrealist themes that I’ve always been interested in, are what really rekindled my passion for music as a whole. The problem is, human ego naturally gets in the way of things and soon enough vaporwave became like any other music scene where the music was now placed in the context of artists first, music second – myself to blame for this as much as anyone else involved, as well as its continued growth in popularity. I don’t think it’s necessarily been a bad thing, as the anonymous vibe could only go on for so long in a natural manner, but in its place interesting things are still happening and vaporwave has become something of an umbrella term for various things happening in music today that are as interesting as anything else happening today, even if the word has little contextual meaning relative to the music anymore. Being able to work closely with a great artist like t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 is something that continues to keep me excited about it all, even if the course of things is completely different now. Whether one would call what me and other people are doing today as “vaporwave” or not is up to interpretation, and I know there are conflicting arguments on the subject. Personally I don’t mind much either way, I just enjoy doing what I am doing with making music and hopefully people enjoy it whether they consider it to be vaporwave or not. What made you decide to start your own label? What attracted you to the distribution and curation side? I’d been wanting to start a record label for a number of years before starting Dream Catalogue, but just hadn’t felt inspired to do so as I wasn’t seeing a lot of groundbreaking ideas in music for many years, nor any particular group of musicians that I had strong affinity for. Like I mentioned, discovering vaporwave really changed my outlook on things, and as I started the label I quickly got to finding a bunch of people that I really enjoyed working with. I had always started Dream Catalogue in mind with the plan to grow the label as much as I could, to eventually get into physical items such as CD’s, cassettes and vinyl, which is where we are today. On a personal level, I would love to see CD’s come back into fashion as cassettes and vinyl have in recent years. Beyond this, my next ambition is to keep growing and making it bigger and bigger for the benefit of everyone involved, as well as kickstart a second label in due time. What are some of the most difficult aspects of running a label? Trying to get the right balance of everything, in every aspect. Trying to run it with an artistic outlook, while also having business sense. Trying to keep followers of the label interested, while also keeping artists happy and motivated. Trying to balance the books, too. Every single album I put out is a monetary risk for me personally, and everything we put out has to be carefully considered these days in regards to investment, timing and such. Also trying to balance my personal time. Running a label consumes your every waking moment in your life, and the bigger your label gets, the more pressure you feel. Every minute is crucial, as there is always work that needs to be done. I don’t think people can truly realise it until they’ve tried it for themselves. I spend all day every day working on the label, focusing all my resources into it. It’s definitely not something just anyone can do, and I practically have to force myself away from it to take a break from it all and clear my head when I’ve been working on stuff for too long. What do you look for in the artists and albums you choose to release? With the way that Vaporwave has grown and continues to grow, do you find it difficult to sort through submissions to find the right artists you are looking for?

It is getting harder and harder all the time, for a number of different reasons. For one, I can already rely on a really talented group of artists that are part of the label already to make good stuff for me that I can count on, so it’s getting tougher to bring new artists into the fold that reach or exceed that calibre. Secondly, there just doesn’t seem to be as many new artists starting out in the vaporwave scene these days that impress me off the bat as much as there was this time last year. I haven’t been instantly blown away by a demo or debuting artist for quite some time now – I think the last new artist to really grab my attention instantly would have been R23X who sent me his demo at some point last year. Fatal Memory Error, Lamitina and Wolfenstein OS X all come to mind too from around that time. But there’s definitely a some guys out there right now who have good potential, and the DMT Tapes label (when it was around) helped introduce them to me, so there’s certainly a group of artists I have had my eye on for a while and may approach in future. All that being said, I haven’t perused the demo inbox for a couple of months since I re-opened it, so there might be something amazing and off the wall waiting in there for me when I get round to checking them.I also think as I continue to define the sound and the vibe of Dream Catalogue, I will find more people coming to me from outside of the vaporwave scene that impress me and send in great stuff, as well as approaching other new artists who aren’t necessarily a part of the vapor scene. Luca Venezia, otherwise known as Drop The Lime, sent me his new album earlier this year, which is coming out September 4th on Dream Catalogue. He’s an artist I have been listening to since I was 18, so it’s great to be putting out his new album for him.

I suppose the biggest piece of advice I would give to any artist aspiring to be on Dream Catalogue, and this is something that could apply to artists trying to make it anywhere, is this: how are you making me as the listener feel? If your music is really self-indulgent and has little contextual meaning beyond your own personal feelings or emotions, it’s likely that it isn’t going to transcribe well to other people or capture their imagination. Think about how you can present those ideas, concepts and emotions through something more tangible and accessible, while also being original and unique. I would also recommend people grow a thicker skin and be open to having their work critiqued by others, as a lot of younger artists feel like the stuff they do is close to perfection. I know I used to be like that myself when I was younger and stupidly sending off shit demos (which I thought were genius at the time) to places like Warp Records. Though ultimately you should make music (or any form of art) that primarily you enjoy, it also has to be something that other people will be interested in, as once it is out of your hands and into the world, its no longer your own but everyone else’s to digest. One last tip: take the time to learn production skills and music writing skills, but don’t be put off by them either. Some great artists in the past could barely play a chord on their instrument but opened people’s imaginations up in other ways. Some artists who are technically proficient and could be called musical geniuses will be forgotten in time as their music never connected on that untold level. There’s no one true path in this sense.

What are some of your personal favorite releases that have come out on the Dream Catalogue?

There’s three that come to mind instantly for me. The first would be The Eternal Dream System, which was the 4-hour compilation album we released a few months ago as our hundredth release. Me and Telepath spent a huge amount of time creating a theme and organising it so it didn’t just feel like a random collection of tracks, but a consistent album despite it being made up by a multitude of different producers. It was also the first time I got to release new music from artists like Infnity Frequencies, Nmesh, VHS Logos and others, who had been favourites of mine for a long time. The whole project was a massive success and just felt like such a huge accomplishment that it allowed me to reflect back on all the work I’d put into the label to get to that stage.

The second would be ‘新しい日の誕生’, the album me and t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 released under the ２８１４ moniker. Me and him really click on many levels, and he has basically been my right hand man running Dream Catalogue even before we made the announcement of him being the new co-owner earlier this year. Getting to work with someone who is totally on your level when it comes to music is kind of rare, especially for me as I’ve always been something of a perfectionist with things, so that’s something I treasure. The fact that album continues to grow in stature month by month is great for both us and the label as a whole too.

The third would be another one of mine, my album HK, the third album I did as Hong Kong Express, as it is my personal favourite album I have ever made. I think it acted as quite a turning point for my vision for Dream Catalogue as a whole too, as it took quite a different course for the style of the label at the time, while still applying to the overall futuristic/surrealist “dream music” theme.

To add a fourth, I would love more people to check out DIGITΛL FORΞST by サイバー ’98. It is one of my personal favourite albums on Dream Catalogue, one I listen to quite regularly and サイバー ’98 is an artist who I think deserves more attention as his stuff is on another level – he is a true artist. I’m hoping to put out a cassette for him sometime in the next few months, so hopefully that will expose more people to his music.

Overall though, I’m really proud of the 100+ releases that make up Dream Catalogue as a whole today, and I hope people take the time to check out everything on there. There’s so many great artists on there that I’ve been fortunate enough to put out releases from, many of whom I admired even before they released with me.

Can you talk a little bit about the ２８１４ project? What was the genesis behind that album and did you expect the album to be as popular as it has been? What has it done as far as visibility for the label had concerned?

Me and t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 started the ２８１４ project shortly after we collaborated for the first time on the Fragmented Memories “supergroup” album, which was a 6+ hour album made up of several vaporwave producers. We found that we really clicked when it came to making music together, and everything blossomed from there.

Early on we decided it would be great to make ２８１４ entirely original music, as there was a general consensus at the time that vaporwave had to be sample-based which I wanted to challenge. Though I love sampling, I was against this idea that pervaded at the time that vaporwave had to be so rigidly defined by sampling or outright theft of music to be considered “vaporwave”, as I felt the concept had much more potential than that. That said, the project itself quickly took on a life of its own, and our focus wasn’t on just making something without samples but really became this idea of pushing these shared concepts of futurism, dreams and love that we had, all things that drive both our music in general. As we both have quite esoteric outlooks on life and music, and shared interests in music, working together on stuff became such a pleasure that ２８１４ has basically become our “band name” now, and we plan to continue making more albums under this name.

The success of 新しい日の誕生 has definitely given the label more visibility and introduced new people to Dream Catalogue and the vaporwave scene as a whole, as it continues to spread quite organically every month, getting bigger all the time. Just recently I saw it had entered the top 100 albums for the year on RateYourMusic, which is pretty huge for us. Not Not Fun helped put it in some more people’s eyes too when they did the cassette reissue, and I think the vinyl release we are doing is going to be another big step for it. I think Adam Harper reviewing it for The Wire in such a positive light and writing about it in one of his articles for The Fader gave it credibility for some people too. Anthony Fantano recommending it a couple of times in his videos was a big bonus for us as well and certainly helped. Aside from this though, the album has had very little press attention, but it just seems to click with people, I’m excited to see how far it can go in the coming months and if we can continue the success we’ve had when we put out the next ２８１４ album.

You recently decided to expand into vinyl, what are your expectations for this medium? Should we expect some of the older albums on the label to get vinyl releases or is this going to be strictly for newer releases going forward?

Getting into vinyl is crazy for sure, as it has such a huge production cost in comparison to cassettes and CD’s that it makes it a much bigger risk to get into than those. But every time I have taken a risk to get the label to the next level it has paid off, so I think getting into vinyl releases will help do this for us too. I think this one is looking positive already, as we’ve taken in 200 pre-orders for the ２８１４ in just over two weeks, so things are looking pretty good right now.

Because vinyl can take anywhere from 2-4 months to get the finished product to your doorstep though, I don’t envisage doing it too often too soon, but I would definitely like to get to a point in the future where every new release is out on vinyl from day one. I don’t think that will happen this year, maybe not even by this time next year either, but by 2017 it’s possible. It all depends on how much support we can continue to accrue as time goes on for Dream Catalogue and the vision we have for our music and the collective we have formed.

i think because it is so much more of a risk to do, that I will likely start out by putting out our more popular albums on vinyl before focusing on brand new releases, so there’s definitely a few I have in mind. Albums under 40 minutes too, because doing single 12″ LP’s effectively halves the costs of doing a double LP like we have done for the ２８１４ vinyl. I’d also like to eventually get around to putting out every album we have put out on cassette eventually too, which is definitely on the agenda.

Are there any upcoming releases that have you excited?

Definitely. I think the quality of the music on the label just gets better and better as these artists continue to develop and the label continues to grow. I’m hyped to be finally releasing a full length album from 회사AUTO soon, and there’s a new album from R23X coming up which I’m stoked about too. Ruf Dug has been working on an album for us this year too to follow up his ‘Island’ album which just dropped on vinyl recently – an album I urge people to check out as it’s really top stuff. CVLTVRΣ should also finally be back soon with a really interesting side project which is going to push his sound in yet another new direction. There will also be a big split album coming out in a couple of months which features one DC mainstay and one artist who has never released an album on the label before who I’ve been wanting to release something from for a long while now – although both those guys want me to keep that a secret for now. So yeah, things are certainly looking pretty exciting for the coming months. I’m also going to be doing more reissues of albums that haven’t seen cassette releases in the past too, which should put some new attention on past albums again, as I feel we have developed a really strong back catalogue of stuff.

As far as wrestling goes, who is your favorite wrestler and why?

Hahah, thanks for including this question, as I know F.A.N. does a lot of wrestling coverage and I listen to the podcasts on your site from time to time. For people who don’t know me so well, i’m a pretty big fan of pro wrestling and have been following it for most of my life. Even though the contemporary product is fairly stale, I still watch Raw every week and try to watch TNA when I can stomach it, although it’s almost unwatchable these days. My favourite wrestler of all time though would have to be Goldberg. Nobody has ever brought the intensity like he did or makes me mark out like a kid when he comes out and destroys everyone in the ring, I can’t get enough of that. I’d love to see him have one last run in WWE.

You can find the Dream Catalogue at their official website, as well as their bandcamp page.