Vaporwave fans far and wide are assembling this weekend for ElectroniCON 3, a music festival taking place on August 20th at Knockdown Center. One of the performers, desert sand feels warm at night (a.k.a. William Wallword-Cook), will be performing their work live for the first time. A benchmark artist of the slushwave genre, he has been able to conjure sweeping emotions and vivid imagery throughout his various works. One of his recent albums, dream desert, takes you on an almost 4-hour journey across an immense soundscape, allowing you to encounter otherworldly energies never seen or felt before. You can listen to this album below:
Ahead of his performance, we were able to sit down with William and chat about his process, as well as his thoughts on where slushwave will take him next.
So, to start, we wanted to get you a present. We got you a bottle of Fiji water.
Thank you! This label is not as good as the old design. They changed it ten or so years ago, but it’s still as vaporwave as it gets.
It’s great to know ElectroniCON 3 will be your first time performing live! Is there anything particular about your set that you’re looking forward to?
I’m really excited to see people’s reactions once it’s over. I know during my performance I’m going to be shitting myself. I’ve told my friends before that it still hasn’t properly sunk in throughout the years of this project that it has a big fanbase, and it’s something that people really enjoy. I’m sure after my set, it’ll really sink in.
Vaporwave as a whole has experienced an incredible expansion since it emerged in the 2010s. One of its many subgenres is slushwave, a space that you’ve occupied for several years. What do you think has helped this genre become so endearing?
What’s really endearing about it is that you can do so much with it. It’s just so different compared to anything else out there. If you look at genres of the past, there’s a very clear progression as technology and instruments improved over time. Slushwave, on the other hand, just emerged one day. I’ve been more on the ambient side of vaporwave, playing with sample manipulation and other things. There are just so many questions, and people are sometimes trying to answer them through their music sometimes. A lot of the music that I’ve made has to do with the things that I just felt at the time.
You have a video on YouTube where you break down your process when producing a slushwave track. Can you speak to how long your “creative sessions” usually last?
There are times when I’ve stayed up to stupid o’clock because I have these ideas I want to explore. Maybe one day I’m feeling crappy. Maybe I’m feeling melancholy another day. I’ll just get out the piano and start playing chords, then the chords will develop into something else. Then it’s 4 AM and I need to go to bed, but if I do I’ll lose the inspiration that’s happening at the moment. That video in particular talks about how to make sample-free slushwave, and that approach was a great way for me to express myself. Sometimes they can be quick. I’ll try an idea, but it doesn’t really work how I want it to. I have folders and folders of things that have never been released. Track one from New World Disciples only took a couple of hours. It varies, ultimately.
What parts of slushwave do you think haven’t been explored yet? Are there any areas of the genre that you would consider uncharted territory?
I know there are undiscovered parts of slushwave, but I can’t tell you what that is until someone makes it, if that makes sense. Someone has to come up with a really cool, radical idea. I’d like to see more experimentation in signal wave slush and future funk slush, for example. There will always be core slush, and on the side, there will be bits and bobs of really experimental stuff.
One of your albums that we’ve had on repeat is “濃霧 (dense fog)”. The cover art is so distinct. When you’re conceptualizing an album, do the songs usually come first, or does an image inspire the album?
The first thing I normally do is track titles and the album name. With “dense fog” in particular, I made that while I was going through a really rough period of my life. All of those emotions were poured into the album, which is quite clear based on the way people have responded to it. I like to have themes, but there’s never a rigid theme. I love to see a listener making their own story or applying their own theme to the album.
The cover art came from me watching a bunch of Japanese adverts from the 80s and 90s. Suddenly I see this barren, purple, lonely road going out to nothing. I was almost tearing up saying to myself that this is perfect. I was listening to the album while I saw this image, and I knew this was it. The emotion that went into “dense fog” is probably the most emotion I’ve ever put into a project.
“dream desert” is another album that spoke to us. We were blown away by how you were able to create this 4-hour immersive experience that almost feels like an invitation. As if you’re asking the viewer to explore this desert for themselves and make their own discoveries. What was the most challenging part about making that album?
That one took a lot of work. There was a lot of meticulous sample manipulation in play. On the first track, there are these bells that come in very slowly. That’s from a one-second clip from the end of a sample song that I took.
We also wanted to point out that it’s amazing that you’re able to work with and without samples. Usually, vaporwave relies on the samples to channel that feeling of nostalgia, but the fact that you can evoke those even deeper feelings without samples is truly impressive. On the subject of deserts, do you have a favorite one that you’ve been to before?
There are only two deserts that I’ve been to before in my life. One was Death Valley, which was really hot. The other was a desert in Dubai, where I once had some promo pictures taken of myself. You know, any desert is my favorite.
Is there a desert that you haven’t been to that you would wish to visit one day?
The Sahara, only because it’s so vast. When you learn about how it covers so much of North Africa and dominates the area, it’s crazy.
Who are you looking forward to seeing at ElectroniCON 3?
Luxury Elite. I’d love to see what she’s been up to. To be honest, everyone performing on the club stage I’m looking forward to seeing. I don’t want to be biased, but the set I’m looking forward to the most is my own.
What’s next for you? What’s on the horizon after the dust has settled from this weekend?
Sleep. I do have some big collaborations in the works, including one with MindSpring Memories. I can’t speak about the other things too much right now, but expect some big vinyl releases towards the end of the year. Expect some big stuff, because I’m not going anywhere.
Lastly, what advice would you give to anyone that’s looking to get involved in vaporwave as a producer?
To be part of the genre, you need to rely on coming up with your own sound and identity. Also, reach out to labels and get your work on physical formats. Do not be afraid to message labels. Even if they’re a big label, message them anyway. The worst that could happen is that you don’t get a reply. Find your own sound, and make something interesting, whether that be your artist name, your sound, or your visuals. Make something that is good for you.