After eight years of relative silence, save for murmurs... a new dawn is here, in more ways than one. The first is quite literal, 夜明けが訪れる (or “dawn comes”) is one of two new albums to be released by t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者. The moniker, up there with the most lauded names from the sub-genres of vaporwave, has reemerged.

The third way is that the reemergence of such a touchstone should be seen as a time to truly understand the genre he arguably gave rise to and subsequently pioneered: slushwave. The sound has been driven forward in recent years by a number of artists and groupings – the fantastic desert sand feels warm at night, and the Slushwave Social Club feel particularly worth mentioning, the former a celebrated artist in the scene and the latter the collective/community he helps to run.

Just a little note to say we reviewed the latest Slushwave Social Club compilation in our magazine, come and check it out!

But this is a scene that has continued for years in the absence of perhaps its most formidable artist. Could t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者’s return signal a new dawn for slushwave?

As desert sand himself admits, the return was not one the larger community was anticipating. “It was a huge surprise!” he says. “A fresh new Bandcamp page, and two new albums that revisit a classic sound with flavours of Virtual Dream Plaza.”

With such talk of “classic sounds”, it feels an opportune juncture to posit the question: What is slushwave?

The core elements of its sound are:

• A sample-based undulation, held over a long period of time in order to achieve a kind of hypnotic raga.
• A wistful echoing lens, providing a sense of the sublime in what can be romantic and even spiritual.
• The presence of a phaser – often a barberpole phaser – that provides a swirling, kaleidoscopic layer.

These are the tenets that come together, erupting into slushy ballads, commonly sporting long runtimes.

These pillars stand stoic throughout much of this of the first new album. “The effects chain is mostly the same, as confirmed by t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 himself,” desert sand says. In his eyes, though the music is new, it is an “homage to the sound [the artist] embodied in the mid-2010s”.

The opener, 運命の縁から跳び立つ私を、白い鳳凰の翼が抱きしめる (The white wings of the phoenix embrace me as I leap from the edge of destiny.), proudly presents this classic t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 style, an effervescent melody with tinges of both tragedy and enlightenment, settling over an aching 19 minutes. Bright bells that wheel out into the middle distance keep things from being mired by the loamy strings as they march on, occasionally swallowed by the maw of the barberpole phaser. It’s classic slushwave.

This isn’t necessarily surprising. The success that label Geometric Lullaby has had with its beautiful rollout of many old albums from the slushwave master indicates that fans are still enamoured with his work, the creation of Slushwave Social Club probably only adding to that. With that being said, desert sand believes these two new releases offer listeners a chance to appreciate the growth the artist’s sound has undertaken over the years.

It is hypnotic in its texture, but also melodic in narrative, both aspects that have filled out in stature over t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者’s time making music, his work as Virtual Dream Plaza included. Chord progressions bring the listener toward a solemn pensiveness at one moment and lift in the next with a spirited optimism. This is, in many instances, the duality that slushwave strives to create. A kind of heightened wistfulness. An active and even pleasurable engagement in feelings of the sublime.

The translated title of the first track is a sight more dramatic than the melody lets on, but in the pained exhalations that scatter throughout our reintroduction to t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者’s world, there is a surrender, a relinquishing. There’s a sorrowful lethargy here.

And then, catharsis. In the next track, the atmosphere is quite literally broken as shards rain down in echoing brilliance. The translated title (The mirror wasn't reflecting you, it was reflecting my loneliness) tells a story of love and abandonment, but it feels fitting from this return. A transcendence or progression? There is more to be said through this medium and through this moniker.

With such hype around this return, it’s a wonder the artist can keep to that loving and patient precision in their sound. But that slow but methodical nature of the artist has not eroded over time either. On あの微笑みの裏で、君は私をほどいていた (Behind that smile you were untying me), aqueous guitars carve out a moist and cosy echoing rock pool for the listener to sink into. A sultry spot. It is from this cavern, seeming to get deeper with each revolution of the phaser that the tip of the slushwave spear, the saxophone, comes roaring out on occasion, to then sink back into a modest lilt.

Fans of the artist will be happy to have seen that “anything is on the table” for him this year, and that the inference is more releases down the line t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者. desert sand for one, is eager to see the artist experiment. “He’s an experienced producer and has the skillset to innovate and push the genre forward along with everyone else,” he says. After all, he will have been the main inspiration to those within the SSC who are striving to try new things. Sample-free slushwave is a perfect example of this. Before, the genre was tied to that finite practice of crate-digging and sampling, but now many of its artists have grasped hold of the very melodies and instrumentation they spiral into wispy strands of slushwave.

The fifth track, 愛という名のラビリンスで、私は私を見失っていた (In the labyrinth called love, I had lost myself), out of all of them on the first of the two new albums, opens up to a playfulness in the tried and tested slushwave style. It is literally made up of two alternating phases, a harrowing dissonance, like some spectre through a dark, infinite corridor, sets out a deep foundation, from which a daunting minor sequence cascades down, bringing to mind slow pans of soap operas at an emotive fulcrum. One inevitably informs the other, but in t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者’s alchemist hands, skilful chromatography allows us to hear the two parts bottled separately from each other.

When it comes to what it means for the genre, desert sand is cautiously optimistic. Though he feels it is one strictly for t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 fans and doesn’t mean much in terms of bolstering the movement and network that has been built around slushwave – one he says is based around “innovation” and “community” – this collective has at least found one new member. “[t e l e p a t h] has opened up for the first time in years, he is now a member of the SSC!” desert sand tells me.

In any case, whether the artist pushes on with something new or wades back into his old sound with a renewed passion, there are moments in both of these albums that are undoubtedly the work of an incredible artist.

In 私はあなたに溶けて、光になる (I melt into you and become light), we get to experience that beauty that bursts forth in the genre of slushwave when it’s done perfectly. A spiritual moment. Due to an endlessly patient fade up into a crystalline bell melody, a heavenly place slowly emerges. By the two-and-a-half-minute mark, you are wading through these beautiful pools of crystal melody, certain shades and sounds echoing for what feels like an eternity. By the time there’s a bassline to hold onto, like a guardrail, through the sound, it’s up to your knees. The sample’s pirouette, coming to a melodic end after two dozen seconds, is incredibly graceful, glittering around the listener. It’s mesmerising and it is a wonder it wasn’t made the conclusion of the album, t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 marching on with a quaintly triumphant video game ballad in the next track and choosing to end more subtly. The elegiac absolution the track creates over its runtime seems to lend itself, not just to the end of an album, but the end of something far greater.

Though these sorts of moments are dotted throughout t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者’s back catalogue. They are what have granted him his standing within these music communities. It’s why people clamber to buy Geometric Lullaby vinyls of his back catalogue, and thankful chats flood the YouTube premieres of the two albums. They are why a Bandcamp user divulged how much 君のいない世界でまた一日が過ぎた has helped them to come to terms with a “mentally difficult situation” they’ve had for the past two years. The artist takes listeners on incredible sonic journeys, bewildering but ultimately fulfilling. And they are not over yet.

Listen/purchase t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者’s new albums on Geometric Lullaby

Check out desert sand feels warm at night