What is Vapor Twitch?

Vapor Twitch is a genre of electronic music at the intersection of Vaporwave and Future Bass. Its experimental style draws elements from Trap, IDM, chiptune, glitch, R&B, VGM and molds them into frenetic, futuristic soundscapes. Songs typically feature heavy use of arpeggios, glitchy soundbites, chopped vocal snippets, and bright stuttering/gated synths.

Derived from vaporwave as an antithesis, Vapor Twitch flips the style on its head both sonically and visually. Where Vaporwave fixates on slower, sample-based, moody music that gives off a nostalgic feel, Vapor Twitch features songs with much faster BPM (typically 130 and up) and Future-Bass-styled sound design techniques that color the future.

This contrast also extends into the art surrounding the music, where Vapor Twitch focuses its attention on surrealist images—flowers, polished gems, and floating objects over pastel gradients—versus Vaporwave’s focus on ancient ruins, dead malls, and early CGI graphics.

Origins

Now, when it comes to how this genre came to be, there are few microgenres with a history as tangled and fascinating as Vapor Twitch.

Though the term was only coined in 2017, the genre’s roots reached back all the way to 2011 with Rustie’s Glass Swords, an album praised for its experimental take on EDM music, which eventually spawned the Future Bass genre. This album would inspire two key artists in Vapor Twitch’s origins.

Wave Racer and the Dolphins

The first of these was Wave Racer, whose debut single “Rock U Tonite” in 2013 took heavy inspiration from the Glass Swords single Surph. Rock U Tonite can be considered the first genuine Vapor Twitch single as it has all the staple traits wrapped in a vibrant, glossy, Super Mario power-up-styled package.
A few months later Wave Racer remixed fellow Australian producer duo Cosmo’s Midnight track titled The Dofflin. This would end up creating a movement within the Future Bass scene titled after the original track—misspelling and all. Visuals accompanying the movement would be comparable to Seapunk—an aesthetic that was eventually absorbed into vaporwave. Though this wave was short-lived, its identifiable style and connection to vaporwave would partially set the stage for what the genre would become.

Flume and the Flowers

In 2016, Flume’s sophomore album Skin would take his smokey, ethereal, and otherworldly sound to the next level by experimenting with sonic choices and production techniques that are reminiscent of the Dofflin wave. However, his twist on it would take it to a colder or futuristic space. This is even reflected in the album cover, which is a sort of futuristic flower on a gradient background. This is where Vapor Twitch starts to become its own movement, as after this album, you would find artists like Quiet Bison and Munro emulating the sound and imagery of Flume’s work. If Wave Racer and the Dofflin scene set the groundwork, then Flume planted the seed, but the flower couldn’t blossom without the water—and ironically, the one to water it may have been a robot.

Glenn and his Algorithms

n 2013, Glenn McDonald, Spotify’s famous data alchemist, created Every Noise at Once, a website featuring a sprawling map of genres built on Spotify’s internal tagging system. This system groups artists based on listening habits and audio similarities. 2017 marked the first appearance of the term “Vapor Twitch” on the site and listed in that category were artists like Rustie, Flume, Wave Racer, Cosmo’s Midnight, Sam Gellaitry, Medasin, Autolaser, and others. Because no one knows if Glenn himself or another human working on the algorithm at Spotify was the one to coin the term, or if the algorithm itself did it, some have argued that it should be written off as a “fake” genre. However, the tag not only seemed to accurately identify similarities of producers creating experimental music on the fringe of Future Bass and Vaporwave, but the tag also quickly stuck with listeners.

The State of Vapor Twitch

2018-2019 saw the biggest rise of the term “Vapor Twitch” in Google search results as everyone was scrambling to find out what it was and why it was on their Spotify wrapped top genres. In 2020, community pages began to take off as one simply named “Vapor Twitch”, would go on to release two compilation albums featuring artists like CARLIE, Sqwd, Hyperdaze, Erior, and Robert Vandal. While the buzz has definitely slowed down now, there are still new artists emerging like Astrowavez and Toyria!, bringing back the brighter, more playful side of Vapor Twitch’s dual identity into focus.

Important Works

Albums
Flume – Skin
Rustie – EVENIFUDONTBELIEVE
Hoodboi – Palm Reader
Oshi – Oshi
Sober Rob – RESET
Lido – Everything
Medasin – Irene
Sqwd – Before I Crashed Down
Vapor TwitchVol. 1 (Compilation)
Vapor TwitchVol. 2 (Compilation)

EPs
Wave Racer – Flash Drive
Sam Gellaitry – Escapism I, II, and III
Vindata – Through Time and Space

Singles
Wave Racer – Rock U Tonite
Autolaser – I Need You
Quiet Bison – Hyacinth
Astrowavez – Yeah Yeah
Graves & MYRNE – Tiger Blood
Luca Lush – Anything 4 U
Sage of 7 Paths – Overqualified

Check out my Vaportwich Playlist >>>
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5TQc2dksZkSOoiyS3Z5vhu?si=9pH1yYNLQDWGQHMD1DXsZ w&pi=p51DUHPXThyni

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