Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1
Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 is an album by American electronic musician Daniel Lopatin, released under the one-time pseudonym Chuck Person.[2] It was released on August 8, 2010 via The Curatorial Club as a limited edition cassette.
| Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 8 August 2010 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 52:07 | |||
| Label | The Curatorial Club | |||
| Daniel Lopatin chronology | ||||
| ||||
The album is often credited with creating the musical genre and aesthetic style known as vaporwave.[3][4][5]
Background
Eccojams Vol. 1 consists of what Lopatin calls "echo jams": sample-based, looped audio pieces which typically chop up micro-excerpts of 80s pop songs or other forms of popular music and "slow them down narcotically" with effects such as echo and pitch shifting added in a manner reminiscent of chopped and screwed styles.[6][7] The album samples tracks from pop acts such as Fleetwood Mac, Toto and Heart.[6] Its artwork, drawing on crude graphical aesthetics from the 1980s, incorporates fragments of cover art for the Mega Drive and Mega-CD versions of the video game Ecco the Dolphin.[8]
Several tracks on the album were utilized in Lopatin's audio-visual project Memory Vague (2009).[9] The tracks A2, B4 and A4, titled "angel", "nobody here" and "demerol" respectively, had previously been released on Lopatin's YouTube account sunsetcorp.[10] When asked about the possibility of an accompanying Volume 2 seeing release, Lopatin alluded to having "multiple volumes of eccojams in the cryotank set to defrost in the distant future".[6][11]
Release
Eccojams Vol. 1 was released as a limited edition cassette in 2010.[6] Though Lopatin would soon turn to other projects, the album would inspire a number of artists, who used Eccojams as a starting point for what would become the Internet-birthed vaporwave genre.[6][8] The technique would lead to his 2011 Oneohtrix Point Never album Replica.[6] Regarding the influx of vaporwave producers that came after Eccojams, Lopatin expressed in a 2017 Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA):
well - the entire point of eccojams was that it was a DIY practice that didnt involve any specialized music tech knowledge and for me it was a direct way of dealing with audio in a mutable, philosophical way that had very little to do with music and everything to do with FEELINGS and im happy to see that it actually turned out to be true, that people make the stuff and find connection and meaning through that PRACTICE is all i could ever hope for. its folk music now.[13]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Spectrum Culture |   [12] |
| Sputnikmusic | 5.0/5[14] |
In 2016, Eccojams Vol. 1 was described as a "seminal release" by Tiny Mix Tapes, who noted that original copies of the album sell on Discogs for a median cost of $250.[6] The publication described the project as "plundering the depths of pop music and uncovering short musical segments or particularly existential lyrical moments" to create "a simple yet wholly ecstatic listening experience".[6] Critic Simon Reynolds characterized it in 2011 as "relat[ing] to cultural memory and the buried utopianism within capitalist commodities, especially those related to consumer technology in the computing and audio/video entertainment area".[15]
Lopatin released an official remaster for digital download in 2016.[6]
In 2020, the 33⅓ series published a book of essays titled The 33 1⁄3 B-Sides, which included a piece on Eccojams Vol. 1.[3] In late 2019, Tiny Mix Tapes named the release the number 1 release of the 2010s.[16]
Track listing
Adapted from the original cassette release. Samples adapted from lyrics.
Release history
All released worldwide.
| Date | Label | Format | Catalog number |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 August 2010 | The Curatorial Club | Cassette | TCC011 |
| 22 November 2016 | Self-released | Digital download | N/A |
References
- Beauchamp, Scott (18 August 2016). "How Vaporwave Was Created Then Destroyed by the Internet". Esquire. para. 7. Archived from the original on 19 August 2016. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
- "The Beauty and Chaos of Oneohtrix Point Never's 'Age Of'". PopMatters. June 8, 2018.
- Lin, Marvin (2020). "Daniel Lopatin's Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 (2010)". In Stockton, Will; Gilson, D. (eds.). The 33 1⁄3 B-Sides. Bloomsbury. pp. 168–172. ISBN 978-1-5013-4294-3.
- Ward, Christian (January 29, 2014). "Vaporwave: Soundtrack to Austerity". Stylus. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
- Parker, James. "Datavis + Forgotten Light Prism Projector". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
- P, Mr. "Daniel Lopatin releases remastered version of Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved 10 August 2017.
- Reynolds, Simon (July 6, 2010). "Brooklyn's Noise Scene Catches Up to Oneohtrix Point Never". The Village Voice. Village Voice, LLC. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
- Han, Sean Francis; Peters, Daniel (May 18, 2016). "Vaporwave: subversive dream music for the post-Internet age". Bandwagon. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
- Whiteley, Sheila; Rambarran, Shara (January 22, 2016). The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality. Oxford University Press. p. 412.
- "sunsetcorp". YouTube. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
- "I'm Daniel Lopatin, pka Oneohtrix Point Never. AMA". Reddit. Oct 8, 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
- Bromfield, Daniel (4 December 2016). "Chuck Person: Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1". Spectrum Culture. Archived from the original on 23 January 2017. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - "I am musician Oneohtrix Point Never, currently importing SysEx files into FM8 - AMA". r/IAmA. Reddit. August 15, 2017. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
- Bowman, Kirk (2 August 2016). "Review: Chuck Person – Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1". Sputnikmusic. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - Reynolds, Simon (June 2011). Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past. Faber and Faber Ltd. ISBN 978-0571232086.
- "2010s: Favorite 100 Music Releases of the Decade". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved 2019-12-19.