- Vapor City Archive concludes a year-long audio-visual project structured around Travis Stewart's exploration of an imaginary city. But don't worry if that concept has passed you by. Subscribers to the Vapor City Citizenship Programme may be able to map Vapor City Archives within that larger work, but for newbies, any Machinedrum album is intriguing on its own musical merits.
There's always a lot going on in Machinedrum's music, and Vapor City Archives is no exception. From "Boxoff," a seasick swirl of surging bass that never quite breaks out into a jungle track, to "Tried & True," which echoes the wide-eyed qualities of synth pioneers like Tangerine Dream, Stewart consistently subverts the labels—bass music, footwork, electronica—that you might use to describe his music.
Instead, he creates dense vignettes that, at their best, resonate before you can deconstruct them. "Hard 2 Be," a bit of footwork with a vintage soul vibe, and the breathless "Endless
Tracklist01. Boxoff
02. Safed
03. Hard 2 Be
04. Only 1 Way 2 Know
05. Vizion (Centered)
06. B Patient
07. More Than Friends
08. Tried & True
09. 2 B Luvd
10. Endless