"OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD" - (capsule - Wave Runner)

capsule
Wave Runner

why you'll love it: molly

why you'll hate it: rave-by-numbers

Heads up: I have nothing nice to say in this post.  Wave Runner is such a crater of disappointment, that I felt like just pretending it didn't exist.  What changed my mind this weekend was Coachella.  As a white guy with thick glasses that likes music hardly anyone else does, there is a surprising amount of Coachella that does the opposite of appeal to me.  Though, there's always about 5 bands that I would really like to see, so I always tune into the live streams with fingers crossed.  This year, luck was not on my side.  Ratatat didn't play until 3AM (east coast time), Bad Religion's stream was cut short, Built To Spill & Squarepusher didn't even get air time.  I was attending actual live music during Belle & Sebastian.  And maybe it was better off Drive Like Jehu wasn't live streamed.

What I did see a whole lot of when tuning into Coachella were DJ tents.  DJ sets are essentially one moment of party, repeated about 30 times for an hour.  It's T.G.I. McScratchy's Goodtime Fooddrinkery ("where it's constantly New Year's Eve. Here we go again! Three, two..."), filled with America's most insufferable millennials.  And now capsule wants in on the party.

Capsule had been stumbling their way into the club for almost a decade, when suddenly in 2013 a true curveball was thrown in CAPS LOCK.  Dropping all of the party cliches, CAPS LOCK was a fun experimental pop record.  Not the most bombastic, but by far, capsule's most creative effort to date.  I actually thought capsule had turned a corner, and finally given up their laughable attempts at being cool.  Wave Runner not only falls back into old habits, but is embarrassingly derivative of EDM tactics that I had thought were long outdated.  After a weekend of Coachella's "PUT YOUR FUCKIN HANDS UP!" laser and smoke mobius strip, maybe I'm wrong.  It seems like it's still widely popular (at least in a live setting).

Here are the only "highlights" of Wave Runner.

• The self titled intro is nothing but a glorified "start sequence", but at sounds like something out of a cool cyberpunk espionage film.
• "Dancing Planet" still falls into "let's oscillate a beat to get hype" trappings, but otherwise has a fun and bouncy melody.  It sounds like Sega Dreamcast music more than anything.  If I could pick any song from 2015 that I would want to select my car in Ridge Racer to, it would be this one.
• "Depth" is the only song on here with vocals on it that I enjoy.  I applaud it for being the most formula breaking track on here.  It's a good classic dubstep song (from back when dubstep songs weren't obsessed with "the drop")
• "Beyond The Sky" is a fine instrumental, and the only track that sort of calls back to capsule's Shibuya-kei-ish fashion runway era.  

The other 25 minutes are some of the most disposable EDM you'll ever hear.  Capsule is like WWE.  Sacrificing innovation, confidence, and integrity to try and be something they just aren't.  But, they did one cool thing recently, and I have fuzzy memories of the past, so... yeah, I'll be checking out what they do next.