''Palm Mall'' is the sixth
studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...
by
Cat System Corp., the alias of Dutch
electronic music
Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...
ian Jornt Elzinga. Released on 2 October 2014, its nine tracks use
samples of
elevator music
Elevator music (also known as Muzak, piped music, or lift music) is a type of background music played in elevators, in rooms where many people come together for reasons other than listening to music, and during telephone calls when placed on ho ...
to explore
shopping mall
A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...
s. Following the success of ''Hiraeth'' (2014), Elzinga drew inspiration from the "vaporwave vibe" he felt in the
video game
A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
''
Grand Theft Auto V
''Grand Theft Auto V'' is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the seventh main entry in the Grand Theft Auto, ''Grand Theft Auto'' series, following 2008's ''Grand Theft Auto IV'', and ...
'' (2013), and produced ''Palm Mall'' as his first "serious try" at a
mallsoft
Mallsoft (also known as mallwave) is a vaporwave subgenre centered around shopping malls.
Overview
Often based on corporate lounge music, mallsoft is meant to conjure images of shopping malls, grocery stores, lobbies, and other places of public ...
release.
It was a turning point for Elzinga's music and is his favorite release of the Cat System Corp. discography, featuring participation of several other
vaporwave
Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, a visual art style, and an Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s and became well-known in 2015. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, 1970 ...
musicians.
The first track comprises 20 minutes of music, sampling a range of material and being characterised by an
ambient
Ambient or ambiance or ambience may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Ambiancé'', an unreleased experimental film
* ''Ambient'' (novel), a novel by Jack Womack
Music and sound
* Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgr ...
style. Tracks 2–9 are shorter and feature other types of samples. All tracks reflect the ambiance of a mall, as well as themes of
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
and
consumerism
Consumerism is a socio-cultural and economic phenomenon that is typical of industrialized societies. It is characterized by the continuous acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing quantities. In contemporary consumer society, the ...
. Elzinga later continued with the concept of ''Palm Mall'' in ''Shopping @ Helsinki'' (2016) and ''Palm Mall Mars'' (2018). The record was featured on an article about a "vaporwave mall",
and its repetition of source material was compared by Elzinga to the
Wilhelm scream
The Wilhelm scream is an iconic stock sound effect that has been used in many films, TV series, and other media, first originating from the 1951 film '' Distant Drums''. The scream is often used in scenarios when someone is shot, falls from a g ...
.
''Palm Mall'' received generally favorable reviews from critics; its ambiance and themes led many to describe it as ambiguous in its portrayal of consumerism. Considered Elzinga's most successful release, ''Palm Mall'' peaked as one of the best-selling vaporwave albums on
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...
. It has been called the "definitive mallsoft release" by multiple writers, and is generally considered an influence in the development of the vaporwave scene.
Background
In 2014, Dutch musician Jornt Elzinga started alias
Cat System Corp. for releasing
vaporwave
Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, a visual art style, and an Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s and became well-known in 2015. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, 1970 ...
music after discovering the genre.
Elzinga was inspired by his nostalgia from the world before the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
, a concept later explored on his 2016 album ''
News at 11''.
He was influenced by musicians such as
Macintosh Plus
The Macintosh Plus computer is the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced on January 16, 1986, two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K, with a price tag of US$2,599. As an evoluti ...
and
Luxury Elite
Luxury Elite, also simply known as Lux (born August 17, 1988), is an anonymous American musician known for her significant influence in the vaporwave genre. During the 2010s, her lo-fi sound and visual style, along with her relaxed melodies, mad ...
.
In 2014, Elzinga released ''Hiraeth'', which received praise from the vaporwave community. He felt inspired to produce ''Palm Mall'' after hearing the
Jay Rock
Johnny Reed McKinzie Jr. (born March 31, 1985), better known by his stage name Jay Rock, is an American rapper from Los Angeles, California. Rock signed with local independent label Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) in 2005. He secured a major lab ...
song "
Hood Gone Love It
"Hood Gone Love It" is a song by American hip-hop recording artist Jay Rock. It was released as the second single from his debut studio album '' Follow Me Home'' (2011). The song features Rock's Black Hippy cohort Kendrick Lamar and was produced ...
" in ''
Grand Theft Auto V
''Grand Theft Auto V'' is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the seventh main entry in the Grand Theft Auto, ''Grand Theft Auto'' series, following 2008's ''Grand Theft Auto IV'', and ...
'', describing the
video game
A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
itself as "GTA Vaporwave".
Music and style
The tracks, which Elzinga says explore "the concept of
Muzak
Muzak is an American brand of background music played in retail stores and other public establishments owned by Mood Media.
The name ''Muzak'', a blend of music and the popular camera brand name Kodak, has been in use since 1934 and has been ...
mixed with modern sound and popular
Internet culture
Internet culture refers to culture developed and maintained among frequent and active users of the Internet (also known as netizens) who primarily communicate with one another as members of online communities; that is, a culture whose influence ...
",
present themes of embracing
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
,
and portray the
ambient
Ambient or ambiance or ambience may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Ambiancé'', an unreleased experimental film
* ''Ambient'' (novel), a novel by Jack Womack
Music and sound
* Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgr ...
sound of shopping malls.
''
Bandcamp Daily
Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epi ...
'' suggested that, as a record derived from Elzinga's
nostalgia
Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word ''nostalgia'' is a neoclassical compound derived from Greek language, Greek, consisting of (''nóstos''), a Homeric word me ...
, ''Palm Mall'' "finds
heclearest expression" of the "glorification of the unreal".
The tracks feature
electronic
Electronic may refer to:
*Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductors
* ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal
*Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device
*Electronic c ...
production in
Adobe Premiere
Adobe Premiere Pro is a video editing software, video editing Application software, application developed by Adobe Inc. and is distributed as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. It is primarily used for producing high-quality videos across ...
mixed with
sample-based
Sample-based synthesis is a form of audio synthesis that can be contrasted to either subtractive synthesis or additive synthesis. The principal difference with sample-based synthesis is that the seed waveforms are sampled sounds or instruments ...
ambiance;
music magazine ''
Fact
A fact is a truth, true data, datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to Fact-checking, check facts. Science, Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by ...
'' mentioned the album in an article about the "first vaporwave mall".
Author Samuel Cothron praised ''Palm Mall''s reach into vaporwave's "ironic zenith", while vaporwave publication ''VWMusic'' wrote that the album serves as "a proverbial gateway" for new listeners.
The album's sampling of mall sounds was compared to ''The Orchards'' (2019) by North Shore Memory Gardens, although its more casual electronic sound differs from the cavernous tone of other works by Elzinga.
Writer Ícaro Estivalet Raimund said the artwork, created digitally by musician CVLTVRE,
[''Palm Mall'' cassette liner notes.] presents the artificiality of an ideal mall, and "plays" with real representations we have of shopping centers.
The ambient style of the 20-minute long eponymous first track features samples that repeat constantly, particularly a man saying "I'm gonna grab my laptop and put it over here", which Elzinga compared to the
Wilhelm scream
The Wilhelm scream is an iconic stock sound effect that has been used in many films, TV series, and other media, first originating from the 1951 film '' Distant Drums''. The scream is often used in scenarios when someone is shot, falls from a g ...
.
In the last eight tracks, lengths range from two to nearly five minutes, with the last track featuring an audio clip from a
Newmarket North Mall TV commercial.
Critical reception
''Palm Mall'' received generally positive reactions upon release,
with one writer exemplifying its focus on shopping malls as symbolising mallsoft's exploration of "consumerism emblematic of the past".
In October 2014, it peaked as the 24th best-selling vaporwave album on Bandcamp.
In interviews, Elzinga stated his favorite release of the Cat System Corp. discography is ''Palm Mall'', and along with ''Hiraeth'', are "some of my best".
He later released two albums with similar themes, ''Shopping @ Helsinki'' (2016) and ''Palm Mall Mars'' (2018).
The album was praised for its portrayal of shopping malls, particularly in its first track. Author Miguel Principe highlighted the composition's sampling of advertisements and conversations as giving it a "background music" style.
He found the record's existence within the vaporwave community as an example of music "manipulated to a degree that is both recognizable of its past roots yet remarkably separate from its source material".
Samuel Cothron, while describing the mallsoft genre, considered ''Palm Mall'' "so pleasant and warm" in its interpretation of mall culture, although also regarding this as occurring "maybe only because our society has normalized the fetishization of shopping".
Track listing
Adapted from Bandcamp.
Total length and note adapted from
Vapor Memory's YouTube upload and
WayBack Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...
archives, respectively.
Personnel
Adapted from cassette liner notes.
*
Jornt Elzinga – producer
*Stephen Malet – artwork
See also
*''
Memories Overlooked'', a collaboration album with a Cat System Corp. track titled "Palm Mall"
Notes
References
External links
*
*
{{Authority control
2014 albums
Cat System Corp. albums
Vaporwave albums