DREAM_81

In mid-2014, an unknown Japanese composer by the name of Kobayashi Yamato made a small splash in the vaporwave scene when he released his album ‘快い亡霊 OST’ - a lost soundtrack composed for an unreleased Dreamcast game called ‘Pleasant Specter’ in 1998. Kobayashi mentioned in his album notes for this release that he was inspired to unveil this lost soundtrack he composed almost fifteen years beforehand after discovering vaporwave through a friend’s son.

Shortly after this, Dream Catalogue came into contact with Kobayashi and after getting to know him, discovered he had much more unheard and rare music in a freelance career spanning two decades. We proposed the idea of releasing a compilation of some of his various earlier works in order to bring more of this old music to a new audience for the first time, which he gladly accepted and quickly began rooting through his archives for some of his best material, old video game compositions, TV jingles and even spa music - some of which has never even been released.

While this is not technically a vaporwave album, Kobayashi's fascination with vaporwave and the success of his Pleasant Specter OST amongst vaporwave fans has seen him become one of the more extraordinary artists to come to prominence in 2014. What Kobayashi's intention is with this music and his 'Pleasant Specter' is to hopefully inspire a generation of young new producers to sample his work, chop and screw them in classic vaporwave fashion and bring them a new sense of life under the vaporwave banner.

You can read an interview with Kobayashi Yamato about his work on Pleasant Specter and his exploration of the vaporwave genre here: dreamcatalogue.net/2014/12/21/kobayashi-yamato-reveals-how-a-two-decade-long-career-in-freelance-music-led-him-to-becoming-one-of-the-most-curious-new-artists-in-vaporwave-during-2014/