Hello バーチャルボーイ A t s u!

Can you tell us a bit more about yourself?

I’m a simple 25 aged human being who loves and enjoys many music style in general. I spend like 9-10 hours per day listening to music, so as can you see, I can’t live without it! I love vaporwave and retro stuff.
The first thing that caught me on vaporwave was the nostalgic catchy loops that many songs had, and the second thing was the relaxing side of vaporwave, for example T e l e p a t h (I’m a big fan of him). I love to compose music, and watch anime (hella lot, such a weeb).
In the other side, actually I’m on the thesis phase of my career, Anthropology.

How long have you been producing music? Are there other things you produce besides music?

I started listening to vaporwave in 2015 and started producing in January of 2016. I began with sampling, then a few releases later, I decided to escalate a bit and test my composition skills, that’s why my last albums are non-sample based.
At this moment I only focus my way on music production, but recently I also started showing the world an old hobby I have: photography, all thanks to an old camera I bought some time ago. If you want you can follow me on Instagram as “Analogue_Atsu” to see a little of my photography adventures.

What is the story about your album?

“月光 ｔ ｅ ｍ ｐ ｌ ｅ”, (“Moonlight Temple”) is an album that tries to offer nature to your ears. Nature, for us “humans”, is something that in these times is so distant from our tiny desks, our digital lives and far beyond from our concrete streets with colossal buildings.

In the attempt to escape a little from the urban jungle, I often try to look to the landscape that the place where I live gives me, trying to find a pinch of green: it’s nature, trying to be heard. That inspired me a lot to make this album, adding nature and spiritual touches, so each song has an impressionistic way to describe itself behind their names, passing through nature landscapes, magic and human life.

Can you tell us a bit more about how you produced the album? What inspired you?

The weeks before when I made the album back in September 2016, I was listening to a lot of New Age music thanks to a cassette that my girlfriend gifted to me, “Deep Breakfast” by Ray Lynch. Then I bought a “best of” by Kitaro, and then I searched a lot of New Age music (like Himekami, that was other big influence for me). I just loved the impressionism of this music, and how it tries to replicate some natural elements or abstract concepts of the world, so, as typically from me, I decided to experiment with my skills and explore another face of my musical creativity.

For the making of the album, I used an ESI Keycontrol 25 midi keyboard that I bought with my earnings from my ever first paid release “Viva Costa”, and I used free royalty nature sound effects (like rain, waterfall, forest and jungle sounds). The last song of the album, which is a secret track means a lot to me, because reflects a persons last moments in life; who was my father that passed away this year.

Any other things you would like to share?

I hope you all enjoy the album and the many other releases that Hiraeth Records will have in the upcoming future.
Please support this great label and finally, I want to thank to all the beautiful people that supports me and my music through these years. I love you all!

– バーチャルボーイ A t s u