I have always loved this song, and video. I don’t really know what it is about it. Maybe it’s just the casual exploration of a strange artificial world, or the instilled sensation of being frozen in time, surrounded by our abandoned technologies, and nostalgic remnants from the past. It’s beautiful, and surreal, unsettling, and welcoming – all at the same time. Vaporwave is a hell of a genre.
Turns out this little gem was sampled from the track “Aquatic Ambiance” from the 1994 Super Nintendo game Donkey Kong Country, and while I never owned an SNES, nor played the game, I eventually found the song, and I have to say, David Wise’s original composition is pretty comparable in its haunting allure.
I really enjoy reading YouTube comments (sometimes), and I’d like to spotlight two that caught my attention from that video:
The Chinese translation for “ambiance” is “huánjìng” (环境), which I am actually more familiar with as meaning “environment”, or “surroundings”. Though, I guess it’s all pretty much the same thing. “Huán” translates directly to “ring”, while “jìng” can be interpreted as “borders”, “places”, or “conditions”.