Adventure Electronics
In exotic realms, far and away,
Lays the Tidal Charm at bay
22 sailors tame the ship’s might,
11 by day, 11 by night
When danger or fortune draws near,
Setting sail it shall, that buccaneer
Navigating through treacherous waters and uncharted seas,
Seizing riches and fortune of the imperialistic powers that be
Raided at land, plundered at sea,
Join our crew, and all can be equal and free
Giving any sailor left abandoned, wanting and harmed,
Meaning and purpose on the Tidal Charm
I honestly forget how I started following The Tidal Charm. It had to have been in 2022 with the inaugural release of Chronicles of the Tidal Charm: Vol. I. I am sure I enjoyed it because it seemed weird. I connected with the creator of the label however through a different avenue. We started to discuss global music through a dungeon synth Discord and our shared love of Citypop, Ethiojazz, and MPB. It would be over a year before I realized they ran The Tidal Charm because they just never brought it up in our discussion. If this seems strange, talking to this creator is like having a conversation with a gust of wind. This article would have been done perhaps last year or even earlier but the creator always seemed to be on an adventure. In fact the few people who know this person all recount the same affection for them having an adventurous and fluid mindset. For this article I asked a series of rapid fire questions through Discord pinning relevant information like they were going to soon board a vessel. There are so many uncertainties when it comes to the Tidal Charm because I know why I started to enjoy it — because it was weird but now looking back at the entire discography I am left with more questions than answering with a few at the very top being what in the world is this label and what are they going to do next that I will be unaware about.
This article began as part of a series on mystery record labels as The Tidal Charm runs a game. Each “season” this label puts out 11 albums which consists of 10 artist albums plus a opening compilation with unreleased music from even more current artists. The game is a treasure hunt where buyers of cassettes receive pieces to a puzzle and those pieces make up a riddle and the answer will yield the chance to purchase or preview the mystery album. The mystery album is released at the end span of season and is made with the intention of never revealing the identity of its creator nor repressing the record. The entire concept of The Tidal Charm lays in half mystery and half alternative reality game where people are urged to interact with the media for no other purpose than for fun and amusement. In the age of smart information the concept of mystery labels and things occluded from understanding is not only intriguing but feels therapeutic. Where most things are given to us sometimes unwarranted, and opting out of notifications at times feels mandatory, engaging in something like a treasure hunt feels exciting and comforting. I was interested in this label as apart of a series of artists and entities with an unorthodox approach to the release cycle. This label continued to interest me for its desire to sail beyond the borders of genres. I know this would be way easier to frame The Tidal Charm as a “pirate synth” label and expect all releases to follow some sort of genre fiction in its releases with occasional bursts of shanty music. While The Tidal Charm expresses a buccaneer aesthetic the idea of pirates are more of a guiding principle than rules setting sail with scallywags into vaporwave.
Dungeon synth and vaporwave are close neighbors even though their communities don’t really seem to overlap. Despite the aesthetics being wildly different both have enjoyed an extensive online community, a niche fanbase which seems esoteric to outsiders, as well as a cottage industry revolving around private press releases. Both also have a unique relationship with the past either from the era of music they choose to emulate or the distant longing for worlds they never experienced. Most importantly both forms of music are experimental electronic music with creators willing to explore sound and conceptual spaces if for nothing else than the enjoyment of less than 50 people. The Tidal Charm does not look like a vaporwave label rather it has the aesthetics of high seas pirating. From the first seasonal compilation there was an intention to eschew the liminal aesthetics associated with traditional vaporwave for something that could be in a children’s book about pirates. This is where we find where the The Tidal Charm caught in the doldrums between genres cast out way far from any landmass. While there is vaporwave and dungeon synth on the label there is also liquid drum and bass, drone, IDM, traditional ambient, and hauntological sampling. There is an anarchy which runs at the heart of this label and is something which is deeply fascinating even outside of its mystery treasure hunts. The Tidal Charm seems like a real life group of pirates who have banded everything for the sake of freedom and open air.
If there was any one reason I decided to write about this label is because of its dedication to design. Some of the above pictures in this article feels like tape advertisements only because they are presented with a professional level of design. The Tidal Charm employs an ensemble cast of designers for various projects which includes In the absence of relative information there is intrigue when it comes to visuals. some of the designers for this entire project include 目袋 (Eyebags), Liminal Garden, Dreamcastle, August River, and Inigo Hartas (Verdant Wisdom). Outside of that each of the albums employs a unique sending which has no relationship to other albums. Some labels employ a uniformed look to them while others, like The Tidal Charm, take a more absolute free form approach with each release looking like an invitation into a world. Though I enjoy record labels that have a unified visual language, the uniformity among variety is even stronger with each record being a flag for its own weirdness.
I was shown the map for Season 4 and was asked to obscure some of it but it actually took a couple of drafts for it to be right according to the creator. As a designer I can appreciate both a willingness to let people express themselves visually but also to make sure it can be the best it can. the map for Season 4 shows an American western motif mixed with strange science fiction elements including which looks like a robotic shark. I do not know what most of this means as well as not even knowing most of the tapes being released in concert with this season. All I know s much like its creator, half of it lies in mystery for those willing to invest time into will be the ones getting a full picture. The poem which precedes this article was on the first compilation release and introduced the label to the world which seemed like a collective of weirdo artists who had taken up a life at sea. There is an anarchy which runs at the heart of this label and is something which is deeply fascinating even outside of its mystery treasure hunts. The Tidal Charm seems like a real life group of pirates who have banded everything for the sake of freedom and open air.
Adventurer’s Pack
For this article, I asked the label creator to give me ten records from the label to be a starter pack for potential new listeners. We ended up around 13 because we kept adding releases. When they asked if it should mostly be DS related I responded with the request that it represent the entire label. What followed was 10+ records that I mostly have never heard before and felt like paging through some exotic tome of music I only partially understood. I have decided to arrange some sort of starter pack for this label which goes from most understandable to most dreamlike.
experimental, utopian virtual, barber beats, breakcore, dungeon synth, jungle, signalwave, slushwave, utopian scholastic, vaporwave
Perhaps the best way to start any dense series is to start with the current season and work your way backwards. I know that isn’t true perhaps with most media but for a record label it works…especially this one. Chronicles of the Tidal Charm: Vol. IV by the Tidal Charm is the inaugural compilation which precedes a new season with an entirely new roster of participants. From the dungeon synth (ish) world we have Wanderhall, Innkeeper, Deep Gnome, Gloamwalker, Heidespreuk, and Örnatorpet with the rest of the list filled up with the lands in between genres. This compilation servers as a microcosm of the adventure had with this label with an assembly of weirdos who have come together to celebrate the start of a new season.
electronic, experimental, dungeon synth, retrowave, vaporwave, vhs
If there is any release you are perhaps familiar with it is this one. Lego Castle: 1979-1998 was released last year and had a moderate amount of success for its unique blend of dungeon synth with vapor aesthetics which relied heavily on memories of fantasy toys. You might have also remembered an entirely extra credit film which accompanied the album which included the entire record along with scripted dialogue and original visuals which felt like a vivid dream you had and could begin to explain it to people. Lego Castle: 1979-1998 was one of the most unique releases in recent memory and certainly stands out in a catalog of standouts.
electronic, experimental, dungeon synth, new age
I feel out of all of the albums given to me, this is the most dungeon synth out of them. This is perhaps because it was created by a prominent dungeon synth creator who has submitted music under the moniker of Cloud Pilgrim. Minstrel At The Heart Of The Sun was the Season 2 mystery Album and also one of the collect physical designs I have seen in a while with a clear “prison” style housing for the tape. Cloud Pilgrim presents a short story which accompanies this record which is not only melodic and soothing but full of intrigue and and ever growing sense of mystery and wonder.
electronic, experimental, ambient, dungeon synth, fantasy, midi, retro synth, vaporwave, videogame
” a collection of electronic lullabies – short melodic fantasies of insects, rainforests, coral reefs, sea creatures, other stars.” If you are like me you regularly listen to the Stardew Valley Soundtrack for its blissful serenity of chip inspired soundscapes. This is the type of world I come back to when hearing Explorations. Daniel Borkan only has one record and one entry on the internet unless the random LinkdIn and IMDB pages are from the same person. the name Daniel Borkan is perhaps the government name from this creator which makes this humble and quaint release even more sublime as if the creator decided one day to create a soundtrack to an indie video game all of us would probably love and most certainly have a relaxing crafting loop.
experimental, dungeon synth, midi, new age, world music
The actual page for this Taiwanese project lists their music as “Fourth World/Eastern Dungeon/Nature Ambient” which are an array of established genres and styles of music that could grow with interest. 天地頌 (something close to “Ode to heaven and earth”) is a short release — just under 20 minutes — but in its running time introduces the artist and their world of micro experiments which range from the quaint and delightful to the utterly liminal.
90s, experimental, idm, intelligent dnb, jungle, dnb, atmospheric dnb
In the late 1990s into the 2000’s drum and bass music became associated with racing video games due to its high BPM. Around the same time offshoots like liquid DNB and atmospheric DNB offered a smoother variety of music for its listeners and became its own niche. This sound, in contemporary times, has become aesthetically tied to the polygon graphics of the era. New World Jungle plays into this relationship with a record which moves beyond just a mood playlists. Finding an artist who does this sort of music and on a label like the Tidal Charm is fascinating as if finding a rare bird out in the wild.
experimental, ambient, dungeon synth, hypnagogic, slushwave
Nidvinter is a collected trilogy of albums released in December of 2023. Though the structure of winter synth is there, the music often gets blurred with the genres listed above. This record was actually highlighted by the the creator of the label as being a prime example of the intersection between dungeon synth and vaporwave. Though I think most people have approached this as a DS record viewing it through the lens of liminal genres like slushwave can be a wonderful experience especially since as a release it is a monolithic as its cover.
experimental, ballroom, dementia, hauntology, noise, signalwave, vaporwave
In the field of hauntology, The Caretaker is an obvious place for reference. There are not many other people who work in the same style of disfigured music from the early 20th century but projects like ojeras de damita feel like they get the point of the music and its potential to be something beyond creepy sounding ghost music from The Shinning. Looking at the artists Instagram page is filled with a variety of brightly colored album covers, family photos and prevailing crack of beauty and memory.
electronic, ambient, barber beats, jazz, lounge, trip hop, vaporwave
I think I could write an entire article on Barber Beats and its implications. For the sake of brevity, barber beats is a sample heavy version of vaporwave often taking vintage R&B and heavily modifying it through pitch shifts and time warping. It is also a style which has contentious discourse due to its low skill ceiling and use of other people’s music. Lucky Tiger most certainly sounds like it is borrowing from a variety of inspirations but the execution is more emulation than sampling. In fact I was made aware that all Barber Beat style music on this label is original music which results in a swirling gale of trip hop beats and a relaxed and stoned atmosphere.
experimental, ambient, hypnagogic, mallsoft, new age, sample free, slushwave
I feel if you have read this far you are ready for music with more of a disregard for convention. The above genres are very popular signposts for music of this nature and the Japanese characters along with the extreme kerning of titles are what people usually use to indicate the vaporware aesthetic. The sample free tag is also a pushback against the controversial process of using uncleared and sparsely edited samples for an entire album. ｙｏｕ ｓｔｉｌｌ ｆｅｅｌ ｔｈｅｍ ｏｕｔ ｔｈｅｒｅ， ｄｏｎ＇ｔ ｙｏｕcreates a haunted world without anchors in time leading to an experience which feels beyond any borders of sound.
electronic, experimental, barber ambient, dark ambient, glitch ambient, glitch death, hushwave, vaporwave
The cover for キャンドルを5本灯した後 with its combination of pirate ships and manga panels could perhaps be cover art for The Tidal Charm. While there are many esoteric genres attached to this release one could think of it if vaporwave was without its accrued irony and more dark ambient in its presentation. While there still is the presence of pitch shifted samples (?) the work of 後 is a transformative process which combines an array of sounds into music which seems to defy conventions.
experimental, broken transmission, library music, new age, signalwave, sound collage, vaporwave
Calendar is in the same conceptual arena as projects like The Caretaker as showcases of musical ephemera drowning in a mood. Where the first takes western ballroom music and creates a haunted world, 空気系 takes a variety of musical and global ephemera from new age, adult contemporary, and library music and presents nostalgic for a time and place you probably never experienced. It is difficult or even unnecessary to identify what is borrowed and what is original here and for a genre like this it seems superfluous to a mood which is absolutely sublime.
experimental, broken transmission, dark ambient, lost media, noise, signalwave
There is something so funny to me having the first mystery album being a dark ambient collage of found material. Cygnus.data is the moniker for an artist who gained recognition in the fields of ambient and dreampunk before making Macrocosm for the Tidal Charm. Macrocosm is an album consisting of material that was found by the artist while employed at an unspecified observatory. The trove of documents included recordings that were perhaps never intended for commercial release due to their very utilitarian nature. Cygnus.data presents these artifacts which were never intended for an audience outside of an academic setting in a dark ambient record.