The monotonous thrum of bass drum and bass guitar, in sync, formed the core of many a industrial tracks from the 80’s and 90’s (think of, for instance, Joy Division, New Order, and The Cure). Similar thrums can be heard replicated in the past 20 years. Today, the progeny of droning bass drum-and-bass guitar are numerous, pervasive, and when conjoined with outside elements, say, guitars and synthesizers, form cells of sheer, unpredictable delight. More could be said about how the thrum propagated itself in Hip-Hop, Chillwave, Pop and now something called deathwave (explaining how these genres are distinguished from others, and named, is a good question). But that’s another post.

Vestron Vulture, whose music apparently bore sufficient affinity with others in the deathwave genre, released “VCR Romance” in 2021. I heard the song whilst death scrolling through algorithmically curated videos on Instagram. I was looking for nothing in particular, and being lead to nowhere specific by my AI overlords and antecedent scroll behavior. The visual to which the sang played second fiddle is forever lost; the song, of course, was located (helpfully imbedded at the clip’s bottom) and posted here, for your enjoyment.

Here’s to excellent background music and to the outstretched tendrils of the thrum.