Vapor History: Vacant Places by Hantasi (September 6th, 2012)

For our Vaporwave history segment on Episode 17, I covered a release from 2012 that helped birth a crucial subgenre of scene’s second wave: Vacant Places by Hantasi.

Vacant Places came out on September 6th, 2012 and it was the artists first album under the moniker Hantasi. Looking back at the artist’s Facebook page, not only did he release this album, but he released multiple albums and singles throughout the end of 2012 and into 2013. He is still releasing music to this day and has a vast backcatalog. While not initially tagged vaporwave upon release, mallsoft was added by March 2013 and the album’s conceptual nature, recontextualized samples and ability to invoke an unsettling nostalgia made it ripe for inclusion in the vaporwave cannon.

[Note: we received a comment from Hantasi on our video version and it has more info about the tagging and inspiration behind the albums. Stick around till the end to find out more...]

Upon release, it was available as a free digital download and self-released CD that was merely $4.99- right in line with the DIY productions and pricing of the 2000s. (If you don’t know, before cassettes became Cool again, people in grassroots music scenes were finally getting access to pro-replicated CDs in small batches or burning their own CD-Rs and making packaging themselves during the 2000s.) The CD version, with original and alternate artwork, was released in a limited run of 100 although it is tough to find any pictures of those CD’s now-a-days. [Ed: Get in contact with me if you have one]

Listening to Vacant Places in the wake of a million mallsoft albums over the past 10 years is a bit of a revelation- this is not the literal take on mallsoft we hear from most producers (aka the soundtrack of being in a mall in the 80s or 90s). It’s not a mixtape of washed out song snippets peering through the haze and ambient noise of zoned-out shoppers. The tracks on Vacant Places reverberate through the empty halls and memories of consumer spaces and it pre-dates other early Mallsoft touchstones like Hologram Plaza by Disconsciousness, Palm Mall by Cat System Corp and 슈​퍼​마​켓​Yes! We​’​re Open! by 식료품groceries.

While there is some sampling of muzak and weather channel adjacent music, the most striking sample choices are of music that sounds much older than the typical eras sampled in vaporwave productions. Light classical, old timey jazz and exotica broaden the scope of nostalgia and the conceptual arc of Vacant Places. This tour through the decaying halls of the almighty dollar traces the haunted history of these social spaces- not only do we move through the spaces, thanks to the narrative created by the track names, but we move through time. The generous helpings of reverb and echo congeal the various sample sources together, seamlessly transporting you to different eras of this decaying space’s life. From the art deco trappings of the upper class, to the mid century modernism of the post-war era to the glass facades of the late-stage capitalist suburbs, we get a window into the life and death of these consumerist spaces throughout the 20th century.

In the comments of the YouTube upload on the Vapor Memory Channel, some avid sample hunters have tracked down a number of sources for this album. Something that sticks out in the sample list is a series of recordings by East German Pianist and composer Harry Seeger, who doesnt have much info online in english. The tracks come from a late compilation of lite jazz and blues recordings that translates directly to Piano Dream Melodies or Romantic Piano Melodies, fitting for this liminal album which completely transforms the emotions and settings of the source.

Hantasi has a vast catalog of hauntological, plunderphonic and ambient music with a few stand out releases that have also been canonized within the vaporwave scene. Notably, his compilation Liminal Spaces which is sort of a successor to Vacant Places and even includes the track "Northwest Plaza"- among other cuts from his 2010’s catalog. Check out Pad Chennington's great video on the album that features commentary from the artist himself. However back in 2018, the artist himself also dubbed another release of his as the spiritual successor in a facebook post: the album A Government, which was released by the now-defunct label NetCentury.

I recommend you check out both the album, A Government and NetCentury’s deep catalog which became a home for 2nd wave producers to release their late 2010s work as well as a platform for early albums from contemporary favorites like VCR-Classique, Desert Sand Feels Warm at Night, Crysosauna and Channel Select.

Vacant Places has gone on to have a lasting legacy in the vaporwave scene, bridging the gap between the hauntological works of the 2000s like The Caretaker and William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops as well as other unsettling works of sampled music in subgenres of vapor like signalwave, hushwave, and of course Mallsoft. The album’s treatment of the liminal spaces of consumerism continues to inspire artists to this day and invokes the anemoia- nostalgia for a past you’ve never experienced- for the next generation who never got to go to The Shopping Mall in its cultural prime. While there may be more well known Mallsoft albums that came out in its wake, Vacant Places is a unique and eerie journey through the different eras of the shopping mall. Before subgenre was even defined, Hantasi’s album Vacant Places set the stage and put a new spin on the nostalgic and haunted music of plunderphonic vaporwave.

UPDATE: Hantasi has commented on the YouTube video and filled in some more of the gaps about it's conception! He recounts how "mallsoft" was added as a tag and other vaporwave artists that inspired him. Check it out:

haha– wow you did some great digging here. I love this. And yeah, in Dec 2012 the name "mallsoft" appeared as a captcha generated meme on /mu/. It clicked instantly in my brain that VP was that, so I backfilled the genre tag into the album on BC. Also, I've tried to pen multiple albums as "spiritual successors" to VP. But I actually finished the real VP2 and it's pending release.

Another fun fact: I made VP by trying desperately to emulate the sound of 情報デスクVIRTUAL, but failed miserably and ended up with a much darker, dreary, ghostly sound. I was kinda disappointed, but it turned out to be a beautiful / providential accident.

It was also reissued on vinyl by Geometric Lullaby back in 2019 but has been sold out for a while as have the cassette versions from the artist himself and Bedlam Tapes, which may have ultimately helped canonized this album with its 2016 reissue. One last fun fact, I have a hunch Hantasi is from Southern California- perhaps Orange County where I’m located. His second mallsoft album was called Fashion Island which is the name of a well known outdoor mall in the wealthy part of Orange County- Newport Beach. I remember going there and watching koi in the vaguely oriental-themed outdoor pond as a kid as well as the signs used in the album artwork collage!