Loving contemporary music scenes makes you almost immediately a Bandcamp enthusiast as well - it is impossible to discern the two things. During these last years, many artists have gifted the global scene with remarkable, creative and well-composed music. These artists aren’t easy to find, and neither are consistent… then I found Donor Lens.
Donor Lens is a production duo comprised of Thom Hosken (Love in Dust/Wichita LimeWire) & Jerome 'Jay' Sabourin (Kid Neon, Timeshare 94). They are associated with the Internet’s Vaporwave scene but branch out into UK dance and experimental pop sounds.
In their music productions, it is possible to find echoes of early 90s Jungle, Lo-fi House and Sophisti-pop. What strikes me about the duo’s music are the following:
The bottomless creativity of the duo, both in the composition structure and variety of sounds and tempos;
It is consistently crisp, realistic, and with spot-on productions - every release is playable satisfyingly;
The capacity to include great singers in their songs, with an astonishing final result that hasn’t many other examples in the Vaporwave territories.
Their latest release on Bandcamp is “Made This About U”, following“Seeing Voices”, which features Kiera Pixie on the voice.
These tracks will be followed up by something new once a month from there, leading up to a new album in January.
I’ve reached Thom & Jay via email with a few questions - and they have been kind to answer:
What was the first gig/experience/record/track that made you fall in love with music?
Thom: I grew up around music as my mum is a violinist/pianist. I’ve got early memories of being entranced/terrified by a Peter & the Wolfcassette we had. And also of being told off for doing DJ scratches on our vinyl copy of Holst’s Planets. The first album I bought with my own money was Eiffel 65’s Europop ,and I remember making a plunderphonics collage with my friend by recording snippets of it to a cassette, trying to get them to say funny things and make strange sounds - proto-vaporwave!
Eiffel 65 - Europop (Bliss, 1999)
How was the project Donor Lens born? Were you playing music before?
Jay: So this project actually started because I was teaching Thom to play the guitar, and he was too fast at learning and I couldn’t keep up with prepping stuff to teach him each week. So one day I was like; hey why don’t we stop doing lessons and let’s work on something together. Me and my brother Enzo had already started the My Pet Flamingo label and I suggested making some composition based vaporwave-y stuff with STRICTLY NO SAMPLES. It didn’t quite pan out like that haha. We’ve both been playing music for most of our lives in various styles both solo and in bands etc.
My Pet Flaming - label logo
How would you describe your style to someone who's never heard your music?
Thom: It depends on that person’s frame of reference. Instead of bamboozling them by trying to explain what vaporwave is and how we do/don’t fit the definition, I’ve had more joy saying we’re a bit like the electronica acts from the turn of the millennium (Massive Attack, Chemical Brothers, Moloko). Those artists had big singles as well as more experimental album tracks, and they worked with a lot of collaborators/remixers, which is something we like to do as well. That music worked great in clubs, on festival stages and on hi-fis, which is what we aim to do with our music too.
Which gear or software do you use to shape and define your musical sound?
Jay: I always use Logic as it’s the DAW I learned in college and who’s got time to learn how to use another one? When it comes to writing, I’ll try to limit myself to a fairly small group of plugins / synths etc. otherwise you end up with paralysis of choice, spending far too much time worrying about intricacies, and then your creative energy is spent. It’s good having a fairly consistent sonic palette throughout an album too as it marries all of the ideas together and feels like they’re all happily living in the same universe. It’s also fun throwing some random shit in there too! I’m not really a big gear head: I use a Korg M1, a Roland JU-06A, a Microkorg, and a KP2 Kaoss pad. I usually use my G&L Doheny when it comes to tracking guitars. I think one thing that makes this project quite unique is we both have incredibly different musical tastes (generally speaking… we also match up on a bunch of things too!). We try to blend our disparate influences into something that makes for a super varied sound.
Korg KP2 Kaoss Pad (1999)
Thom: I’ve gone through periods of my life where I’ve been really ‘into’ gear, but those were probably my least musically productive years. Now I just use a small set of tools that I have had forever and know well - Ableton Live, a handful of nice synths (Juno 106, SH-101, Prophet Rev 2), sometimes some wacky guitar pedals like the Chase Bliss MOOD or the Red Panda Tensor. It’s best to treat these things as real instruments that require practice and learning, rather than toys. I use the same 3rd party plugins as everyone else (Arturia Collection, Soundtoys/Valhalla etc.), but I’d be happy with just the DAW and stock plugins. If you showed modern software to Brian Eno or Ryuichi Sakamoto in 1981, they would have freaked out at the possibilities.
But yeah, as Jay was saying, it’s primarily about the ideas, not the tools! A lot of modern EDM is totally fixated on technical features such as loudness levels and perfect phase relations etc. but you put it up against a classic Detroit techno tune or a UK jungle roller from back in the day made on ropey equipment with a ‘fuck mixing, let’s dance’ mentality, and the new stuff pales in comparison.
Are you working on something specific (new record, tour collaborations)?
JAY: Yes! We’ve essentially finished the new record, with just a few tweaks and tidy-ups left. We’ve already released two singles - ‘Seeing Voices’ and ‘Made This About U’. Following on from that, we’re gonna drop another three singles - one in October, November and December with the full album currently due to drop in January.
In terms of touring, we’ve got a couple of shows coming up in the next few months (in London and LA), but we’re looking to start filling up the calendar for the rest of the year and early 2024 - promoters hit us up! haha
What is your relation with the Internet and technologies in general?
Thom: ‘Technology’ is an interesting word because it is generally used as shorthand for ‘new’ /cutting-edge technology. But our corner of the scene is just as interested in rehabilitating old tech (MiniDisc players, the Dreamcast console) and celebrating tech that never made it to the marketplace - so-called vaporware. ‘Technology’ is also used by thinkers like Foucault to describe processes, rituals etc. which combine to create our sense of self, as well as broader systems and power structures. Jay and I are part of the first generation to be essentially raised by the internet, so we grew up with file-sharing and witnessed firsthand the clumsy early days of social media.
In my opinion, vaporwave is the internet music genre. It is made with internet tools (YouTube to mp3 converters, cracked software torrents) and dissipated via the web too. Even though our sound is not always 'classic vapor', this online community of people with similar experiences and aesthetic approaches is our natural home.
Do you feel yourself part of a scene? If yes, is it the UK Vaporwave, UK Electronic or maybe another one?
Thom: We definitely feel part of a global community of vaporwavers. Visiting the US recently, they seem to have a thriving live scene/IRL community on both coasts and the Midwest. Back home, things are a lot quieter, though we're trying to kickstart a UK movement via the FutureSounds shows we help to run - we've booked local acts such as desert sand feels warm at night and Pizza Hotline, who are inspirations and now good friends of ours. We love what Pure Life Records are doing with their Pure Live events, and Shirobon with his Club Bios night. Not a scene as such, but I see us in the spirit of UK experimental producers such as Boards of Canada, Four Tet and Squarepusher, with songwriting influences coming from 80s indie acts such as Tears For Fears/Prefab Sprout as well as the poppy garage/bassline anthems of the 90s/00s. It sounds an unusual blend of influences, but there are acts out there with similar DNA. I’m thinking of Phil Gerus and Jam City in particular.
Club Bios - event poster (London, 2023)
I noticed you like to experiment and get involved with old-school technologies: VHS camera and early mobile gaming… does this come as part of the Vapor influences, or is it your passion?
Jay: I think these things just remind us of growing up in the 90s/00s and it’s incredibly nostalgic for us. There’s something magical to me about being transported back and seeing today through the lens of how we all used to view media.
Thom: It’s magical, but it’s an imperfect time machine. We’ve noticed there is something really uncanny and unnerving about recording contemporary footage on ‘obsolete’ media. We are building a collection of music videos, shot on VHS by our friend and bandmate Josh Iverson. It is bizarre seeing us in contemporary clothes and playing modern instruments, captured on tech so associated with the 90s. It’s like the reverse of those videos on YouTube of pre-millennium street scenes captured in HD on early digital video formats.
Jay: My Dad is a big retro gaming fan, and I still play and consume lots of retro media and games so this kind of technology has never really gone away for me. A lot of our inspirations and references also come from the past: we’re often channeling older artists we love and are inspired by things that blew our minds as kids - such as fantastic VGM producers like David Wise, Soichi Terada and Darren Mitchell.
How would you like to see the project Donor Lens in the future?
Thom: Maybe it's having our cake and eating it, but I would like us to reach a more general record-buying, club/festival-going crowd, while retaining our core online audience. Playing shows in New York recently has got us really fired up and we would love to hit the UK circuit harder, and see what the alternative music press (The Quietus, Pitchfork, etc) make of our tunes.
Death's Dynamic Shroud and Fire-Toolz have set a precedent for this kind of ‘crossover without compromise’ Stateside, and we feel we’re ready to do the same. All this talk of retro media and gaming has got us really wanting to do a video game soundtrack too.
