Prism Genesis is a continuation of Ramona Andra Xavier’s New Dreams Ltd. project. The album was released in 2011 under the pseudonym Fuji Grid TV. This installment in the New Dreams Ltd. series runs just under a half hour. The samples that Fuji Grid TV uses come from old Japanese commercials (as the name might suggest). Where a handful of other artists sample other songs, movies, and even video games, it’s interesting to hear music based around foreign commercial jingles.

The tracks on Prism Genesis blur together to make a half-hour haze of chopped, screwed, and static-covered bliss. Hearing people speak foreign languages for extended periods of time can be somewhat hypnotic for me; because I can’t logically put any sense into what the commercials are saying, it’s easy for me to zone out for a bit.

The first few tracks really set the stage for the album’s thematic content. “panasonic / hearing aid” is a scatterbrained mess of someone channel surfing late at night, eventually settling on a muffled jingle. Before long, “ssun dreamss” starts up. This is the first truly musical moment on the album. In parallel with the advertisements that surround it, this track serves as a reminder that the collective 30-minute project is — at its core — a music project. “ssun dreamss” consists of a lo-fi recording of a studio orchestra. Not long after, a Japanese spoken-word voiceover is laid onto the existing track.

Another interesting part of Prism Genesis is “change yr mind”. This track has a similar approach to “ssun dreamss” in that it starts with a music track and then overlays it with TV samples. In this track, a blaring early hip-hop beat is on loop while the vocal line “change your mind” is repeated several times. Once the TV sample enters, the track as a whole is chopped, looped, and edited as a whole. The fact that the two entities are being treated the same way gives the impression that they were meant to be placed together.

My favorite track is “waterfall voyeur”, an ambient track that functions as an intermission for the album. If the rest of the album is just commercials, then this track is surely the feature presentation. “waterfall voyeur” lets me space out in a different way than the rest of the album. Ambient music typically doesn’t demand much attention from the listener; this is no exception. Where the rest of Prism Genesis is riddled with attention-grabbing jingles and in-your-face advertising, “waterfall voyeur” allows the listener to focus on whatever they want.

The first time I listened to Prism Genesis, I was left with a feeling of blissful nostalgia. Of course, I had never truly experienced any of these commercials before. So why did I get déjà vu for something that I was experiencing for the first time? I’ve mentioned before that vaporwave makes the listener feel inexplainable feelings; this is certainly one of those cases. Prism Genesis isn’t far off from the concept of inception in that it makes the listener remember things that never happened and feel nostalgia for times that they never experienced. If you want to listen to 30 minutes of manufactured memories, this album is definitely something to check out.

Favorite Track: waterfall voyeur