At the end of December I noticed an uptick in online chatter—especially in niche networks within Twitter and Tumblr where up-to-the-second knowledge of microtrends in dance-music culture is generally assumed—regarding something called “seapunk.” The term refers in part to a style of electronic music that incorporates bits of 90s house and techno, the past 15 years or so of pop and R&B, and the latest in southern trap rap—all overlaid with a twinkly, narcotic energy that recalls new-age music and chopped-and-screwed hip-hop mix tapes in roughly equal measure. In a broader sense it’s an aesthetic-slash-philosophy built around ocean imagery, the color turquoise, the rave-era ideals of “peace, love, unity, and respect” (PLUR), and a cyber-utopian outlook that updates that distinctly 90s concept for the era of the animated GIF.
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If there’s a geographical center to the exploding seapunk scene, it’s probably Chicago. In late December—about when I noticed that surge in chatter—its main architects, Albert Redwine and Shan Beaste, moved here from LA, where they’d started the seapunk ball rolling this summer. Redwine produces music under the name Fire for Effect and DJs as Ultrademon, and Beaste records and performs under the name Zombelle; both previously lived in Kansas City, where Redwine worked with electro-disco weirdos Ssion. This fall he launched Coral Records Internazionale, which is already seapunk’s center of gravity despite having only four releases, all download-only or limited-edition CD-Rs. He’s planning a vinyl release of his own material in the spring.
Most of the people who do understand it are young and constantly Internet connected, like Beaste and Redwine—who carry on conversations via their Twitter feeds with the two roommates who share their Logan Square apartment, even when all four are home. Entire virtual communities on Tumblr are awash in signs of seapunk allegiance: turquoise color schemes, emoji (Japanese emoticons), graphics heavy with Omni magazine-style ersatz chrome a la the Netscape-era Internet, SoundCloud streams of Ultrademon DJ sets.
Redwine says that one of his career goals is to produce beats for Soulja Boy—he’s been bugging Soulja Boy about it on Twitter—but it remains to be seen how much effect seapunk will have on mainstream pop. It could end up zero, but it’s worth noting that two years ago chillwave was a tiny, obscure sub-subgenre named after a snarky Internet joke at the music’s expense—and now a rising number of major pop albums bear its influence.
