Palm Mall
Palm Mall is the sixth studio album by Cat System Corp., the alias of Dutch electronic musician Jornt Elzinga. Released on 2 October 2014, its nine tracks use samples of elevator music to explore shopping malls. Following the success of Hiraeth (2014), Elzinga drew inspiration from the "vaporwave vibe" he felt in the video game Grand Theft Auto V (2013), and produced Palm Mall as his first "serious try" at a mallsoft release. It was a turning point for Elzinga's music and is his favorite release of the Cat System Corp. discography, featuring participation of several other vaporwave musicians. The first track comprises 20 minutes of music, sampling a range of material and being characterised by an ambient style. Tracks 2–9 are shorter and feature other types of samples. All tracks reflect the ambiance of a mall, as well as themes of capitalism and consumerism. Elzinga later continued with the concept of Palm Mall in Shopping @ Helsiki (2016) and Palm Mall Mars (2018). The record was featured on an article about a "vaporwave mall", and its repetition of source material was compared by Elzinga to the Wilhelm scream. Palm Mall received generally favorable reviews from critics; its ambiance and themes led many to describe it as ambiguous in its portrayal of consumerism. Considered Elzinga's most successful release, Palm Mall peaked as one of the best-selling vaporwave albums on Bandcamp. It has been called the "definitive mallsoft release" by multiple writers, and is generally considered an influence in the development of the vaporwave scene. Background In 2014, Dutch musician Jornt Elzinga started alias Cat System Corp. for releasing vaporwave music after discovering the genre. Elzinga was inspired by his nostalgia from the world before the September 11 attacks, a concept later explored on his 2016 album News at 11. He was influenced by musicians such as Macintosh Plus and Luxury Elite. In 2014, Elzinga released Hiraeth, which received praise from the vaporwave community. He felt inspired to produce Palm Mall after hearing the Jay Rock song "Hood Gone Love It" in Grand Theft Auto V, describing the video game itself as "GTA Vaporwave". Music and style The tracks, which Elzinga says explore "the concept of Muzak mixed with modern sound and popular Internet culture", present themes of embracing capitalism, and portray the ambient sound of shopping malls. Bandcamp Daily suggested that, as a record derived from Elzinga's nostalgia, Palm Mall "finds [the] clearest expression" of the "glorification of the unreal". The tracks feature electronic production in Adobe Premiere mixed with sample-based ambiance; music magazine Fact mentioned the album in an article about the "first vaporwave mall". Author Samuel Cothron praised Palm Malls reach into vaporwave's "ironic zenith", while vaporwave publication VWMusic wrote that the album serves as "a proverbial gateway" for new listeners. The album's sampling of mall sounds was compared to The Orchards (2019) by North Shore Memory Gardens, although its more casual electronic sound differs from the cavernous tone of other works by Elzinga. Writer Ícaro Estivalet Raimund