Does This Room Actually Exist?
Does This Room Actually Exist?
A Deep Dive into Infinity Frequencies' "Between two worlds"
By: Pad Chennington
Liminal Spaces are defined as the physical spaces between one destination and the next, and these odd and ominous junctures seem to be everywhere these days. Whether you’re opening up Twitter, scrolling through Reddit, or looking through YouTube’s recommended section, it’s really fun watching the internet all collectively agree we’ve all been here before, despite how cloudy our judgement or deja vu may be.
Liminal Spaces are fascinating to me, these hallways, darkened rooms, spots straight out of a fever dream you once had as a kid brought to life as a jpeg or a png file. Today however, we are going to be exploring a liminal space through music.
This is Infinity Frequencies’ 2018 album Between two worlds, a fascinating project that I’ve become almost obsessed with over the past couple of weeks. It’s a very special project that portrays liminal space through sounds and song titles and has this ability to cause you to want to dig deeper into this room given to you within the album cover. I hope to uncover more of the album's secrets each and every time I throw it on… I constantly question why this room seems so familiar to us, and hopefully, can one day answer what actually lies ahead of us beyond this place in time stuck between two worlds.
Let’s dive in.
Infinity Frequencies is no stranger to the Vaporwave scene, 2012’s Euphoria is one of the earliest Vaporwave classics I can remember and ever since then, they have been putting out fascinating material that ties together themes of life and death, unfulfilled romances, loneliness, you name it. The Computer Trilogy consisting of Computer Death, Computer Decay, and the finale release Computer Afterlife are a string of Infinity Frequencies albums that I wish I could go back and experience again for the first time.
Despite a legendary back catalogue of releases, it is Infinity Frequencies’ latest full length album, Between two worlds, that I find to be their most important and significant release yet. 24 short and brittle tracks that tell a story portraying the bottom of your descent into this mysterious room. Two massive lights above you illuminating the strangely empty space you find yourself in, two small columns accompanying two statues frozen in time that seem to be discussing what their next move should be. Do they stay here and wait to see what happens, or do they venture into the next room, a vacuum of darkness that doesn’t want to catch any of the bright and powerful lights from the room right next to it.
Just like many other liminal spaces we’ve come to find here on the web, the room anticipates your decision on whether or not you want to continue heading forward. The tracklist of the album reads almost like a poem when you go song by song, and I was fortunate enough to get in touch with Infinity Frequencies to learn a bit of their story and about the album's creation process.
Like many producers with their releases, Infinity Frequencies wants each individual to create their own journey from what they see in the album art, with not one specific, solidified narrative.
“The cover art depicts the world you end up in at the bottom of your descent. The statues and lights all feel familiar. The statues have something to tell you. Maybe a warning of what lies ahead in the dark room behind them. Maybe a useful tip for your journey ahead. I really like to leave these questions to be answered by each individual listener because the experience is different for everyone.” - Infinity Frequencies
Between two worlds samples classical sounds like pianos and violins in certain tracks, while other tracks come forward with ethereal pads, smoky textures and other supernatural stretched out sounds that, when combined into one tracklist together, creates a constant swaying of tangible and intangible scenarios. Tracks like “As it stands”, “Under the city” and “Another disturbance in time” present the tangible side, a constant loop of simple notes from instruments you’d find in your grandparents attic. These tracks portray the historical, untouched and clearly lonesome museum-esque room which you can see presented to you in the majority of the album cover. Compare this with the ambiguous, unknown abyss in the room next to you which is represented through tracks like “Memory limitations in artificial intelligence”, “You remember being here” and “A similar thought” for example. These tracks don’t feature an orchestral or classical sounding instrument, they feel like mini outer-body trips you go on throughout the tracklist. They take you out of this tangible setting, even if it’s only for a couple of seconds, and cause you to question what is concrete, a reminder that is always popping up while listening through Between two worlds. These are the intangible moments, the sounds that prevent you from being confident in your knowledge on where you are and what to do next.
Many albums and projects out there attempt to create a lonesome and eerie feeling through minimalistic sample usage, yet many times I tend to get bored halfway through them. Between two worlds ability to keep us hooked lies in the album’s never ending pendulum of reality and imagination, the room you can see and the room that you have to decide if you want to venture into, a plane in which you must cross or not cross. This blend keeps the tracklist meaningful and refreshing throughout it’s runtime, and I haven’t felt this invested in a project that blends moods through sample manipulation since the first time I listened to Everywhere at the End of Time honestly. While both projects clearly have different themes, they both are able to capture our imagination and attention due to the intense shift of attitudes and feelings throughout the project, its gripping and you just can’t turn away from what’s unfolding in front of you. While Everywhere at the End of Time has this happening gradually throughout a span of over 6 hours, the evolution of happy and romanticized memories to the darkest depths of a decayed mind, Between two worlds seems to switch over from classical and concrete to ethereal and translucent every couple of tracks, sometimes every other track. “Synthetic remains” and it’s minute and a half of ghostly piano keys ascending a flight of stairs in the middle of the night transitions into the track “A similar thought”, which can only be pictured as just 43-seconds of hazy, sparkling balls of sound. And after this, we go into the track “Deleted space”, a return to the piano.
If you are a fan of The Caretaker and are searching for something that can deliver a similar bite, Between two worlds is your next brew most definitely. While the two are obviously very different, they both create this undying personal connection unique to each and everyone of us… It’s a beautiful thing and it’s projects like these that make me realize how blessed we are to have music in our lives.
I actually asked Infinity Frequencies if The Caretaker was an inspiration at all for creating Between two worlds, and they actually told me they had never listened to The Caretaker until after Between two worlds was released which I found to be really interesting. They were finding that a lot of people were drawing comparisons between the two projects, and now after listening to The Caretaker, Infinity Frequencies can definitely see why.
Between two worlds was recently released on vinyl and I decided to purchase one a couple of weeks back. I got in contact with Infinity Frequencies after I made the purchase and told them that I wanted to create a video exploring the album and further asked them if they would be able to autograph the jacket for me, I love to add autographed pieces to my music collection and when the package arrived I found that they were kind enough to send me one copy signed and one extra copy to play.
The vinyl features the album artwork on the front and what seems to be more of the room that we can’t fully see from the original artwork on the back. A simple Side A and Side B tracklist is present, and everything is printed in such super low quality which of course tends to work for this release’s aesthetic. The vinyl also includes an up close picture of the two statues at a different angle, with framed pictures in the background that don’t seem to be present in the final photo used for the official artwork. I always love these little inclusions in a physical release for an album, these extra pieces of art that give you further insight on the setting within the album cover. It feels like uncovering long lost Earthbound 64 footage or pre-release Super Mario 64 levels or something, evidence that shows what is present now may or may not have been present before.
Throwing all of the tracks onto a standard vinyl pressing with no crazy color or splatter effect or what not was also a great touch. I know many artists are always eager to make the physical record itself super exciting and colorful, but that wouldn’t really work with the minimalistic nature found in the literal audio of Between two worlds. It’s also way cheaper to press standard vinyl which can also be the case, so it’s a win-win for everyone here.
There are a couple of these left (as of the writing of this article!):https://computer-gaze.bandcamp.com/album/between-two-worlds
Between two worlds takes the isolated feelings of past Infinity Frequencies releases and pushes them to us, the listener, in the best way yet. From the artwork to the tracklist to what is included in the vinyl packaging, everything always seems to tie together this idea of, literally, two worlds. Seeing or feeling something one way and then the next moment realizing that there is a whole nother world for you to explore.
Figuring out the secrets of Between two worlds and what lies ahead in the darkened room can’t be answered through the sounds present on the album or through the artwork unfortunately… It’s all just, of course, a hypothetical crossroad like all liminal spaces, none of these can actually present anything concrete and are only made to make you question if you would decide to push forward if you were in this specific scenario or place in time.
We are always eager to answer the unanswerable and wish to have insider knowledge on what decisions in life we should make to deliver the best results possible, but Between two worlds only reminds us that if we want those answers, we must push forward when the time has come for you to do so. That instinctive drive to figure out what is the best route for me in life causes me to want to listen to this album over and over again, and many seem to feel the same way about Between two worlds and its connection within our own personal lives and what we’ve experienced along the way—a liminal space that is both present in our memory, desires and imaginations yet is so unknown at the same time. Does this room actually exist? Have we been here before? To me, I swear I’ve been here before. I remember when I was a kid once I visited the Museum of Natural History in New York City with my family and I could remember being in a room that looked just like this. That was one of the first things that popped up in my head when I discovered this album and seeing the artwork for the first time, and it ultimately made me take the dive into it. But what about you? Go give it a listen and see what memories, forgotten or ones that just never actually happened at all, pop up for you.
Much love, ur boi,
-Pad Chennington
"Also known as "Youtube's Vaporwave Valedictorian", Pad Chennington is a content creator who has created a substantial following on YouTube for his videos discussing all things Vaporwave. Starting in the Fall of 2017, Pad's videos range from reviews to breakdowns, interviews to unboxings, and much more, always revolving around odd and interesting music genres found throughout the internet. Pad has also recently released an album in February titled "CONTRAST" that is available as a free download via the My Pet Flamingo label."
