2025 was a good year to be a t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 fan. After years of relative silence from him, his sudden return to the vaporwave scene brought a huge amount of new material that immediately caught attention. As one of the genre’s defining figures, any new release carries a certain weight. 真実はいつもあなたの中にある (The truth is always within you) stands as part of that return, giving his listeners something new to sit with.
Slushwave is a subgenre of vaporwave that is characterized by sampling songs, and creating a dreamy, nostalgic and ambient soundscape by slowing them down, looping segments and arranging them to create something new. t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 is known as the main pioneer for this genre, starting the project all the way back in 2013, and later on making his most popular works in 2015.
真実はいつもあなたの中にある (The truth is always within you) marks the third album from him released in 2025 after a nine-year hiatus from the genre. His previous two releases since his return saw him combining new age with his more traditional style, so the question was where this one would land.
The sound featured on this album is quite different from anything else he has put out, which is made very clear from the jump. The first track, 恐れが君を笑っている (Fear is laughing at you), features bass that is incredibly heavy and cuts directly through the mix. It’s honestly maybe a little too much compared to the rest of the album.
There are moments of brightness and extended sections of pure bliss, such as cuts like 蝶になる前の君を、まだ覚えている (I still remember you before you became a butterfly) that I really enjoyed. Just like every other telepath album, you can just soak in the reverb and ambiance, and there’s always a darker mood or ambiance present in the songs. Though it’s not always very forward in the mix, it’s always there if you listen for it.
The visual presentation of this album also adds to its mood. The cover features a woman staring at her reflection in a mirror, but what stares back is an alien. While the theme of aliens has been overused in the vaporwave scene for over a decade, this album takes a different approach to it. Many tracks are very otherworldly and spacey and feel as if they were crafted by aliens themselves, with large soundscapes filled with glimmering synths. That being said, the atmosphere also contrasts with songs like 君が必要だ (I need you), which has some pretty off-putting and jarring guitar that sounds dissonant, and not in a good way.
Though there are always good moments in many of these new albums, I can’t help feeling that they’re not as creative as his old works. The way these tracks are manipulated feel cold and lack humanity, and leave me feeling kind of empty by the end. While that can work with this specific album because of the alien-like theming, it doesn’t work as well with his two other releases that year. His previous record, 君のいない世界でまた一日が過ぎた (Another day has passed in a world without you), is supposed to feel more upbeat and happy, but doesn’t quite work with his new sound direction. On top of that, though slushwave is known for slowing down and looping its samples, this album can feel quite overly repetitive and monotonous to listen to. Because of this, I have not been looking forward to more releases with this sound as much as I would’ve liked, since a lot of it ends up sounding the same regardless of what the theme is.
This feeling could also be coming from the samples he uses. After doing a dive into the available information on his sources, many listeners have come to the conclusion that a lot of what he’s sampling comes from JAVs (Japanese adult videos). This sentiment doesn’t quite sit well with me, and clearly not with a good portion of his audience either. It makes the listening experience feel less nostalgic like the genre is typically known for, and more like you’re just hearing fragments of something that was never meant to be repurposed in the first place, which lines up with that almost artificial tone that runs throughout these tracks. I have yet to decide whether that is a good thing or not.
In the end, 真実はいつもあなたの中にある (The truth is always within you) definitely has its moments. There are still stretches of really nice atmosphere that remind me why I like his music in the first place, but at the same time, a lot of it feels inconsistent, a bit too repetitive and overall a bit hollow. It’s not a bad release, but it’s not one I see myself listening to in its entirety more than once.
