Summer Headrush 2009 Series (partially found unreleased James Ferraro albums; 2009)

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James Ferraro.jpeg

James Ferraro.

Status: Partially Found

James Ferraro

James Ferraro is an American musician and artist, is most attributed to pioneering the genres vaporwave and hypnagogic pop. He wildly varies in genres and pseudonyms, ranging from hip-hop to new-age music. His most prominent record was Far Side Virtual, which was attributed to being one of the first vaporwave albums. As of August 2020, Ferraro focuses on composing modern classical music and ambient sounds, with his most recent work being the album Neurogeist.

Summer Headrush 2009 Series

In 2009, James would produce a series of new age and psychedelic albums, which he dubbed the Summer Headrush 2009 Series. The albums would range from ambient, new age, radioplay, and rock. According to Ferraro:

"The series was loosely based on visualizations that came to mind while receiving self-induced hypocapnia or as it’s commonly called "free fall", the albums being representatives of the free fall head space."[1]

They would be distributed via homemade CD-Rs through his Muscleworks Inc. and New Age Tapes label. On the Muscleworks Inc. blogspot, Ferraro would post multiple announcements regarding the releases of the albums in his series, however, a chunk of them have never surfaced. Scarce information has been left in regard to the existence of these tens of lost records.

The following table displays albums that Ferraro had officially announced would be released as part of the Summer Headrush 2009 Series. They were each given their own catalog number and album cover, however, a percentage of them were never known to be released or be followed up on.

Album Cat# Status
Rerex 1 SHR2S 01 Released
Rerex 2 SHR2S 02 Released
Body Fusion 1 SHR2S 03 Released
Body Fusion 2 SHR2S 04 Released
iAsia SHR2S 05 Released
Too Hot for T.V. SHR2S 06 Lost
Wild World SHR2S 07 Released
Son of Dracula SHR2S 08 Released
Hacker Track SHR2S 09 Released
Cyber Flower SHR2S 10 Lost
Neo City / Estro Sim SHR2S 11 Lost
Pixarni SHR2S 12 Released

The albums in the following table are taken from images used in promotional material, which were not given any catalog numbers.[2] Little to no info has been released since about their existence. The album titles being used are taken from their file names. The table will be organized alphabetically.

Album Cat# Status
Angel Unknown Lost
Angels With Tongue Rings Unknown Lost
Cyber Suspension Unknown Lost
Grid Species Unknown Found (unconfirmed)
Hearts of Paradise Unknown Partially Found
Oxygen Unknown Lost
Rehysteria Unknown Partially Found (unconfirmed)

Grid Species

The following information is unconfirmed but is believed to be the correct tracklist for the album.

Song Length Status
Living on the Grid 16:41 Found (unconfirmed)
Chip Sacrifice 15:15 Found (unconfirmed)
Interface Hive Mind 15:02 Found (unconfirmed)

Supposedly, someone on the James Ferraro fan discord (https://discord.gg/BPYW3GG), in early April 2020, revealed the music, back cover, and track list used in the album. The story goes that this person got the scans, and audio rip, from a friend who shares one of the potentially only existing CD-R copies of Grid Species, with someone else. The audio was also edited to boost the highs for a higher quality sound.

Below are the scans released.

User Finn has thankfully uploaded the whole album, along with the new images, to youtube. However, it is still unconfirmed whether Grid Species has really been found.

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Hearts of Paradise

Supposedly, someone different, going by the name of Marie, joined the same James Ferraro fan discord in early January 2020, and brought with them previously unreleased audio from Ferraro's Summer Headrush 2009 era. This included three outtakes from Night Dolls with Hairspray, and an excerpt from Hearts of Paradise. The titles for the NDWHS outtakes are Brainteaser, TV Lobotomy, and Valleygirls From Out of This World, and the HOP excerpt title is LA Hooker.

Users CEO Hannah Banana and moonrocks have thankfully uploaded the audio to youtube.

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Here is the second upload to LA Hooker.

The tracklist and length for Hearts of Paradise is still unknown.

Rehysteria

The first noted mention of Rehysteria was by Ferraro on May 4th, 2010,[3] with Olde English Spelling Bee following up on it 6 days later in their own blog.[4] They both made promotional articles on their websites announcing a “new batch of James Ferraro releases”, including an image which displayed, from top to bottom, the albums On Air, Rehysteria, and Feed Me.

As shown in the image, Rehysteria was meant to be 45 minutes long, contain 11 tracks, and be released via CD-R for $10, on May 20th, 2010. OESB's article stated that “coming later this month will be the REHYSTERIA album, which James describes as a ‘prehistoric rewind in IMAX audio’” On Air and Feed Me would be released, but Rehysteria would not be followed up on for 7 years.

The following information is taken from the digital flyer provided by Ferraro and OESB, and is believed to be the correct tracklist. One issue with the image is how it provides conflicting information, showing different titles for specific songs between the back of the album and the box of information. It's unknown whether some of these differences were typos. The table will display any songs with different titles with the box information first, and album art information second.

Song Length Status
9,100,100 A.D. / 9,100,00 A.D. Unknown Lost
9732 A.D. / 9731 A.D. Unknown Lost
5,000 A.D. Unknown Lost
2211 A.D. Unknown Lost
Rehysteria City Unknown Lost
1950 A.D. Unknown Lost
850 B.C. Unknown Lost
0 Unknown Lost
3,777,000 B.C. Unknown Lost
4,000,000 B.C. Unknown Lost
Primordial Soup / 0,000,000 B.C. Unknown Lost

Speed

In December of 2017, in response to a delay for shipping out Ferraro's Human Story 3 vinyl records, OESB packaged each copy with a CD-R entitled Speed. There was also an email sent out to everyone, explaining what Speed was.[5]

The email stated:

"How they went thru some different batches of unreleased recordings from our 2010-era hard drive and ultimately landed on this one in part due to several requests from folks who asked if anything else from Ferraro's famed Summer Headrush 2009 period might surface. Well, we have now answered those prayers from the hardcore Ferraro believers. We also uncovered the master tape for his unreleased Summer Headrush album REHYSTERIA but decided that it would be worthy of a vinyl release at some point (fingers crossed)."

They went on to explain the context behind the CD-R:

"Anyways SPEED is basically a "lost album side" for Last American Hero. Initially we had considered doing a double LP for LAH so James recorded & submitted this to us in the summer of 2009 -- but then we decided to keep LAH as a single LP and more or less forgot about this extra material."

It is unconfirmed whether this was written by Todd Ledford of OESB.

As of August 2020, it is unconfirmed whether OESB still has access to Rehysteria or still plans on producing a vinyl of it.

Potential Find

In the 2011 vinyl reissue of Ferraro's On Air, there are two songs entitled "Dino-Static 3000 A. D. Jumpdrive Mohawk" and "Coneheads In Fast Forward". The style of these songs, especially with the way they were named, has led a number of people to believe they may be taken from Rehysteria.

Thankfully one of these songs, along with the Rehysteria artwork, has been uploaded to youtube.

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As of August 2020, these are unconfirmed to be a real find.

Current Leads

It is believed many of these lost albums are under the supervision of Todd Ledford from OESB. Based on the email from 2017, he potentially does plan on releasing Rehysteria on vinyl. However, his reputation and word is being questioned by a number of participants, since he has become a controversial figure in regards to online music communities such as vaporwave.[6] This is primarily for his sketchy practices in running Olde English Spelling Bee.[7]

James Ferraro himself may also still have access to old files or projects containing the lost music, but this is unconfirmed.

References