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the wave

The Wave

United Kingdom · 2010s
DreamySadDarkChillDancing
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Description

The Wave is an internet-born electronic micro-genre that blends half-time trap rhythms with the atmospheric depth of ambient and post-dubstep. It is typically spacious, cinematic, and melancholic, using wide pads, airy textures, and emotive, reverb-soaked melodies.

Producers favor minimal, half-time drum patterns around 140 BPM, 808 sub-bass glides, and shimmering leads or vocal chops that drift through the mix. The overall effect is dreamy yet weighty—equal parts introspective headphone music and late-night club catharsis.

History
Origins (mid-2010s)

The Wave emerged online in the mid-2010s, largely centered around the UK but quickly developing as a transnational SoundCloud movement. Early champions and communities coalesced around platforms such as SoundCloud, YouTube, and Rinse FM shows, with labels and collectives shaping a shared aesthetic. Artists drew on the UK bass continuum, trap’s half-time drum language, the atmospheres of ambient and post-dubstep, and the eerie, detuned mood of witch house.

Community, Labels, and Scene-Building

Collectives and labels like Wavemob and later Liquid Ritual, along with podcasts and channels such as vibe.digital, helped codify the sound and give it a recognizable identity. Radio support from tastemakers (including wave-focused mixes and Rinse FM features) legitimized the scene, while club nights and pop-up events connected an otherwise internet-native community in physical spaces.

Aesthetic and Sound Design

Producers prioritized mood and space: reverb-laden pads, melancholic motifs, and sub-bass glides became signatures. The drums remained skeletal but impactful, inspired by trap and dubstep frameworks while avoiding maximalism. This approach attracted producers from across Europe, North America, and beyond, each contributing regional nuances while maintaining the genre’s core emotive palette.

2020s: Expansion and Offshoots

In the late 2010s and into the 2020s, The Wave influenced a more forceful offshoot often dubbed hardwave, which introduced trance-inflected leads and heavier, festival-ready drops. Simultaneously, adjacent styles like vaportrap adopted aspects of The Wave’s mood and sound design. Despite these evolutions, the original style continues to thrive as a deeply atmospheric branch of the online bass music ecosystem.

How to make a track in this genre
Tempo, Groove, and Drums
•   Work at 130–150 BPM, with 140 BPM as a common center point. •   Use a half-time trap feel: a heavy, clean kick; a snappy but soft-edged snare on beat 3; and delicate hats with rolls and triplets for motion. •   Keep percussion sparse and purposeful. Focus on groove over density.
Bass and Low-End
•   Employ 808 subs or reese-style basses with subtle pitch glides. Sidechain gently to the kick to preserve depth. •   Prioritize clean, extended low frequencies; avoid muddy layering.
Harmony and Melody
•   Favor minor modes (Aeolian, Dorian) with simple, emotive progressions (e.g., i–VI–III–VII). •   Craft lead lines with airy plucks, detuned saws, or glassy pads. Use long tails and wide stereo imaging. •   Integrate restrained vocal chops or distant phrases, pitched and time-stretched to sit as texture rather than foreground hooks.
Sound Design and Space
•   Build large, cinematic environments with lush pads, granular atmospheres, and field-recording layers. •   Use reverb and delay generously, but carve space with EQ and ducking to keep the mix clear. •   Employ subtle noise beds and texture sweeps to sustain momentum between drum hits.
Arrangement and Dynamics
•   Structure as intro → rise → drop (half-time groove) → breakdown → second drop, keeping transitions smooth and fluid. •   Use filter sweeps, resampled pads, and reversed tails for seamless scene changes. •   Keep loudness moderate; let transients breathe so the track feels expansive rather than crowded.
Performance and Aesthetics
•   For DJ sets, design longer intros/outros and coherent key relationships to enable seamless blends. •   Visuals and artwork often mirror the music’s mood: nocturnal, futuristic, and dreamlike. Aim for cohesion between sonic and visual identity.
Top albums
Floral Green
Floral Green
Title Fight
Wildlife
Wildlife
La Dispute
Shed
Shed
Title Fight
Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair
Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair
La Dispute
Stage Four
Stage Four
Touché Amoré
No One Was Driving the Car
No One Was Driving the Car
La Dispute
Main artists
Influenced by
Trap
Trap is a subgenre of hip hop that emerged from the Southern United States, defined by half-time grooves, ominous minor-key melodies, and the heavy use of 808 sub-bass. The style is characterized by rapid, syncopated hi-hat rolls, crisp rimshot/clap on the backbeat, and cinematic textures that convey tension and grit. Lyrically, it centers on street economies, survival, ambition, and introspection, with ad-libs used as percussive punctuation. Production is typically minimal but hard-hitting: layered 808s, sparse piano or bell motifs, dark pads, and occasional orchestral or choir samples. Vocals range from gravelly, staccato deliveries to melodic, Auto-Tuned flows, often using triplet cadences.
Dubstep
Dubstep is a bass‑centric electronic dance music genre that emerged in South London in the early 2000s. It is typically around 140 BPM and is defined by a half‑time rhythmic feel, sub‑heavy basslines, sparse yet impactful drums, and a strong emphasis on space, tension, and sound system weight. Hallmark traits include syncopated kick patterns, snares on the third beat of the bar, swung/shuffly hi‑hats inherited from UK garage, and modulated low‑frequency bass (“wobbles”) shaped with LFOs, filters, and distortion. Influences from dub reggae (echo, delay, and minimalism), jungle/drum & bass (bass science and sound system culture), and 2‑step garage (rhythmic swing and shuffles) are central. The style ranges from deep, meditative “dub” aesthetics (often called deep dubstep) to more aggressive, midrange‑driven variants that later informed brostep and festival bass. Atmosphere, negative space, and subwoofer translation are as important as melody or harmony.
Grime
Grime is a fast, raw, and minimalist form of rap-driven electronic music that emerged from London’s pirate radio culture in the early 2000s. It typically runs at around 140 BPM, with skeletal, syncopated drum patterns, stark sub-bass, and icy synth stabs that leave space for agile MCs. The genre’s vocal style emphasizes rapid-fire flows, internal rhymes, and wordplay that reflect urban life, competition, humour, and social commentary. Grime inherited the DIY energy of UK garage and jungle sound systems while foregrounding MC culture as the main event, building a distinctive British rap identity separate from U.S. hip hop.
Witch House
Witch house is a dark, internet-born microgenre that blends chopped-and-screwed hip-hop rhythms with industrial, darkwave, and ambient textures. It favors slow, heavy, half-time beats; foggy pads; detuned synths; and down-pitched, reverb-drenched vocals. Aesthetically, it leans into occult and horror imagery—distorted crosses, triangles, Unicode glyphs, VHS haze—and a lo-fi, haunted atmosphere. Despite the name, it has little to do with house music; the term was partly tongue-in-cheek, pointing to its witchy, ritualistic vibe and the blog-era tendency to label micro-scenes. The sound is hypnotic and murky: burial-bell chimes, smeared choirs, granular artifacts, and blown-out 808s moving at a crawl (often 60–75 BPM). It sits between dark electronic traditions and slowed Southern rap, prioritizing mood and texture over virtuosity.
Ambient
Ambient is a form of electronic and electroacoustic music that prioritizes tone, atmosphere, and texture over conventional song structures and rhythmic drive. It typically features slow-moving harmonies, sustained drones, gentle timbral shifts, and extensive use of space and silence. Rather than drawing attention to itself through hooks or beats, ambient is designed to be as ignorable as it is interesting, rewarding both background listening and focused immersion. Artists often employ synthesizers, samplers, tape loops, field recordings, and subtle acoustic instruments, with reverb and delay creating a sense of place. Substyles range from luminous, consonant soundscapes to darker, more dissonant atmospheres.
Cloud Rap
Cloud rap is a hip hop microgenre defined by ethereal, reverb‑drenched textures, soft pads, and minimal drum programming that creates a floating, dreamlike atmosphere. Beats tend to be sparse and space-conscious, with airy synths, distant vocal samples, and gentle 808s supporting raps that are often introspective, deadpan, or emotionally detached. The sound crystallized online in the early 2010s through platforms like DatPiff, Tumblr, and SoundCloud, pairing Southern rap rhythms with ambient and chillwave aesthetics. Rather than virtuosic density, cloud rap prizes mood, negative space, and a sense of weightlessness, translating internet-era solitude and nostalgia into hazy, pastel-toned hip hop.
Future Garage
Future garage is a UK-born mutation of UK garage and dubstep that pivots from peak-time club energy toward intimate, headphone-focused listening. It is defined by shuffling 2‑step drum programming (swung hi‑hats, syncopated snares, ghost kicks), deep sine/sub bass, foggy pads, and the use of pitched, chopped R&B or soul vocal fragments as texture rather than lead melody. Producers often weave in field recordings (rain, street noise, vinyl crackle), generous reverb, and subtle sound-design to evoke a nocturnal, reflective atmosphere. Typical tempos hover around 130 BPM, with grooves that imply both half‑time glide and garage shuffle, and harmony that favors minor keys, suspended chords, and slow-moving, emotive progressions.
Post-Dubstep
Post-dubstep is a loosely defined wave of UK-born electronic music that grew out of dubstep but moved away from its rigid 140 BPM wobble-bass formula. It keeps the bass-weight, sound-system focus, and rhythmic syncopation of dubstep and UK garage, but folds in house and techno tempos, R&B vocal chops, ambient space, and experimental production. Typical tracks explore 120–135 BPM (not fixed at 140), use broken 2‑step/garage swing instead of 4/4, and favor detailed sound design over maximal drops. You’ll often hear hushed, intimate vocals (sampled or original), neo-soul/jazz-influenced chords, and micro-edited percussion with lots of negative space. The mood is frequently introspective, melancholic, and textural—more headphone-oriented than festival-leaning—yet still rooted in club culture.
Chillstep
Chillstep is a mellow, melodic offshoot of dubstep that emphasizes atmosphere, emotion, and cinematic sound design over aggressive bass modulation. It retains dubstep’s half-time rhythmic feel but replaces abrasive wobbles with warm subs, airy pads, and gently evolving textures. Typical tracks sit around 140 BPM (often felt as a spacious 70 BPM half-time groove), blending downtempo pacing with ambient spaciousness. You’ll often hear reverb-laden vocals, delicate piano or guitar lines, soft arpeggios, and field recordings, all arranged to create a soothing, introspective mood rather than a dancefloor peak.
Chillwave
Chillwave is a late-2000s microgenre of electronic pop characterized by hazy, retro-tinged synthesizers, lo‑fi textures, understated drum machines, and heavily processed, dreamlike vocals. Its sound evokes sun-faded nostalgia, often referencing 1980s synth-pop and soft rock atmospheres filtered through cassette hiss, chorus, and reverb. Built by bedroom producers during the blog era, chillwave prizes mood over virtuosity: gentle major-seventh harmonies, loop-friendly motifs, and sidechain‑pumped pads create a warm, gauzy drift. Visual and conceptual aesthetics—VHS artifacts, pastel palettes, palm trees, and memories of an endless summer—are integral to its identity.
Vapor
Vapor is an internet-born microgenre of atmospheric, half-time electronic trap that emphasizes space, texture, and emotive melody over aggression or technical flash. Its sonic palette leans on airy pads, crystalline bell and pluck leads, misty reverb tails, and round, subby 808s. Drums typically follow a modern trap grid at halftime, with sparse, syncopated hats and gentle percussion instead of hard-edged snares. Vocals, if present at all, are usually textural—chopped phrases, distant calls, or heavily processed one-shots—serving ambience rather than lyrical narrative. The result is a dreamy, nocturnal mood that sits between cloud rap, vaporwave aesthetics, and the UK-led "wave" scene: cinematic yet minimal, melancholic yet weightless, and designed as much for headphones as for late-night club systems.
Vaportrap
Vaportrap is a hybrid microgenre that blends the hazy, sample-based aesthetics of vaporwave with the rhythmic language and sound design of modern trap and cloud-rap instrumentals. It typically features half-time 808 grooves, shimmering pads, pitched-down or time-stretched samples from 1980s–1990s media (commercials, corporate music, smooth jazz, R&B), and a lo‑fi, nostalgic atmosphere. Compared to straight vaporwave, vaportrap is more beat-driven and club-aware; compared to mainstream trap, it is more ambient, textural, and dreamlike.
Has influenced
Hardwave
Hardwave is a high-energy offshoot of the online wave movement that fuses cinematic atmospheres and melancholic melodies with the power and structure of club music. It typically features soaring trance-like leads, heavy sidechained pads, reese subs, and emotive progressions set against either four-on-the-floor or halftime rhythms around 120–150 BPM. Compared with classic wave, hardwave is more driving and festival-ready, borrowing the euphoric drops and supersaw sound design of hardstyle and trance while retaining the moody, spacious qualities of wave and witch house.
Vaportrap
Vaportrap is a hybrid microgenre that blends the hazy, sample-based aesthetics of vaporwave with the rhythmic language and sound design of modern trap and cloud-rap instrumentals. It typically features half-time 808 grooves, shimmering pads, pitched-down or time-stretched samples from 1980s–1990s media (commercials, corporate music, smooth jazz, R&B), and a lo‑fi, nostalgic atmosphere. Compared to straight vaporwave, vaportrap is more beat-driven and club-aware; compared to mainstream trap, it is more ambient, textural, and dreamlike.
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