Favorite Water was a music project by Jared Hutchison (me) who was among the first group of artists to coin the term "Post-Nightcore" within the underground zeitgeist of 2010s online only music. A style of music regrettably from /mu/ that blurs the lines between genre and scene and would foretell the resurgence of Nightcores popularity in the mainstream just a few years later. The genre got its beginnings as a "/mu/ makes an album" thread for the purpose of mocking the audience who would stumble upon the album and enjoyed its contents. This album was 終わらないCORE: Oh! What a Nightcore by Arashi-bu and the first few artists within the movement would believe in this same mentality before leaving their projects behind forever when people started to welcome its presence.
But the creation of Favorite Water was a lot more sincere in the likes of Wato Wato and Toshino-sans (歳納さん) lost singles. During the first threads for the genre (when it was only called Nightcore-Revival), I would stumble across artists Kyoko-kun and MC Ryu and try to replicate the early "speeding up /mu/core" phase of the genre with the bands that I would often have on rotation. This blend of parody and sincerity became the basis of Favorite Water as a whole. But because of the fact that the group of anons who made Arashi-bu (and even Kyoko-kun) might have denounced my music for its sincerity, I always make sure that I too, laugh at myself.
Within a couple of weeks in March 2016, a scene was born and a Skype group chat would be made for all its current artists. This would be one of the only times that the majority of the scene was conversing with each other. After the initial flame of activity and community, I would begin to deal with personal issues that caused me to abruptly ask Kai Beckman to close the cd run for the album Sickening Display after only a handful of sales. I left home and left music for the rest of the summer up until late November to create untitled2 and 3 by torrent my pets and my earliest folk EP "some demos". When I came back to Post-Nightcore however, I saw that everyone had got up and left one by one, disappearing back into the void of the internet. The shift from growing community to 0 made it feel like some sort of digital wasteland.
After my discovery I created an "is dead" album in May 2017 to throw into the long list of albums with that title. But instead I asked it as a question "Post-Nightcore is Dead?" because I was genuinely asking the question "why did everyone leave?". After that I began not thinking about it. But one person after another would return to the ghost town. Among the first people to return was Plastic Neesound with the album "Hollow" and it would go on to be seen as one of the most important albums in the movement. Someone replied to one of my anonymous comments and it became the banner on their bandcamp page, and in late 2017 I would make the mascot for the project "mizuchan" inspired by bands like Ho-kago Tea Time and Beck starting with the banner I still use to this day. A second group chat for the artists was made but conversation became sparce. I wasnt told until long after that one of the members was the label owner "dismiss yourself" who was at the time just another username to me. No music was ever made by this person. During this time I had found my way into the group "Ponk's Bakery", the same band that had recently kicked out their ex-member Sewerslvt.
One year later, Patrica Taxxon would release the album "Majesty" influenced by the new spark of Post-Nightcore and it became more well known than anything the scene have ever created. One year after that, Bandcamp would make the list "Beginners Guild to Nightcore" that included Majesty alongside 100 gecs member Laura Les, Frankjavcee and other notable artists (after blacklisting me from tags for sampling The Velvet Underground of course). In 2020, Toshino-san would release the album Queen of Neptune and would prove to be one of the most beloved artists since the first listeners of the WITH YOU EP who said "this is pretty good actually". That is when I decided to go all in with including the mascot as a major part of the music. Going so far as saying that post-2019 Favorite Water is a pretend vocalist who you are suppose to imagine is actually singing the songs. This is the era that I consider to be the epitome of what the project was building towards. Although i know that people probably prefer the pre-2020 albums i dont consider heavy editing as a requirement of what Post-Nightcore is. The most important thing is approach and mindset. The only difference between Post-Nightcore and classic Nightcore was the goal of the music and the sampled artists. Nightcores goal was to win a class project when it began before becoming the goal to make mixes for pre teens on youtube in the early 2010s. Post-nightcores goal was to dick around in threads and make something that some of us would actually enjoy. Freed from the boundaries of the vaporwave landscape and trying to do something new. Not including the original founders goal of making fun of all of us that is.
But sometimes I wish the music didnt sound so silly.. oh well.
