Telepath (musician)


Luke Laurila, better known as Telepath, is an American musician notable for his considerable impact within the vaporwave scene. During the mid-2010s, his ambient sound and dream-like presentation turned him into the main originator of the slushwave subgenre. He initially released albums under the alias Scintillation! and later as Virtual Dream Plaza and Tianhuojian. He is of Finnish descent.
Laurila released his debut album as Telepath in 2013, and began producing split albums with vaporwave artists such as Cat System Corp. He became a notable figure of the genre for his prolific output in 2014 and 2015, and for co-founding Dream Catalogue, the first vaporwave-focused record label. His work with HKE under the alias 2814, including Birth of a New Day and Rain Temple, is recognized for innovating the vaporwave genre beyond purely sample-based material. He also distanced the movement from its semi-ironic roots with The Path to Lost Eden, his split album with musician Nmesh. Birth of a New Day became one of the best-selling releases on Bandcamp, while The Path to Lost Eden originated internal discussions culminating with the hardvapour subgenre.
After 2015's Interstellar Intercourse, Laurila started producing mainly original synth music, as opposed to his earlier slushwave efforts. His work as Telepath was integrated into Spotify's official vaporwave playlist, and featured as part of the soundtrack for Dan Vogt's video game Data Wing. He continued his popularity on the Cat System Corp. split Building a Better World and returned to his classic slushwave style in 2025 with Dawn Arrives. Laurila's hazy style of music and idiosyncratic sampling methods have impacted musicians both within and outside the vaporwave genre, while his work in 2814 solidified his status as a "vaporwave superstar".

Career

Early work and debut as Telepath (2011-2013)

Luke Laurila's earliest music was released under the alias Scintillation! and was focused on general electronic ambient music. Under this alias, he released 14 albums and 21 EPs from 2011 to 2013, including remixes of songs by electronic duo Boards of Canada. Laurila later stated he created "about 50 original albums" before producing music as Telepath.
Laurila started producing vaporwave in 2013, releasing three solo albums under the Telepath alias during the year. Around this time, he produced two split albums with other artists from the scene: 2013's Nightlife with Silver Richards, and 2014's Interstellar Love with Vincent Remember. According to Laurila, the seventh track on Nightlife, "Betrayal", was his first definitive slushwave track. He tended to encounter artists to collaborate with on the music streaming platform SoundCloud, where he eventually met David Russo, also known as HKE. Laurila contacted Russo about releasing Interstellar Love on Dream Catalogue, Russo's record label. This event shifted the label's focus from personal usage by Russo to a vaporwave-focused release roster, which attracted a considerable audience. To promote the album, the label released a music video for its titular track on February 22.

Newfound popularity and collaborative releases (2014)

During 2014, Laurila released Telepathic and Blue Dream, two split albums with Dutch musician Jornt Elzinga as Cat System Corp. Three music videos for tracks from Telepathic were released: "Direction" on May 28, "Fantasy" on May 30, and "Love After Midnight" on July 15. The third was created by Elzinga, who, on October 4, released a video for one of Laurila's earlier tracks, "Faint Light" from To the Future. The two musicians later came to lead the project Fragmented Memories, a large-scale collaborative album featuring a variety of musicians from the vaporwave genre. According to Elzinga, the Telepath project had already garnered a significant amount of listeners by this point, with the release of Beyond Reality in June marking what Laurila called a turning point for the alias and a "special milestone where clarity of intention was reached".
By the end of the year, there were 20 releases under the Telepath alias, including Andromeda, Face to Face, and Amaterasu. The third was later chosen by musician Angel Marcloid as one of her favorite albums on Bandcamp, the music sharing website that currently hosts Laurila's music. His work with Russo on the album 2814 helped establish the eponymous alias as a sample-free vaporwave project; this, according to Resident Advisor writer Andrew Ryce, began a new development for the vaporwave movement, as it shifted perspectives of the scene being a temporary piece of Internet culture to a completely new music genre. Laurila later described the transition from 2014 into 2015 as the time period where he achieved his full potential with the Telepath alias.

Further collaborations, Virtual Dream Plaza and departure from classic style (2015)

January 2015 marked the creation of a new alias by Laurila, Taihe Zhizeng, with the release of Mysterious Lover. During the same month, Laurila collaborated with Russo on Love / Sorrow and on 2814's second album, Birth of a New Day. The latter reached the No. 2 spot on Bandcamp's ambient charts, and became one of the best-selling albums on the website. Antara Communication, released on February 2, was later described by Laurila as his favorite release as Telepath, as it "successfully captured everything I had been intending to up until that point." To promote his upcoming split record with vaporwave artist Golden Living Room, named Virtual Phantasy 2097, Laurila released three music videos: "Bliss" on February 8, "Healing" on February 13, and "Memories" on February 15. The first release from Laurila's Virtual Dream Plaza project, Waiting for You was released in May, with vaporwave trio Death's Dynamic Shroud releasing a looping music video for the project's next album, Here She Comes, in June. Another music video for two records from this alias, Desire and Sensuality, was released by Laurila on October 2.
In October, Laurila and electronic musician Vaperror, the alias of Jeff Cardinal, released the album Beyond Love under the collaborative pseudonym Televape. It was the first release of Cardinal's label Plus100. Laurila also worked with Nmesh on The Path to Lost Eden during the same month, when Dream Catalogue released what was described by Fact as a "psilocybin-soaked album trailer" for their collaboration. He also released four Virtual Dream Plaza albums with track and artist titles in Mandarin instead of Japanese. November saw the release of Laurila's second collaborative album with HKE outside the 2814 alias, Gateway. It originated from a request by musician Equip for Laurila to release a record on his label Baro. For his final slushwave Telepath album, Interstellar Intercourse, Laurila released a music video for the track "Enchanting Beauty" on December 19, ending what Nick Caceres of RateYourMusic called his most prolific year.

''All for You'', ''Rain Temple'' and ''Eternity'' (2016)

Laurila's first creation of 2016 was a music video for the Interstellar Intercourse track "Late Night Love", released on January 5. He also produced a track for Hacking for Freedom, a collaborative project led by musician wosX. He described Laurila's work as the album's highlight, and the track's music video was released on January 17. After Endless Desire, his fifth release as Virtual Dream Plaza in Mandarin, Dream Catalogue released two music videos for tracks from Birth of a New Day: "Distant Lovers" on February 27, and "Recovery" on August 20. In April and May, Laurila built funk-led musical mixes for Tiny Mix Tapes and Bandwagon respectively. In June, he released the split album Balance, a collaboration with musician Useless, under the Virtual Dream Plaza alias. His first release as "Telepath" only, All for You/Sensuality and its accompanying music video were released on June 30, 2016. It was later chosen by the Charlatans lead singer Tim Burgess as one of his favorite Bandcamp releases.
An official vaporwave playlist released in July by streaming service Spotify featured five of Laurila's tracks: two from Andromeda and three from Birth of a New Day. In September, Laurila released Secret Lover, which was described by Bandcamp Dailys Ari Delaney as one of his many "complex, emotional musical experiences". Dream Catalogue's music video for "Eyes of the Temple", a track from 2814's next release Rain Temple, was released on September 18. On October 3, Telepath and Vaperror returned as Televape with the release Eternity, and a video album was released the same day. Laurila's next record as Telepath, titled A, was released in November. Three albums featuring participation by Laurila—Rain Temple, Eternity, and A— were listed by Simon Chandler of Bandcamp Daily as some of the best physical vaporwave releases of 2016. According to writer Lucy March, the quality of Telepath's physical releases caused them to later be resold for "hundreds of dollars".

100% ElectroniCON, ''Building a Better World'' and work as Tianhuojian (2017–2022)

In July 2017, Laurila released a new single under his old stylized Telepath moniker, titled "Farewell". In October 2017, Laurila and musician Agia produced the collaborative single "Circle of Love", one of seven tracks from their album as Lovers Entwined, The Light of Our Love. During the same year, developer Dan Vogt included some of Telepath's music, alongside tracks by artists such as George Clanton and Luxury Elite, in his 2D mobile racing game Data Wing. After another collaboration with Agia on 20181s Unison, Laurila performed in 2019 for the second edition of 100% ElectroniCON, Clanton's vaporwave music festival. To maintain his anonymity, he wore a dark costume obfuscating his face and body. According to Flood Magazine, Laurila told future funk musician Ryan DeRobertis that, after finishing the performance, "he now understood the appeal of live performance after years of avoiding it."
In June 2019, Laurila released Building a Better World, his third split album with Jornt Elzinga. The first release on Hiraeth Records, Elzinga's then-recent label, it was chosen as one of the best ambient releases of August 2019 by Ari Delaney. Three music videos were released for the album's tracks: "Dawn over the Metropolis" on June 12, 2019, "Sector 131" on December 14, 2021, and "Awakening" on July 17, 2022. In 2022, Laurila released a music video for the album Wading in the Afterlife, his first release under the alias Tianhuojian. In 2023, The Path to Lost Eden received its first vinyl pressing, the album's second physical release since an original cassette run in 2015. In 2022, Laurila began releasing music under the alias Tianhuojian. His first release, Wading in the Afterlife, was released on April 4, 2022 with an accompanying music video. It was part of a self-imposed challenge for Laurila, where he would attempt to "to shoot a 40+ minute film in only 3 hours with no prepreparation or planning." In 2022, Laurila released his final album as Virtual Dream Plaza in Mandarin, Four Beauties, with 2023's Beyond the Dream serving as the pseudonym's last record.