desert sand feels warm at night (vaporwave)

William Hallworth-Cook, known professionally as Desert Sand Feels Warm at Night or simply Desert Sand, is a British electronic musician recognized as a key figure in the modern vaporwave scene, particularly for his contributions to the slushwave and dreampunk subgenres. He is best known for his work in the late 2010s and early 2020s, in which long-form ambient tracks and themes of spirituality evolving on the style of Telepath popularised him within the scene. Hallworth-Cook released his debut album as Desert Sand in 2019, and started collaborating with established record labels such as Needlejuice Records in 2020. He became recognized in the slushwave genre for his prolific output during the late 2010s and early 2020s, with albums such as New World Disciples (2021) and Dream Desert (2022). He also collaborated with musicians such as Angel Marcloid, under her alias MindSpring Memories, and participated in vaporwave festivals such as George Clanton's ElectroniCon 3. Hallworth-Cook's sample-free releases, as well as his methods of sampling, have been noted for impacting and evolving the slushwave subgenre. New World Disciples was highlighted by several publications as his most popular release, while Dream Desert was named one of the greatest albums of 2022 by WKNC-FM. William Hallworth-Cook's music prior to the Desert Sand Feels Warm at Night pseudonym consisted mostly of minor aliases focusing on faster-paced electronic music. He began experimenting with combinations of vaporwave and ambient in 2018, releasing albums such as Prisoner in 2019. Hallworth-Cook said his first sample-free release, Forgive and Forget (2019), was "a real treat for me to make", as he and his fans found "inner peace" from listening to it. Its fourth track, "Cherry Blossom", as well as "Constellation" from the dreampunk-led Tomorrow, 2096 (2019), were both featured in official playlists by NTS Radio in December 2025. He continued to experiment with sample-free slushwave in 2020 with Night Road. Desert Sand's third album of 2021, New World Disciples, was released in May. To promote the album, a music video for the track "He Is Here" accompanied the album's release, featuring what Mick R. of New Noise Magazine described as a message "about the nature of work and our relationship to technology". In February 2022, Hallworth-Cook released the four-hour-long Dream Desert, which was named one of the best albums of 2022 by WKNC-FM. Its YouTube upload was highlighted by Dennis Mikula, owner of record label Geometric Lullaby, for its amount of views on the platform surpassing the two million mark. Working with Hallworth-Cook on a vinyl pressing for the album, he noted it as one of his hardest and most expensive releases on the label, but one which "made sense." In August 2022, Hallworth-Cook performed in Brooklyn for the third edition of ElectroniCon, a vaporwave music festival organized by musician George Clanton, and was described by Tori-Lynne Davis of Bearded Gentlemen Music as a "particularly interest[ing]" figure of the event. His first live performance, Hallworth-Cook reported feeling nervous in anticipation, and said it had not "sunk in throughout the years of this project that it has a big fanbase." In a 2022 interview, he hinted at a future collaboration with electronic musician MindSpring Memories, which was the 2023 release Desert Memories. In 2025, Hallworth-Cook performed again in Brooklyn for Flamingofest, a vaporwave festival promoted by labels Utopia District and My Pet Flamingo. During the same year, he also released a video album for a compilation of works from 2022 to 2024 on his YouTube channel, under the alias Paradise Mountain. Hallworth-Cook's music was highlighted by many publications for evolving the sound of vaporwave and of the slushwave subgenre, mainly due to his sample-free production on several albums. He has been recognized as one of the subgenre's key figures, and his music highlighted for its perceived emotional power. Tori-Lynne Davis highlighted the project's "impressive" evocation of nostalgic themes without using any samples, while Mick called his work "transportative" and transcendental. The Spiritual Arts Foundation commented that the Desert Sand discography, specifically New World Disciples, "cements [him] ... as a scene-transcending heavyweight of expressionistic soundcraft." The melodies of earlier albums such as Prisoner and Forgive and Forget were also described as "delicate and heartfelt", according to the institute. Davis highlighted how "immense" the soundscape of Dream Desert seems and said the album channels "otherworldy energies" that exemplify the project's ability to "conjure sweeping emotions." WKNC-FM described Dream Desert as "vaporwave at its most potent" and "the most soothing album" of 2022, praising the album for its exploration of "magic moments" throughout its four-hour runtime. Hallworth-Cook's main points of inspiration were the music of slushwave figure Telepath, an alias of American electronic musician Luke Laurila, as well as various Japanese musicians such as Hiroko Yakushimaru and S. Kiyotaka & Omega Tribe. Laurila's music specifically, which started being recommended to him by the music streaming service Spotify, made him "[fall] in love" with slushwave and vaporwave, prompting him to create his own output within the scene. He uses illustrations by visual designer Zer0 as album covers for many of his releases, with the anonymous nature of his music's presentation accompanying his "genuineness and humanity", according to Mick. Hallworth-Cook also draws his visual style from 1980s Japanese commercials; during the production of Dense Fog (2019), he chose its album cover and name based on an advert featuring "this barren, purple, lonely road going out to nothing. I was almost tearing up saying to myself that this is perfect." He stated the vaporwave musician he looked forward to the most for vaporwave festival ElectroniCon 3 was Luxury Elite. Although Hallworth-Cook has used samples in many of his releases, most notably on Dream Desert, he is best known for his sample-free work on albums such as New World Disciples, which follow on similar trends of vaporwave albums such as 2814's Birth of a New Day (2015). His first experiment with this type of slushwave, the 2019 release Forgive and Forget, was described by him as still "hold[ing] a special place in my heart", and said its melodies affected him emotionally as he created them. He reported having slept late many times to explore musical ideas he had while producing, and stated that these sessions vary greatly in mood, speed and effectiveness; as an exampled, he recalled that the opening track of New World Disciples, "Eternal Hope", took only two hours to create. Of his sample-based work, Hallworth-Cook highlighted "a lot of meticulous sample manipulation in play", mentioning the first 11 minutes of Dream Desert's opening track featuring a second-long cut from the end of the original sample. In response to a pun on the terms vaporwave and vaping, Hallworth-Cook said he does not smoke. He travelled to the desert twice in his life, those being Death Valley and "one near Dubai". William Hallworth-Cook's music has been variously categorised as vaporwave, ambient, dreampunk, electronic, experimental, new age, and slushwave, often being inspired by and sampling genres such as C-pop, Japanese city pop and soul. His work before Desert Sand explored electronic genres such as deep house and trance, while of his later music, the Spiritual Arts Foundation described its popularity level as bridging the gap between underground scenes of electronic music and more mainstream ethereal styles, "as much Julianna Barwick as 2814." Some of the main characteristics of Desert Sand include an abstract usage of sampling, atmospheric tracks focused on tonal qualities and spiritual themes such as transcendence and life after death. The alias is also characterised by its prolific frequency of