The Kansas City musician Alber characterizes his music as vaporwave. Even so, much of his new album Journey is a logical extension of the smooth jazz made by Max Groove in the 1980s. Gently rippling melodies are rendered with Alber’s fragile analog trumpet and lo-fi synthetic tones. Only the jittery post-Dilla beats prevent portions of Journey from being mistaken for a worn-out cassette of Miles Davis’ 1984 album Decoy or a sun-warped vinyl copy of a mid-’70s Bob James recording. Everything clicks- literally and figuratively- on the exemplary title track while the glitchy "In Absentia" is a small sample of state-of-the art ambient music. Journey may be consummate chill-out music for the cool kids of today, but old-school smooth jazz fans will also take enormous pleasure in Alber’s music.