Ultrademon

Ultrademon, aka Lily[1] aka Lilium Kobayashi,[2] Seapunk originator and creator within the broader Seapunk community, is credited with developing the genre with its first record label and pushing it into the mainstream. Drawing upon influences from advertising, demonology, and post-apocalyptic landscapes, Ultrademon's contributions to Seapunk would define the genre and later be seen once more within the evolution of the genre in the form of Vaporwave. Her music has been described as "hyperreal" and seems to be a progenitor of electronic music in the 2010s.[3][4][5]

Ultrademon
Background information
Origin	Kansas
Genres	Seapunk, Vaporwave, chillwave, post-industrial, synthpop, House music
Years active	2012–present
Labels	Coral Records, Rephlex Records, Fire For Effect Records

Ultrademon gained significant notoriety with the rapid rise and fall of Seapunk as a genre, with a significant peak in the genre's interest arriving with Rihanna's usage of Seapunk aesthetics on her SNL performance in 2012. Shortly after Ultrademon would become the poster-girl of the Seapunk genre, being featured in numerous publications, including the New York Times "The Little Mermaid goes Punk", and similar to Grunge music, breaching the mainstream in music with the underground.[6] Ultrademon would continue to push the Seapunk brand and evolve the genre musically.[7]

Following the increase in popularity in Seapunk culture in 2012, Ultrademon released her first album (titled Seapunk) via Aphex Twin's Rephlex Records. Ultrademon would continue to see additional mainstream success and through this branding of Seapunk of a genre, can be seen as a significant individual in helping to breach internet micro-genres[6] into the mainstream eye.

Ultrademon reacted to her fame in a more complex manner,[8] and in an interview with Vice magazine in the early 2010s, sees the success of her genre as beneficial to those originally within the genre, but feels that the genre has lost its roots and has little to do with what it once represented[4]

To quote Ultrademon from an interview in Thump, on her music and the genre's origins:

We're in the apocalypse right now, if there ever was one," her explanation begins. "This weird, post-industrial wasteland where we're using up the planet's resources and destroying biodiversity… it's really fucked up. People are fueling themselves with oil, refined stimulants and drugs. We're in this cyberpunk world where people can use drugs to bio-hack themselves, or put Bluetooth pieces on their heads so they can be like cyborgs." "My new album is kind of drawing from that, showing where we're at and painting this post-apocalyptic utopia where we could be. But it's a subtle message. I don't have lyrics, so it's more of a feeling.