Review: Hemisphere – Sakamoto Maaya
Artist: 坂本真綾 [Sakamoto Maaya]
Title: ヘミソフィア [Hemisphere]
Catalogue No.: VICL-35358
Tracklist:
1. ヘミソフィア [Hemisphere]
2. 音楽 [Ongaku]
3. ヘミソフィア without maaya [Hemisphere without maaya]
I can’t remember exactly how I discovered Maaya Sakamoto’s Hemisphere, as it was so long ago. This was pre-Youtube, so that immediately rules it out. Back then I was more into eroge than anime so that rules out me watching the anime this is from (RahXephon). The most plausible explanation that comes to mind was a friend was watching the anime and sent me the song as a “Hey, listen to this! Isn’t it awesome?”
I had to agree, it is. Hemisphere sounds like the good kind of anime theme in my eyes – distinct, a rich arrangement and a female voice without the saccharine. For the longest time, I didn’t even know that this was the theme song to an anime because it sounded something way too ethereal to be anime theme. (And yet, here comes the paradox – such an ethereal song would only be composed for an anime a lot of the time.) Yoko Kanno gives me strings, synths and a beautiful arrangement that is deliciously downtempo though uplifting. And Maaya’s voice… Maaya’s voice has a haunting, longing quality to it that suits the atmosphere of the song perfectly.
The b-side Ongaku shows more of that mysterious haunting that Maaya’s voice. The song beings with something akin to a clock winding down and has an eerie, almost enveloping quality to it. And of course, the string arrangements makes me happy. But unlike Hemisphere, Ongaku is less uplifting and more contemplative. It ebbs and flows as a piece of music.
Of course, rounding off the single is the instrumental version of the A-side. Listening to the instrumental without Maaya sounds strange to my ears, like I need Maaya there otherwise the song lacks something completely. It’s still good as an instrumental track, but it doesn’t stand out if it just were.
This single, as a whole is breathtaking. Both songs on it are beautifully crafted and it has left a lasting impression on me. It’s a very unusual single in that respects. I felt the need to review it after finding the single tucked away in my bookshelf and ripping it for my music library. But sometimes, words fail me and all I can recommend sometimes is just to listen.
More Bishoujo Remix Goodness… I think.
So, in an attempt to sway the bishoujo market towards the loveliest of dance remixes – Shot Music has come up with a comprehensive little package. They’ve even given the random girl on their CD a name and profile including her three sizes, for god’s sake. :p (The character is half Dutch, which makes me lol a little bit.)
Artist: Various
Title: Shot Music Presents Super Shot -Bishoujo Game Remix Collection-
Catalogue No.: SHOT-001
Tracklist:
1. Shinsei Philosophy (JAKAZiD Remix) – Veil ∞ Yui Yamamoto
2. HE∀tingSφul (DJ SHIMAMURA’s H∀RDCφR3 R3mix) – Katakiri Rekka
3. Tears to Tiara ~the essence~ (bh’s trance mix [remix by Blasterhead]) – Uehara Rena
4. Shukufuku no Campanella (StripE Trance Remix) – Satou Hiromi & NANA
5. Answer (Emotional MEGA Beat mix [remix by Samplingmaster MEGA]) – Katakiri Rekka
6. Daichi no Uta (DJ SHARPNEL Remix) – Itou Kanako
7. rebirthday eve (Aura Qualic Remix) – Marica
8. Concerto Note (DJ SHIMAMURA’s 5AM Remix) – NANA
9. reach for the runway (REDALiCE Remix) – Rita
10. Himitsu Recipe (Disconation J-Euro Remix) – Hashimoto Miyuki
11. Primary (DJ SHIMAMURA’s 10PM Remix) – Rita
12. Koisuru Kimochi (DJ Hirojack Remix) – Sakakibara Yui
13. Heart To Heart (kors k Hardcore Remix) – Uehara Rena
While kors k and DJ Shimamura seem to have been working overtime with these remixes, I can’t help but feel that the remixes presented here are going to be… watered down? It aims more for the mainstream than Ultimate A-Style did, and I can’t help but feel like this is going to be a CD like Amasia for me – Not something I’d really, really actively listen to but I’d buy it for collection’s sake. The choice of remixers isn’t bad at all – the surprises of Blasterhead and AQ were certainly unexpected.
I do have my hope on Aura Qualic actually doing a good job on this provided he doesn’t do any hardcore and sticks to doing trance/vocal trance, which is probably the area he does best in.
However, I can’t tell until I can listen to this CD. Meanwhile, M3 has come and gone so I am eagerly awaiting the releases that come from that (with the exception of REDALiCE’s bazillionth Touhou album).
Riot! Allkore Riot Squad Vol 1 Release!
Well, this has been up for a while and allkore have come back with their second CD. I find it interesting that this CD is being organised by people overseas and calling upon artists not just from Japan, but from all over.
Which does mean, of course, that it is easier to get. The official website details how to get the CD and which other stores will have it in stock. And for $12 shipped worldwide, that isn’t a bad deal.
I am glad that this CD, among things, will have a proper mastering engineer who knows what he is doing :p So this is probably one of those few CDs in which I will have no gripes about the mastering (as is my perennial problem with most doujin CDs.)
Artist: Various
Title: Allkore Riot Squad Vol. 1
Catalogue No.: AKCD-0002
Tracklist:
1. Rioters Choice◕ ‿ ◕ – Vol. 1
2. M-Neko – 月光の終わり
3. DJ Melancholia – White Reflection
4. Traffic Jammies – Getter Line
5. Rex Buron – All Star Core
6. DJ T2Kazuya – Heart 2009
7. Black Ace – Don’t Give Up!
8. Thanatos – euphoric field (Final Shaft Remix)
9. Helblinde – First Day of Summer (立夏)
10. Shingo Dj – Be Water
11. DJ Clonepa – Rogue 990
12. CDMA – Doggyman
13. Karanabe – Ondervinden
14. fornever – 完
15. OBSiDiAN零 – Dark Elusory
16. SBZ – YKSX
Firstly, what is with the first track? Why the need for the smiley face formed by semi-obscure symbols hidden deep in the Character Palette? Does it serve a purpose other than to not display anywhere in my system besides Safari?
The thing that gets me excited more than anything else on this tracklist is Thanatos’ track “euphoric field (Final Shaft Remix)” which is a song he had on his myspace for ages but made no indication of where he was going to release it.
This CD intrigues me more than anything.
NB: The author has been missing for a while because she has been spending weeks waiting for things to appear on Guhroovy so that she can buy them, unlike several other j-core sites who steal rips
DJ Sharpnel’s Special Interactive Set
On September 27, JEA has announced something quite interesting for the X-treme Hard Nano Edition party that happened recently in place of the 15 Years of DJ Bug event.
Basically, with your DS, you had the ability to request pretty much stuff from Sharpnel’s collection via the chat function prior to Sharpnel’s set. And he basically offered SRPC0001 to SRPC024 to begin with – though the list that he compiled has other things too, like SRPC-C001 and SRPK-0001 and SRPC-H003 plus the remixes he did for things like Veil, BPT and even his remix of Sayonara Revival by Saori@destiny. (The full list is available on mixi and on the official Sharpnelsound blog)
Jea Sharpnel was basically willing to play any song that he produced if people wanted. That’s around 400 songs in total. How often does an artist on the scale of Sharpnel open up their entire collection for people to request from?
It also shows how large Sharpnel’s actual amount of produced material there is. Granted, not all of it is good but there are good things in there. I mean, come on. 400 something songs is no light number.
(If you’re wondering about why use the DS’s Pictochat function – the function is very much a well accepted way of communication between parties on the handheld device that doesn’t require much fuss in Japan. Groups of people stayed connected via their DS at Comiket – and it’s pretty clever since it’s not as expensive as a mobile phone and it’s easy enough to see what a group of people are doing.)
I miss Nobuchika Eri.
Between sickness and long periods of sleepness nights with shitty internet, I found myself playing Pokémon Pearl while listening to my music collection.
Interestingly enough, the CD that kept me company the best was Eri Nobuchika’s somewhat eponymous album of nobuchikaeri.
For those of you who might not know who Eri Nobuchika is, she was an artist who auditioned to Sony and was successfully signed to the label and coupled with producer Shinichi Osawa aka Mondo Grosso. She had her first single “Lights” featured in the highly innovative PSP game Lumines and that is where I first heard of her.
Shinichi’s production worked well for dear Eri while he was Mondo Grosso because she has a smooth, powerful voice that has a very unique quality to it . Mondo Grosso made her standout with the acid jazz, funky house sound that made Eri Nobuchika more than just a pop artist. It made each of her singles a delight to listen to and nobuchikaeri a cohesive collection of nicely produced songs with unusual elements (such as the flamenco inspired guitar in Voice or the horns in Kodou) and Eri’s voice soaring over them gracefully and fluidly, like the swallowtail butterfly that was Eri’s logo.
After a period of releasing several singles, vinyls, an album and a remix album with Sony, Eri went into a long hiatus in which it had been speculated that she cut ties with Sony – though this was never officially confirmed on either side.
I decided to check up on Miss Nobuchika’s work post-Shinichi Osawa and to my disappointment, neither delofamilia or her indies album hands managed to interest me. At all. After being treated to the winning combination of Mondo Grosso + Eri Nobuchika, the alternative flavoured pop that she’s come out with is bland in comparison. Her voice, was still as powerful as I can remember it but that wasn’t enough to keep my interest.
I can think of many instances in which there are good pop vocalists have crap composers. Or if not crap composers, then composers who play it too safe so the song as a whole becomes unremarkable, no matter how good the vocalist is. They have perhaps a handful of songs that work really well, and then the rest is just too bland to be of any listening value to me at the very least.
There doesn’t seem to be hope of Eri Nobuchika reuniting with Shinichi Osawa since he seems kinda busy being famous. But at least, Eri’s collection of work under Sony will stand as perhaps one of my most favourite examples of Japanese music beautifully done.
Super Shot: Three New Songs Brings It Up To Unlucky 13
Remember Shot Music and their first release Super Shot?
It turns out that there are going to be three more songs on this release to bring the grand total to 13 tracks. That’s a whole CD already and with that goes my hopes of any sort of original music.
But then I reminded myself, this is a bishoujo song remix CD – not just a CD that caters to the Akiba market who would be interested in this as a whole.
So without further ado, here are the three tracks that will make an appearance remixed.
- Heart To Heart – Uehara Rena
To Heart2 AnotherDays
- Tears To Tiara ~the essence~ – Uehara Rena
from Tears to Tiara Gaiden -Avalon no Nazo-
- コイスルキモチ [Koisuru Kimochi] – Sakakibara Yui
from xx na Kanojo Tsukuri Kita
So, since I don’t really care about who does the vocals so much (I was never really into eroge music because a lot of these vocalists are a dime a dozen and there are very few of them that are good), I sincerely hope that the next update for this CD will have something about the remixers.
Though, the potential upside of this CD is that we’ll have loads of varying remixers. I hope this is the case.
Remixes for the Bishoujo Gamer: Shot Music & Super Shot
Yosuke Seino aka DJ Champ of Side Connection Music has announced that Side Connection Inc. has formed a sublabel of Side Connection entitled “Shot Music” which according to him, is a label concerned with bringing dance music to the (bishoujo) gaming scene. He also mentions possible collaboration with Upsurge and with overseas artists as part of the master plan for Shot Music. They’ve even got a nice little website up.
There is no surprises then, that Shot Music have announced their first release entitled Super Shot which is a Bishoujo Game Remix CD. At the moment, the only thing that’s been announced so far is the songs that are going to be remixed, the games that they are from and the vocalist of said song. Unfortunately, not the news that I am more interested in hearing about who is remixing said songs (though if we follow Ultimate A-Style’s artist roster, I’ll assume DJ Shimamura, kors k/teranoid/Omega Force/StripE, Shinji Hosoe, Ryu*, JAKAZiD, REDALiCE should be on there in some way or form?)
The release of Super Shot is slated for November 27 2009.
Artist: Various
Title: Shot Music Presents Super Shot
Catalogue No.: SHOT-001
List of Songs To Be Remixed:
- 深青Philosophy [Shinsei Philosophy] – Veil ∞ Yui Yamamoto
(from the game Yoakemae Yori Ruriiro Na -Moonlight Cradle-)
- 祝福のカンパネラ [Shukufuku no Campanella] – Satou Toromi & Nana
(from the game Shukufuku no Campanella)
- HE∀tingSφul – Katakiri Rekka
(from the improbably titled Shin Koihime Musou ~Otome Ryouran Sangokushi Engi~)
- Answer – Katakiri Rekka
(from the game G-senjou no Maou)
- コンチェルトノート [Concerto Note] – Nana
(from the game Concerto Note)
- 秘密レシピ [Himitsu Recipe] – Hashimoto Miyuki
(from the game Sakura Strasse)
- 大地の唄 [Daichi no Uta] – Itou Kanako
(from the game Boku no Te no Naka no Rakuen)
- rebirthday eve – Marica
(from the game Toppara ~Zashikiwarashi no Hanashi~)
- Primary – Rita
(from the game Primary ~Magical Trouble Scramble~)
- reach for the runway – Rita
(from the other improbably titled game of Smile Cubic! Suiheisen Made Nan Mile? After & Another Stories)
If memory serves me right, the chick on the cover looks suspiciously like the main character(?) of Fortune Arterial. And while nothing on the list of songs particularly excites me except for Shinsei Philosophy, I have a feeling that this remix album won’t be too bad though it does seem to be following the Ultimate A-Style template to the t. If that’s the case, then bring on the new teranoid song, hahaha.
Review: Prayers (Shinichi Osawa Remix) – Clazziquai Project
Artist: Clazziquai Project
Title: Prayers (Shinichi Osawa Remix)
Catalogue No.: RRCD-85370D1
Tracklist:
01. Prayers
02. Prayers (Shinichi Osawa Remix)
The reason I intentionally stay away from sites like Juno Download, Beatport and Trackitdown is because the moment I get on there, I end up buying more mp3s in the name of looking for music. While this is good for my audio library and my listening pleasure, this is unfortunately not so good on my bank account as it is very easy to overspend on digital download sites without knowing it.
Sometimes you get nice surprises on these sites; for example, a lot of the remixes that were on Ayumi Hamasaki’s ayu-mi-x Gold and Silver are available on Beatport under the “Ayu” moniker (save for the High Contrast remix of No Way To Say, which is a shame.)
On Juno Download on the other hand, one of the surprises I found was a variety of Clazziquai Project releases which was aimed at the DJ/electronic fans market.
To start with, Clazziquai Project is one of those groups that seem to have large amounts of material so it’s hard to know exactly where to start. Until I got this release, the most I knew of Clazziquai Project was the really nice Proposed Flower Wolf from playing DJ Max Technika, so I found that perhaps the releases available on Juno Download would be a good starter guide.
The first track in the release is the song Prayers (original) taken straight from the Love Child of the Century album. I was immediately sold from the moment I heard the first ten seconds of the song, partly due to Horan’s tone and the downtempo feel of this song. I personally love the use of the guitar in this song as that gives the song a very acid jazz feel. It’s a lovely, gentle song that makes good night driving music.
When I first listened to Prayers (Shinichi Osawa Remix) on the other hand, I sat there for the whole 5 minutes of the song and the first thing that came to mind was that Shinichi Osawa just went mad in cutting up the song. He cuts large chunks of the song up and lays a electro house backing behind. Not to mention that I have my suspicions that Mr. Osawa used the template as his remix of Namie Amuro’s What A Feeling as the similarities are quite apparent especially with the way that the vocals are cut – the difference being that Shinichi Osawa tried to make some strange backmasking effect with Prayers. So while not the most original of Shinichi Osawa remixes, I do find this remix to be one of his most enjoyable because I find it utterly amusing.
As this costs £2.60 to buy the entire release in 320kbs MP3, I’d say that it was one starting point for anybody wanting to know more about Clazziquai Project. Not to mention hey, it’s Shinichi Osawa. Which means that you’re guaranteed on the quality of the remix, even if it is a bit whacked out.
Scouse!TOKYO x Mob Squad Tokyo: Donk Bass Bootlegs
While I strain my brains on what to write in this thing, I have a little tidbit of news to report on today.
Scouse!TOKYO, the Tokyo based donk-a-riffic crew bringing the sounds of a style with a detuned bassline from Liverpool are releasing an album in collaboration with Mob Squad Tokyo. While I’m one of the few people who scratches their heads at the idea of a Scouse Tokyo (I cannot imagine anybody wanting to speak with a Liverpudlian accent, especially people from Tokyo, of all places), I personally find donks highly amusing… until I see the Blackout Crew and then I end up wishing the damned thing never existed.
The album is slated for a September 21 release and will have an accompanying Scouse!TOKYO party.
Artist: Various
Title: Scouse!TOKYO Presents – DONK BASS BOOTLEGS
Catalogue No: MSTBL016
Tracklist:
01. Mr.ABC – Balalaika vs. Yaranaika
02. 204 – D’nk Soldier
03. DJ Schwarzenegger – Who Kills MJ?
04. Bit Breaks – 8 VS 16 Bit
05. Mr.ABC – INSTRUMENT FLYING (pump this mix)
06. DONK TERRORIST – Blue Technologic
07. D.N.K – Sound Crusher
08. Shingo Dj – DONK is Fashion!
09. DONK TERRORIST – Move It
10. grayghost – Don’t Rest!
11. Y.V.L vs 204 – Donkly-Hvn
This release walks the borderline of highly amusing and highly appalling. Personally, I’m going to stick with highly amusing.
Hardcore Tano*C@Comiket 76: Hardcore Syndrome 3
Okay, so I admit that REDALiCE has been a little uncreative with the past two iterations of the series. But do I give a flying fuck? No! Why? Because I think that Hardcore Tano*C is the shit.
This is the CD I’ve been waiting for to appear for ages. Now that this CD is definitely confirmed for Comiket, I can go fly into Japan happy because damn, look at that tracklist that is available here on the Hardcore Tano*C website.
Each Hardcore Tano*C sort of has its own catchphrase that goes with the CD. Hardcore Syndrome’s catchphrase is “さぁ、己の攻撃性[HARDCORE]を解き放て” (Romanized as “Saa, onore no kougekisei [hardcore] wo tokihanate” and translated as “So, liberate your agression [hardcore].”) Admittedly the original Japanese sounds a lot more aggressive, haha
Artist: Various
Title: Hardcore Syndrome 3
Catalogue No: TANOCD-0010
Tracklist:
01. Joshka – No Reason
02. REDALiCE – Remm
03. DJ SHIMAMURA – DROME (DJ SHIMAMURA’s 09 UPDATE)
04. 源屋 feat. motoko – Stasis
05. REDALiCE vs DJ TECHNORCH – 不思議の国のアリス症候群
06. DJ-Technetium – tc-ma_011
07. Betwixt & Between – division 4
08. DJ Noriken – Conclude
09. Alabaster – Sarcomite
10. Thanatos – Astaluego
11. kenta-v.ez. – iNNovAtizE yoursELf
12. RoughSketch – Fuck Me Jesus
13. USAO – Irrelevance
14. t+pazolite – tsugihagi Construction
We have all the Hardcore Tano*C favourites plus a couple of surprises. REDALiCE collaborates with DJ Technorch in an unanticipated move with the song 不思議の国のアリス症候群 (Fushigi no Kuni no Arisu Shoukougun, The Strange Country’s Alice Syndrome – look at the puns there people). DJ Shimamura brings an update of Drome from his Bitter Sweet Magic E.P., a slightly arbitrary choice but oh well. kenta-v.ez. is there, with his painful capitalisation but at least it isn’t anything ridiculous like spEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEdphobiA 230pLus+. I hope that this song is more gabba than it is jumpstyle.
Anyway, this release is available from Comiket 76 – plus it’ll probably will be available at Guhroovy, the Hardrave Store and mydjsobad when Eddie and Nick finish revamping the place.
