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.)
Hello Bubble-B and Enjo-G!
It’s nice to see Bubble-B and Enjo-G finally have a new original track together. In the style of their songs Setto de Dorinku Baa and Sunday Bowling, Bubble-B offers an audio visual smorgasbord of an Initial D parody. Which means eurobeat!!!!
I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. I just love the way Enjo-G’s so prominent in that video. Bubble-B needs to come out with a new DVD release in the style of Good Evening Bubble-B soon, because I think part of the fun in Bubble-B’s music is the videos that he makes to go with them.
I’ve Sound have some weirdass song titles. Just saying.
Yuki over at I’ve Sound Blog posted the news about KOTOKO’s latest song. The song is the theme song for BALDRSKY Dive2 and is called… jihad.
Yes, believe it or not KOTOKO’s latest song is named after a controversial Islamic term. The short version of the song doesn’t sound bad at all, but… why that term, out of all the random wikipedia pages?
While I find I’ve Sound have always had a history of bizarre titles (The penchant for Botany related terms is something I picked up on – song titles such as Lythrum, Meconopsis, Oxisols exist plus strange things like Everything is assumed to be connected, intron tone, Vacillate, Scheherazade), this one just makes me scratch my head more than usual.
So in some sort of experiment to satisfy my curiosity, this is a meme that I plucked off livejournal which uses the Special:Random page over at wikipedia to generate an album and some songs. Will it resemble anything particularly I’ve Sound-ish? Let’s see.
Kanna’s Mp3 Player Top Ten [September 10 2009]
In my first attempt to make a sort of regular feature, I thought I’d start with something relatively simple and relatively pain free.
I have an iPod. It’s a nice little iPod Nano in black (because I couldn’t find a red one). I listen to it a lot – I take it with me everywhere and when I’m driving, it is often playing music to keep me company during the traffic jams.
So in no particular order, here’s the songs that have caught my interest recently.
1. そらとぶひかり – COLTEMONIKHA
Soratobu Hikari is one of those songs that amuses me greatly because it’s both in Japanese and Mangled English. The first line goes soratobu hikari kimi no moto e or so a lot of heat curry, gimme no motorway. Kate Sakai’s quite good blurring the line between the two languages and it’s a cute, silly little song that reminds me a little bit of capsule’s FRUiTS CLiPPER. The song, not the entire album mind you.
2. Adagio – DJ Depath & M-Project
I’ve always had a thing for pieces for string orchestra as the violin is a beautiful instrument and the cello can sound really lovely and warm and they’re my favourite string instruments. Barber’s Adagio For Strings is one of my favourite pieces of 20th century classical music – sadly the best remix of this is William Orbit’s – as the other trance version by Tiësto was a piece of shit (actually, Tiësto is pretty shit no matter how I look at it). But this remix… confuses me slightly but I like listening to it. Maybe it’s my love for the source material but I do shake my head in puzzlement each time I listen to this song on how it goes from strings to KICK KICK KICK KICK CUT UP HIGH PITCHED VOCAL SAMPLE KICK KICK KICK KICK STRIIIIIIIINGS KICK KICK KICK KICK STRIIIIINGS. You get the idea.
3. Ligaya (Yoji Biomehanika Remix) – Gouryella
Personally, I think the time in which Ferry Corsten was at his best was when he made the Gouryella tracks. That’s probably the best Tiësto’s ever been too, considering that all he probably did was make the coffee. I love the original instrumental version of Ligaya (the vocal version effectively ruined the track) but I am very fond of this remix because Yoji gave it more of a bassline and kick. It’s still very uplifting (it does fit the name, ligaya means “happiness” in the Filipino language) but at the same time, I do like that it is harder and the breakdown is one of my favourite parts in the entire song.
4. Attack the music – DJ FX
One of my favourite 5 key beatmania songs. It is a shame that the song actually doesn’t have a sample that says “attack the music” but I was overjoyed to hear when this was revived in beatmania IIDX DistorteD CS version.
5. The Talking Goat – DJ Shimamura
… lol youtube remix.
6. GOLD DIGGA (DJ Hazime Remix) – MICHICO feat. AI
I’m not really a fan of hip-hop/r&b/rap a lot of the time, but I do like this collaboration between MICHICO and AI. (Actually, I just like MICHICO’s O.P.D. single. That’s it.) The original version of the song was a bit flat, but this sounds like it’s got a lot more punch.
7. The Prophecy Unfolds (The Playah Remix) – Tommyknocker vs. The Viper feat. MC Mouth of Madness
I think Tommyknocker is one of my favourite gabber artists and I’ve been listening to Tha Playah’s The Greatest Clits compilation. I think this is my favourite track on there besides The Viper and Tommyknocker’s remix of Fuck The Titties.
8. Chasse – 詩月カオリ
This song is very cute. I think I like it since it isn’t too nauseatingly denpa and sugar coated, but cute enough to be enjoyable. Admittedly it isn’t the best song Kaori Utatsuki’s put out, but I think this is a little song that you can enjoy singing along to. waratte runrunrun rara runrun ruru~~
9. G-Sigh – Remo-con
I love Remo-con’s album. Tech-dance makes good music to do statistics to, as I did the majority of the statistics for my reports while listening to A life with remote controllers. While Bemani fans bemoan the lack of IIDX songs, for heaven’s sake this album is pretty good and Prototype resembles Golden Cross without the bassline and more tech dance-y.
10. tsugihagi Construction – t+pazolite
Such a good way to end Hardcore Syndrome 3. I love this track. Hardcore Syndrome 3 was made of pure gold. C76 actually wasn’t too bad, overall. There were quite a few albums I could listen to without skipping anything. And just how it rounds off Hardcore Syndrome nicely, I’ll end this list with this track.
Purchasing Power
Well, I’m back from Tokyo. Admittedly I would have posted this sooner but the crippling lack of internet in my first few days back has been a bit of a setback. (This was due to the earthquakes in the area that I managed to sleep through and hear nothing about until I hear it all over the news.) It has however, given way to incredibly slow internet. Which is better than nothing, but completely frustrating to work with. In any instance, I have a picture of my purchases I managed to get this trip.
I guess the economic downturn unexpectedly yet somewhat expectedly lowered the number of CDs my money was able to buy me since I brought the same amount last year and managed to buy more CDs and still have enough money to travel around and eat decent meals everyday. This meant by the time that Comiket came around, I only had enough money to buy a handful of CDs.
But enough about that.
The three CDs on the top are Tanpopo’s Tanpopo 1, Lia’s 時を刻む唄 (Toki wo Kizamu Uta) and Final Fantasy X-2 Vocal Collection Yuna with vocals provided by Mayuko Aoki.
First row of five consists of the X-Treme Hard Compilation Vol. 2, Bastard Pop Terrorists Vol. 7, Kaori Utatsuki’s Spyglass (this came with an accompanying B2 poster, which was obtainable if you bought it in person in shops in Akihabara), The Day of Hardcore Vol. 4 mix CD and M-Neko’s Nekology.
Second row consists of Hardcore Tano*C’s latest Comiket offering of Hardcore Syndrome 3, Bastard Pop Terrorists Vol. 9, AVSS’s offering for Comiket in the form of Electlogue 02, a DJ Shimamura b2b DJ Rightwing mix CD that was given away at the Happiness event in Utsunomiya and Cycheouts Ghost’s Prapanca with surprise bonus disc.
Third row consists of REDALiCE’s first solo album Crimson Hardcore, good-cool’s latest album Crazy Operation, M-Project’s second album Hardcore Illusionist, Lia/LIA’s collection of recorded performances entitled Live Best 2005-2009 “The Moment” and 真・凌辱Hardcore (Shin Ryoujoku Hardcore), the 18+ themed CD compilation produced by MC Natsack.
And the last row consists of DJ Shimamura’s SX, a DJ Shimamura mix CD called Essential Happiness Vol. 5, the digi-up and Hardcore Tano*C collaborative album of Digital Generation EP and Thanatos’ Sunscape Ocean and Sunscape Ocean 2 – two CDs which I have been trying to track down for ages.
I am disappointed in my self with the lack of CDs I purchased, but one way or another, the CDs I have been unable to get this time I will be able to get at a later date. (Veil ∞ Denpa, I am looking at you.)
But hey, at least I managed to buy one of these babies while I was in Japan. It was mocking me throughout my entire trip, and I finally have one in my possession.
KraftyRadio’s August Podcast: The Day of Hardcore Showcase by JAKAZiD
In between refreshing the Hardcore Tano*C website constantly the past few days, I’ve noticed that The Day of Hardcore headliner JAKAZiD has mixed a special KraftyRadio Podcast consisting of an interesting mix of mostly Japanese producers (the mixer himself the only one not Japanese, lol)
The mix itself is downloadable over here. And for reference, here’s the tracklist!
1. Cycheouts Ghost – Arcadex – ROMZ Record
2. DJ Shimamura – Bring The Noize – Dynasty Records
3. M-Neko – Everything Needs RAVE – MPT
4. M-Project – Blue Lotus – Terraform Music
5. Joshka – No Reason – Hardcore Tano*C
6. DJ Shimamura – Return 2 Universe – Dynasty Records
7. L.E.D. feat. Sana – The Shining Polaris (Kors K Remix) – Konami
8. RoughSketch – Pride or Money – Mob Squad Black Label
9. DJ Sharpnel – Shine!! – MPT
10. m1dy – Wani – Maddest Chick’ndom Pork
It features a variety of things – JAKAZiD’s new track for Hardcore Syndrome 3 entitled “Nø Reasøn”, kors k’s highly popular remix of L.E.D.’s The Shining Polaris, Cycheout G’s Arcadex from Vikalpa (one of my favourite tracks from there) and tracks from M-Project’s new album, M-Neko’s first album and DJ Shimamura’s new album. For those of you who keep seeing me blabber on about j-core but never really know what it is – this is pretty much a good starting point with arguably the most popular artists on there (Including Sharpnel himself and m1dy, Japanese King of Speedcore). It’s a diverse enough mix and a little bit mental in some places (I mean, come on. m1dy is there.)
August is shaping up to be a pretty good month for J-core in general as even BBC Radio 1’s Kutski has tweeted that he is making a j-core mix for his upcoming radio show. I shall be in Japan when it airs, most likely at the The Day of Hardcore, but nevertheless Kutski has good taste, so it should be a good listen.
And as I mentioned, I will be going to Japan for The Day of Hardcore, so I might make a photo report on that when I come back.
MELL@Otakon
Well, while the folks at International Wota didn’t manage to get a solo interview with her, they were present for her press conference!
As you all know, I am a big MELL fan and I would dearly love to see her live one day. But she seemed to give a really enthusiastic press conference that you can read over at International Wota, courtesy of Pengie, who was referred to as cute (and now is a MELL fan. Yes!). The transcript can be found here, for your reading pleasure.
It is a good read, and it does show a different side to MELL than what she normally portrays herself as. She seems really bubbly and friendly and very very funny. (Wait, this woman has the best death glare ever in her PVs.) It’s a shame that I wasn’t there, but maybe one day I’ll be able to see her. She talks about the creation process for her songs, her outfits, her concert and several anecdotes which made me laugh.
It seems as if she wore a red kimono at her live aside from a variety of white dresses. This brings to mind the MELLSCOPE art, in which she was garbed in a red kimono for some of the booklet shots. In my opinion, those shots of her were absolutely gorgeous because they had that strong element of wa, the closest English equivalent I can think of being “Japanese aesthetic.” You can view the very kimono used in the SCOPE PV here. (It’s about 2 minutes into the PV, the first couple of minutes are actually of MELL wearing a white dress.)
It’s a shame that there actually isn’t more information on her concert other than she sang… Red fraction. But as always, I shall be on the lookout for whatever I can find out.
As a MELL fan, I thank Pengie and International Wota for sharing with us what I feel, is a good insight into MELL as a person and hopefully more people overseas will support her endeavours in the future.
Meanwhile, there’s a review of Aira Mitsuki’s PLASTIC in the wings and another review for a jpop single you might not have heard of for this blog. Stay tuned!
I’ve Sound Blog Has A Karaoke Competition: Brace Yourselves
Aibu over at I’ve Sound Blog is having a karaoke contest! For those of you who don’t mind embarrassing themselves by singing an I’ve song for all the readers of Aibu’s blog to gape over, this competition is for you.
The songs are restricted to those that are explicitly linked to I’ve Sound. (So if you really wanted to, you could sing C.G. mix’s under the darkness and pretend that you are a bishounen born from… under the darkness.)
I have decided that one way or another, I will be taking part in this contest. For the actual entry specifics, here’s the entry in which this is being discussed (I can’t believe I forgot about that, thanks Aibu for reminding me.)
It is proving to be complete fun finding a song for me to actually sing. I’ve found myself eliminating most MELL songs for reasons stated previously.
The more I look it, the more I find it more likely that I am going to sing a KOTOKO song. While I’d like to keep my most likely choices to myself for a bit of a surprise for the readers of I’ve Sound Blog, the one song I would have probably wanted to do would be KOTOKO’s Suppuration or Suppuration -core-, neither of which have a karaoke or instrumental version.
But in any instance, I’m off to practise two or three songs and see what works best. Of course, as this contest progresses, I will keep this blog updated. 
Losing My Comiket Virginity
This coming August, I will be going to Comiket 76.
… I’m not sure why, but I’m kinda dreading and yet happily anticipating the experience.
For those of you who might not know about Comiket, it is basically a giant… market, really for doujinshi artists and even well established artists and more to sell stuff (enigmatic LIA 2 was a Comiket 71 release for example). It’s expanded now to encapsulate music, manga and various other things. Most of the items that are available at Comiket are very often limited edition and while they go for relatively reasonable prices at the actual event, when they’re resold on places like Yahoo!Japan Auctions or shops such as Toranoana, the price gets a hike a lot of the time and often become ridiculously rare collectors items.
Since so many people go to Comiket at Tokyo Big Sight, there will be lots of lines and lots of people there. It will be like sardines and hence the reason I’m almost dreading the experience.
The last time I went to Japan, I sort of did my own preparation by going to the Touhou only event Reitaisai (mainly because of REDALiCE’s CDs, coincidentally his booth was right beside the IOSYS one, which was clever). I’m not a big Touhou fan, but it was probably the closest experience that I had prior to actually going to Comiket.
But some people have reported going and actually enjoying the experience. Mind you, they probably mapped out their route before they went there. (it is possible to do this, the organisers of Comiket release a CD catalogue containing map information and you can plot out a route beforehand! This is nifty.)
But what am I going to Comiket for? Well, I’m not sure just yet because I have yet to find much information about who is producing anything for Comiket. Hopefully there will be more information closer to the event.
Unfortunately, I haven’t taken much interest in Comiket prior to relatively recently and thus, my knowledge of who and what releases at Comiket is relatively sparse. I hope that something from Hardcore Tano*C will get released at Comiket and that there will be something from Visual Arts and queens label.
Sadly, due to this unfortunate brouhaha of eroge websites blocking non-Japanese IPs I have a feeling that available information will be hard to come by… 
