用户Wiki:Demobanker/2022 listening log and recommendations

Don't feel like repeating myself. Check my 2021 list for what this is about, and here for an uncommented list of music from 2022 I liked. For this year, I think I'll make the rating optional for entries. They're still what I consider a 3/5 or up, and the list will be roughly ordered by decreasing scores so my favorite releases are on the top, but I'm not gonna add specific scores until I'm somewhat sure of it. I'll mark releases that I didn't like but still want to recommend, though you can safely assume that if I just talk about one or two track out of a large album then it falls under that. Unfortunately I'm still not super comfortable financially, so if you find something you like through these pages please give some support to the artists.

December update: man don't you hate it when music publications and critics and even normal music enjoyers publish their album of the year lists when the year isn't even over? Well this isn't that type of list, so it'll be updated even after 2022's over.

Anyways I do have drafts up on my sandbox if you're really lacking for Touhou music nerd content. I put some drafts on there to maybe give insight on how the writing process goes, since it's not something music review people do lol.

2021 <-- | 2022 | --> 2023

The List

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Sovereign Shepherds of Corpse Shore （2022-12-31） 社团：Holmgang Ov Gensokyo extreme progressive metal, with a notable amount of djent and technical death metal 🌐 Collapsable - click to toggle -> Yeah I'm in the circle's server, but I'm also really picky about metal ya know? I love the incredible explosion of creativity that's been happening in 2010s metal, and considering that the decade has been defined by the mainstreaming of djent, I'm glad that the Touhou fandom has some good circles in that genre. Still, I can't live entirely on one genre, even though it is quite a broad genre. That's why I find it disappointing that the fandom hasn't caught on to the many incredible ideas happening in 2010s metal, most notably the development of blackgaze and shoegaze-influenced metal. Part of why this project appeals to me so much is because it captures this explosion of creativity, and in the process pushes the boundaries of Touhou metal as the project's inspiration Barrage Am Ring did a decade before. The high point of the album is the two-song combo about Parsee, Även när tid går and kadavernotzucht, which is incredibly off-kilter even by the standards of this circle. The former, done by the Youtube video game & anime arrangement guitarist Billy Qvarnström, is a smorgasbord of tech death intensity, folk instruments, heavy grooves and even ZUNpets. Amidst all that, the melodic guitar lines and clean vocals lets the emotive power of the original track shine through, giving balance to the inaccessbility of tech metal. In contrast, the latter track done by The Popu (who is the compiler for this album) revels in its tech inaccessibility and adds a raw and noisy sound on top. It can be considered part of the tiny intersection of djent and modern dissonant metal as exemplified by bands like Car Bomb or Ulsect, and it is an utterly disorienting listen. It's the djent subgenre thall at its most inaccesible, extending the genre originator Vildhjarta's ever-shifting tempos and amorphous, unpredictable grooves into even more extreme directions. The track is so effective at what it's doing that even the sparse guitar ambience at the end feels ominous. Something else I was looking forward to on this album are contributions by Quebecois guitarist Alice Simard, who is very prolific. While Cruauté Inerte from 2 ~ CREATE TO DESTROY is a show of speed and guitar polyphony, the arrangement is mostly straightforward. Here, she leans more into her experiences in writing technical death metal, and it results in more complex arrangements that's a great example of how powerful neoclassical metal can be outside the framework of power metal cheese and Malmsteen worship. You wouldn't expect an interlude track to be as intricately made as the other tracks, but Ren (Higan Daybreak)'s Departure (also featuring The Popu but as far as I know, Ren did most of the work) is a well-made interlude that I keep coming back to. It starts with an ambient soundscape with flowing, airy analog synths, a droning bass and quiet glitches. Listening to this part feels like being on the shore of the river of the dead, a place that's simultaneously peaceful, somber, but isn't a place to sleep at. Then, a great drill and bass/old-school glitch hop part comes in halfway through that wouldn't be out of place in a 2000s IDM album. The rest of the tracks are solid too - The album opener is the debut for another ArmpitMaiden project, this time for making quirky and dramatic deathcore a la Nocturnal Bloodlust and Cazqui's Brutal Orchestra. It's fun and Nocturne's manic vocals basically make the song for me. RoundLoudness' Shizumu is packed with energetic and varied riffs that ends up being a exhilirating ride. The Last Battalion's djent take on Heian Alien keeps you on your toes with its rhythmic tricks. Tsubaki (the French one)'s Inconscience Invisible flows from deathcore/djent fusion to post-hardcore and back with finesse and a monstrous bass drop. Yumi Sakata's The Most Despicable and Disastrous is a multi-part journey through various prog metal styles, as you'd expect from The Yama King. AnthiR (another The Popu project)'s The Seafoam Phantom shows the beautiful side of extreme metal by pairing atmospheric black metal with gorgeous flutes. Finally, Realmweaver ends this collab project with his usual tempo-changing rollercoaster blend of twisty technicality and exciting melodies.
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Description du monde （2022-05-08） 社团：schwarzwald, FelesVlinder modern classical, cinematic classical 🇯🇵 pre-listening impressions: I wasn't expecting Schwarzwald to make another Touhou album at all, but it's a pleasant surprise - they did make two of my favorite Touhou albums after all. The crossfade doesn't make it sound like it's anything special, but I'd still listen to their Virgin Babylon Records-esque style of classical music. In the end, the album doesn't quite have the same magical genre-blending crescendocore influences that makes me want to say "Oh hey, World's End Girlfriend and Kashiwa Daisuke teamed up to make a Touhou album!" like I would with corvus' other albums. What does carry over from the circle's previous albums, though, is the incredibly gorgeous atmosphere, and the ability to draw out that atmosphere without dipping into cinematic classical schlock. Listening to the music feels like taking a trip to all the colorful landscapes from the artbook paired with the album.
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永恒循环 （2022-01-11） 社团：互动导游机器龙 vaporwave, ambient 🇯🇵 woweee I listened to my first 2022 Touhou release Going by the release description, the theme here is liminal space, a concept that has grown and shifted in a different direction in the past few years. For most people it boils down to the idea of being in an uneasy, real-but-not-real feeling location, and have been applied to video games, especially with the mid 90s to mid 00s era of 3D gaming. From there, you can make connection to things like weirdcore images or analog horror. So I think an approach to it in Touhou music will at least be interesting. I find it only half achieved the goal of sounding like liminal space music. The windy static opening the album does make me feel like exploring Eientei on a windy night, but the bells and slow breakbeats that occupy the rest of 蓬莱物质 is more relaxing than uneasy. More like cooling off in the chill room with a DJ mixing downtempo and meditative new age. Luckily, the other two tracks aren't like that. I recognized what was sampled on 茫茫, but the track still sounds eerie. The stutter elements in the original are now more pronounced which added to the mood. The flittering and granular metallic sounds littered throughout, as well as the vocal sample coming out of nowhere, point to unseen things lurking in the abandoned parts of Eientei. Afterwards, the detuned melodies 神祕 combined with the high pitched tech-y sounds makes it feel like listening to a long-faded broadcast. Best enjoyed in the dark, preferably on a balcony.
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Reborn in death as the cherry blossoms fall. （2022-07-30） 社团：Codly, Viznode, zy bass music, cinematic classical (no idea what country is relevant for the first two but 🇩🇪 for zy) Gorgeous, crushing yet atmospheric bass music. The closest comparison in the bass music realm imo is a combination of sylvir (fka sakuraburst)'s longform and emotive writing, Iglooghost's gorgeous sound design, and cinematic music. The storytelling feel of the music is incredible, and the sound design is great, especially the parts that sound like icebergs slowly colliding.
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2 ~ CREATE TO DESTROY （2022-08-14） 社团：Holmgang Ov Gensokyo mostly progressive/melodic death metal, plus some post-hardcore and djent 🌐 I wrote a lot for Sovereign Shepherds of Corpse Shore, so I no longer feel the need to write a huge track-by-track piece for this. Yay! Before that, I have to note that this is meant to be a 2 disc album, where disc 1 ends with Forgo Thy Flesh. There are many long songs on this album, averaging around 5 and a half minute per track, and at a total of 95 minutes it can be hard to get through in one sitting. Since I'm not doing a track-by-track, I'll just go though some personal hightlights and recommendations. My favorite track on here, weirdly, isn't all that metal! It's The Last Day of Calamity by Sour, who previously made Evil eye and vapid malt under a different name. It's a folky prog/stoner rock tune with medieval influences that manages to feel tense while also having a laidback, "taking a daytime walk in the forest" mood. Before that is Ahnenwälder, my second favorite track and another folky one. This one is a gorgeous atmospheric black metal tune comparable to Windfaerer's music. Squall of Scream's Romantic Doll is another gorgeous track. Despite its weirdly detuned screams in the intro, it's full of emotive vocals and delicate synths and a great example of Draw the Emotional's influences on music. ArmpitMaiden's The Flow of Fantasy, too, has DtE vibes in its atmospheric intro and outro. I shouldn't have to say this but ArmpitMaiden's tracks on here are all excellent prog metal bangers. Lastly, I recommend Azrahell and Starstorm α's tracks. The arrangements themselves are tense death metal journeys (and in Tabula Rasa ~ The Empty Girl's case, deathcore and thall), and the vocalist UX does a great job making its stories come to life, through powerful harsh vocals, hooky clean vocals and the self-vs-self dialogue on Alice Maestra.
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Genso Tour （2022-08-20） 社团：Gutterpink dreambreak/breakgaze 🇧🇷 Lots of angelic, Touhou-esque synths makes this quite a healing listen. One galaxy brain Touhou music opinion I hold (which I kinda carried over from someone I respect) is that ZUN's synth choices can make for some god tier trance music. Well, this is evidence that it works in this kind of music too.
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Gensou Liquid-Drumfunk （2022-04-30） 社团：Febbs! liquid drum and bass 🇵🇭 Not much to say, it's a bunch of solid modern liquid dnb tunes. There's also some sambass on track 3. I think the artist's attempt at mixing drumfunk with modern neurofunk percussions is pretty neat, even if it does end up not exactly being drumfunk. Maybe we can give this sound a new name lol
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Danmaku Matrix Generation （2022-12-05） 社团：Zahran Worrell chiptune dance music 🇺🇸 yeah, this is on here for the same reason Eastern Retrograde Memories was on the 2021 list - it's very fun lol At its best it draws on ZUN's wonky sense of rhythm, and it's good that the album opens with two track that does that. Beyond that, it's also a colorful album, with a variety of chip instrumentation across the tracks. The artist makes a bunch of games on itch.io which are pretty fun. Check them out if small scale games is your jam.
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maid under the umbrella （2022-09-21） 社团：awrengee alt-pop with a short glitch section 🇷🇺 I decided not to put singles on these lists but this is quite good, and considering the artist is starting out I figured it'd be nice to bring more attention to them. I have no idea why that one that one Vkontakte doujin music page made their own event (rumors are it was responding to the lack of content coming out this year?), but even the sole event organizer was surprised at the high participation. Unsurprisingly, there are a few Touhou arrangements in the mix. There's a parody of Alstroemeria's famous Bad Apple song with Russian pop melodies called Аниме-вагон and there's another Bad Apple arrangement in a modern atmospheric breakcore/drum and bass style in Whatever EP. Beyond that, there's this song, which is one of the highlights of the event. It's very atmospheric, starting with rain sounds that soon hides behind echoing synths that can get synthwave-ish. Then partway through there's a noisy glitch bit that represents rewinding time. It's a subdued song that tells a story, but it's also a textrual song. Since this is the artist's second single and also made in 10 hours, people who are interested in vocaloid/vocalsynth music should definitely keep an eye on their new works. Do also check out the rest of the Vk Donjon Fest releases. They're all free (the event is hosted by a piracy page, after all) and it's also a good entry point to learning more about Russian doujin music.
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Remnants （2022-12-31） 社团：Takamachi Walk alt-djent, post-hardcore 🇺🇸 They've moved further away from metalcore and into the alt-djent area popularized by bands like Spiritbox and Sleep Token. Outside the guest tracks, the album is enveloped in a distictively delicate and heavenly atmosphere. The closest comparison I can make is to 海芋花's gorgeous new age sound. My issue with 海芋花, though, is that as excellent as the title track is, the two songs following it doesn't have any new age elements and are meh modern metalcore. That's why I appreciate this album having a consistently distinct sound. Having a consistent atmosphere also gives the circle a framework to explore ideas, ranging from Deseo's Draw the Emotional-like sound to 造花 ~And So It All Comes To An End~'s slow but explosive crescendo. Something else to look out for is noaon's r&b vocals on How Bright You Burn and Paper Stars. This sort of djent&b sound has existed since the early 2010s and I'm putting aside my personal dislike of this style to see what they do with it. And since I nameddropped DualinsomiNa, I gotta say, ON FIRE is the second time I've heard a Touhou metal album where one of the tracks have an unfitting trap bit tacked on to the end, the first being Ephemera from Helix. I'm not against trap but yall gotta integrate those bits more with the metal parts and not make them sound like you don't know how to end a song.
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The Yama King （2022-10-23） 社团：Yumi Sakata extreme progressive metal, djent (Tr. 4/6), post-hardcore (Tr. 4), post-rock/blackgaze (Tr. 5), progressive thrash metal/melodic black metal (Tr. 9) 🇺🇸 haha mouthful of genres Seriously though, wow did this guy's songwriting skills evolve. I remember listening to Beasts of Creation back in 2020 thinking that while he has potential, the music still felt mostly like something you'd hear from a Youtube metallizer channel. And here he is two years after, making longform vocal songs with the ambition of 東方幻朧悠月抄 ～ Imperishable sin and millennium history ～ and 大空魔術～Magical Astronomy-EP-. The album as a whole is a good showcase of Yumi's writing skills, with the first half being relatively more accessible and the second half being where he really gets into modern extreme prog metal territory. The standouts here for me are Garden of Withered Dreams which is a good hooky djentcore song (thanks to UX's powerful vocals) and The Infinite Void of Ego Collapse (Extra Stage). Admittedly I like the latter partially because of the Vektor quotes, which is kinda dumb. It's like someone saying they like Demetori for referencing a lot of other metal and prog bands. Still, nobody really does thrash metal in this scene, let alone prog thrash, so I'll take it. It's also a high-octane riff-fest that keeps being interesting, which is a testament to his arranging skills. Speaking of arranging skills, Fatal Florals does an excellent job at channeling Electric Red (and by extension Meshuggah)'s style of djent as shifting, multilayered grooves - you can tell that circle is one of Yumi's favorites. As the arranger's first attempt at making an album that's reliant on vocals, the result is somewhat uneven. Most harsh vocals are mixed well if a bit quiet, but the clean vocals are mixed in a way that sound disconnected from the music. Still, mixing problems tend not to ruin my enjoyment of music, so these are ultimately minor quibbles.
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Touhou Afrobeats （2022-05-08） 社团：Quark instrumental Afrobeats (take it from people who actually do the research) 🇯🇵 Something that I've been interested in for the past few years, but haven't dug into much, is the huge area of African and Latin club music. Reggaeton and moombahton have been part of popular music for more than a decade, and you can find quite a lot of examples in Touhou music. But what else is there? Brazil's baile funk (or just "funk" as Brazilians call it) is a huge umbrella of styles that is becoming more known outside the country in the past few years. Check out this documentary on it. In Africa, genres such as gqom, singeli and amapiano are covered by music journalism publications and enjoy a sizable following around the world. And that's really just the tip of the iceberg, as different countries have their own signature sounds, and different scenes across countries can collaborate and create new styles. Afrobeats is a pop genre that draws on a wide range of genres, including hip hop, R&B and dance. Here, there are no vocals, so the music ends up being more dance than pop. The two members of Quark take this chance to show their own take on the genre. Vibe$peak uses a mostly acoustic sound palette that sounds warm and welcoming. 楓上綵為's tracks are more overtly EDM with its prominent high-pitched synths. Starting off with 夢遊踊女ハルトマン is a great choice, as the unconventional time signature of the original theme plays well with the rhythmic tricks that Vibe$peak pulls. 幻象懐郷 has a synth that sounds like a flute which I think is neat. 憂夏 closes out the EP with an afropiano track, which brings a laidback jazziness to afrobeats. Overall, it's a fun listen. A melodic and colorful party that leaves space to play with rhythms. I think if this circle becomes well known, it would really encourage people to learn about all these exciting music scenes. Because of that I would declare this to be the most important Touhou release of 2022.
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東方風研究 ～ Smells Like Beer. vol.3 （2022-06-10） 社团：いちごパプリカ ZUNstyle 🇯🇵 (listened in 2024) What I like about Nozora's take on ZUNstyle is that it sounds distinctily modern, with more realistic instrumentations and cleaner production, while still sounding like something ZUN could have written. Sound_E_Scapes, for example, sounds like an RPG soundtrack at times, similar to Wanwan's Hollow Song of Birds OST. This album incorporates dnb elements on three of its original tracks, each with their own approach. 瑕疵の草原? Amen break loops. 「わたしたちの幻想郷」? Modern drum sounds and less dense drum placements (as well as an addictive dancehall rhythm). P-0003-1927 puts one besides the other, like a meeting between the old and new schools.
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寂光寂滅 ～ The Truth of the Cessation of Dukkha （2022-12-31） 社团：Demetori progressive power metal 🇯🇵 (listened in 2025) With a few exceptions, Demetori has been an aggressively 3.5/5 circle to me. While they have more interesting arrangement choices than the typical prog metal circle, those are still overall too faithful to the originals for my tastes. Plus, as you can probably tell from my prog metal ratings on RYM, I'm more interested in modern incarnations of the genre (& the weird 90s stuff) than the 00s power/prog epic shred that VGM metal remixes default to. Their 2006 album 如臨深遠 ～雨縒煙柳～ stand out as some of my favorite Touhou metal of all time because they weren't afraid to write outside that framework by having more prog rock influences, and ended up with a gorgeous arrangement of Eastern Dream that's still unsurpassed. This is unfortunately still a 3.5/5 power/prog album. There are a handful of acoustic parts that felt to me like Demetori was trying to capture the magic of 如臨深遠, but it isn't convincing when those acoustic parts are short and just cut back to power metal without the two interacting in any way. I'm not gonna praise them for throwing a bit of flamenco in クレイジーバックダンサーズ ～ Orgy of the Dead when instrumental prog metal acts like Syncatto or Nuclear Power Trio actually combine the two in a way that's better than the sum of its parts. The closer Peaceful Romancer ～ It's Better To Burn Out Than To Fade Away feels the closest to recapturing that magic by actually playing acoustic instruments on top of the metal, boosted by the surprising arrangement choices for a fairly simple original song.
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First Move （2022-01-04） 社团：Chiircle colour bass, melodic dubstep 🇮🇩 Fun bass music album, with a bunch of Touhou sound effects sprinkled in. Who knew Touhou sound effects would fit the industrial, maximalist feel of modern bass music so well? (It's me.) The music keep things fresh with different elements, though it's a mixed bag. At least for me, the trancecore/uk hardcore build up on Beautiful Girl was kinda hard to get through, but it's also followed by Jersey club breakdowns which is pretty cool. Plus, there's a gamelan track! For a music style that originated from Southeast Asia, a lot of Touhou music in that style is from Japan so it was nice to see a SEA circle make it. The circle also incorporates some gamelan bits in tracks like Red Mist and Yamaxanadu and I think they should do more with that.
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東方星楽園 ～ Wavering Oath in Arcadia. (Demo) （2022-10-21） 社团：Team Mezmerizing Constellations ZUNstyle 🇺🇸 It's got good melodies, but I also dig the maximalist approach to things. The compositions are multi-layered, the sound palette is varied and prismatic, and combine that with an similarly dense and layered approach to rhythms, it feels distinctly futuristic in a way that recalls 北海道調査 ~ Traces of Utopian Civilisation. I'm looking forward to the full version which will hopefully have longer compositions, and add a fadeout to the tracks as the lack of it makes the track transitions super jarring.
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バーチャル滝 ep （2022-04-01） 社团：予報士`94 weathersoft 🇯🇵 A concise dose of weatherbeats, delivered straight through your TV screen. The music is soothing and surprisingly trippy, especially with the repetitive synthesized vocals on 雪センター「Long Version」. Where their previous album （ （ （低） ） ） starts most tracks with beatless ambience and introduces beats about halfway through, this EP starts you off with its microscopic beats. The experience ends up feeling right at home with the psychedelic side of lo-fi hip hop. Which, given how most Touhou LFHH are in this style of semi-clean jazzy chillhop, opens up an interesting direction for people to explore.
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FOOL SPIRAL EP （2022-04-06） 社团：Find Your Way chiptune dance music 🇺🇸 Gotta fulfill my chiptune quota (that I just made up) for this series lol. Brainstorm is uplifting and pop-punky, while Green Needle is more mid-paced and bittersweet. Getting into very subjective territory here but it feels nostalgic without being retro. Like yeah, the cover art uses Gameboy Pokemon imagery, but the music doesn't evoke the feel of "retro game chiptune" that the big Touhou chiptune circles are reliant on. (or idk, maybe this is meant to be a sort of 00s netlabel chiptune throwback, which is a type of retro that I have more affinity with. But, thinking about it more, the idea of "netlabel chiptune retro" doesn't exactly make sense. There are like thousands of artists from that scene/era/community/etc each with their own approaches, and I've only heard like a hundred of them at most. I'd definitely be interested if people described their Touhou chiptune albums as レトロネットラーベル風, provided they actually talk about the artists that they're inspired by.)
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365 （2022-05-30） 社团：intelligencecasino house (Tr. 1-4/7), instrumental alternative rock (Tr. 5/6), eurobeat (Tr. 8) 🇺🇸 The variety in instruments and grooves make the house tracks a fun listen. Reminds me of Sonic music actually, wonder if that's part of the artist's inspiration. As for the rock tracks, ☢CAUTION!!☢CAUTION!!☢CAUTION!!☢ falls into that type of "epic video game rock" that I don't care for, and the dance-rock drums doesn't help things. childish desire, on the other hand, has a jangly psychedelic sound that builds suspense, and the clean electronic section surprisingly fits. It feels like a lost cut from Hylics OST, and I'd be down for more Touhou rock like that.
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東方. 永远. 낙원. （2022-12-02） 社团：ごんばこんなか mallsoft 🇯🇵 futuristic mall music from the year 2022. heck yeah If 월홍시장Yes! Mart Is Open（同人专辑） was a Touhoufied tribute to a genre classic, this album/half-compilation is a showcase of the variety of ideas in mallsoft. A simple example of said variety - some tracks present a shifting soundscape that feels like moving in and out of stores, while others feel more grounded, building their soundscapes over a simple loop. A subtler source of variety comes from the time periods that the music evokes. Capitalism Model (Vapormall "Smoking Room" Extend Remix) and 𝑭𝒂𝒓𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒆® Ｍａｌｌ puts on a clean and crystalline sound that conceals the typical mallsoft sound. In contrast, ✨Neon°˖✧夢✧˖°Plaza✨ digs into the cheesy side of vaporwave with a twee midi/utopian virtual-ish rendition of Lost Emotion. The former reminds me of the futuristic, vapor-adjancent bass music of Motion Graphics or Nico Niquo while the latter feels more 90s in the vein of last year's Three Fairies of Light. Beyond that, each track has its own atmosphere that comes to mind. The soft piano and door-opening sounds in 𝓷𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽 𝓼𝓴𝔂 𝓫𝓮𝓵𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓸 𝓷𝓸𝓷𝓮 presents a mall at night, not empty of people but without much activity either. ECOと安全ダイビング with its tom drums and waterfall sounds bring to mind rest areas with decorative plants and gravel, where some plants are real and others are made of plastic. 衛星 Lounge Service [kahvila]'s twinkly instrument that plays the main melody is hold music for customer service. It presents itself as clean and friendly when it really ends up being slightly annoying. $pendin` Time 翁 [tuoli]'s melodies are mildly buried in the mix and feels like walking aimlessly (or window-shopping) while smooth jazz plays; Breeze 館内 Climate Control and it's emphasis on melody is what happens when you actually pay attention to the smooth jazz. What's next for Touhou vapormusic? I dunno, but this is a good statement of what a good album in that style should be. Not Roman busts, 80s synthwave tropes or gratuitous (and badly translated) Japanese, but people exploring the genre and making interesting music from it. And believe me, there are tons of great ambient, EDM and hip hop connected to this area of music.
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TEXTR （2022-08-14） 社团：Asomosphere hi-tech psytrance 🇯🇵 pre-listening impressions: I dislike trance music and this fandom's continuing fascination with eurolifting arrangements like it's still the 2000s, but I do have some love for the psytrance part of the genre. I still listen to some Suomisaundi here and there, and the darkpsy/hi-tech area is also pretty interesting to me. There is a Japanese style of hi-tech that is distinctly influenced by modern EDM (and modern eclectic J-core, considering most of the producers who does this also do eclectic J-core) compared to its regular counterpart, though I like it nonetheless. This EP seems to be on the traditional side of hitech - it's got fast tempos, a relatively dark 'n' stark soundscape, and basslines that aren't bass music wobbles - but from the sampling on the Alkanoid (vs Invader) preview, I think there might also be some brief J-hitech influences here. Turns out it's a mix of both. The title track is the most J-hitech of the bunch as it goes through a bunch of modern EDM genres at the start and end without expanding on them much. Alkanoid (vs Invader) is probably my favorite track here just because HAGISOPH manages to add chiptune to the mix without making it sound retro. Xtacy is the most straightforward track on here, and enjoyable too. 胎内巡 is the most 2000s track of the group, with breakdowns and pianos that is influenced by uplifting trance.
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TouWHO？？ 2 （2022-09-30） 社团：Grazepoint various EDM styles 🌐 Admittedly not as into this one since it starts with two Eurobeat tracks (though it's subdued, which I think is important to note). Even then, it's a great way to be introduced to musicians from around the world who are interested in Touhou, and gives a nice starting point for those who want to probe deeper in different music scenes. (Seriously, the circle's Bandcamp links to the artists' Soundcloud so you can check out their other music, as well as other collab projects they're in.) Here, Kommisar brings their usual kinetic chip dance energy to the mix. It's followed up by Whitetail's In Search of More Time which is a nice gothic dance music fusion. I also like BLINDED CRITICISM, a humorous character track about Mystia's food stand. Zovi's powerful and manic vocals makes an already intense hardcore track even more intense - I kinda expected that coming from her avant/prog-industrial works, but it's still hella surreal to hear it in the context of a Touhou arrangement. Of course, DeBisco also deserves credit for the arrangement - dude knows a lot about club music, that's for sure. And, just as with the last album, it ends with noise, this time made with guitars and put in the context of a funny Touhou skit.
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模拟梦 ～Analog Dreamz～ （2022-06-05） 社团：响器班子 Chinese hip hop 🇨🇳 Part of the draw of this is the intimate lyrics, but the nocturnal, spacious feel to the instrumentals does help give the lyrics more impact. The soft instruments and vocal samples floating in the background combined with the obscure arrangements makes the atmosphere feel dreamlike. The long vocal samples in 绿洲 and 迷途 sounds like English learning material to me, and brings to mind a scene of someone falling asleep while studying, dreaming of music they could be making instead. (it's also just a neat thing to sample)
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Vibrant Autumn Tale （2022-09-20） 社团：ProfPrac ZUNstyle 🇮🇳 Like a short film showing Autumn passing into Winter with both energetic and mellow moments. Has a nice pastoral and airy atmospheric feel with a bit of folkiness reminiscent of last year's Obscure Deities. Also helps that the music is influenced by Touhou 11, which (along with Touhou 10, 12 and 12.8) has an instrumentation set that fits well textrually into this atmospheric pastoral style.
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Heart Seeking Disorder （2022-10-31） 社团：Localized Cold Wave drone doom metal, dark ambient (Tr. 5) 🇺🇸 I've mentioned it on the album page, but I still can't believe that a Dream Theater fan made this. Between this and The Yama King, 2022 is doing a lot in showing that Dream Theater fans can make good metal. Jokes aside, it's a vibey listen. The guitars and synths somehow sounds like vaporwave, which is a hell of an accomplishment. If you look into this from the context of vapormusic, however, the drone doom elements make the music more hostile and cold then the warm psychedelia of P.Rosa's vapor-infused rock album Bioconcrete. I said on the 2021 list that I don't listen to doom metal much, and that still applies in 2023. Even then I managed to get lost in the music a few times. The bonus track is a good Yume Nikki-ish dark ambient that feels like an outtake from Drawn Drones Drown Drone. 12/10 would get hypnotized to this again
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Beats by Touhou （2022-02-08） 社团：Leonovsky7 electronic video game music, some tracks with EDM influences but there's also chill music 🇪🇪 Tommorow will be special, today is breakbeat slaps. The style of rhythmic EDM influenced by 5th/6th generation game music is a dope trend right now what with artists like Nanoray and Kaizo Slumber achieving underground popularity. This track brings frantic drill and bass percussion sequencing to the mix and fits the athletic mood of the game it's from. The rest of the tracks are solid too. Travelling Shining Needle ~ Small Prince was nice to listen to while playing Issun Boushi Starring Shinmyoumaru-san and helped ease things, especially after trying and failing to do some clever skips.
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基因鏈探究～Explore the magic of genes （2022-01-17） 社团：文水海洋俱乐部 ZUNstyle 🇨🇳 Honestly? Starting off the album by putting hardcore breaks on ZUNstyle is an excellent idea, for the reasons I mentioned on Beats by Touhou. And the melody work is very ZUN - in fact I'd also say it reminds me of Wanwan's melody styles from 東方邪星章 ～ The Last Comer. and 東方導命樹 ～ Mystical Power Plant.. Though I do wish the rhythm work on the latter tracks continued to lean into unconvetional EDM beatwork or ZUN's wonky sense of rhythms instead of more mainstream EDM styles like hardtek and modern prog house.
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001 （2022-10-30） 社团：Padu MIDI orchestral/classical with minor electronic/field recordings parts Not sure if this is arranged in esoteric ways and/or it has original parts, but it's hard to find the originals of this one besides most of the obvious stuff. It could do without the MIDI-ish instrumentation but the draw here is the longform compositions and the atmospheric and subdued sound.
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002 （2022-10-31） 社团：Padu MIDI orchestral with minor electronic/field recordings parts Did anyone want 10+ variations of Candid Friend and possibly more variations that I haven't recognized? I wasn't expecting this to exist, but it is a fascinating album nonetheless. The whole thing can also be considered an extension of the longform compositional style in 001.
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Touhou Phonk EP - 02 （2022-10-11） 社团：Kwszh phonk house (tr. 1), drift phonk (tr. 2-4) 🇮🇩 Not familiar with phonk enough to make a good judgement, but I think it's an interesting enough sound that people should give a listen. Murky and repetitive vocals with trap beats layered over sounds surreal. Besides, how cool is it to hear an Indonesian producer make a genre popularized by Russian producers, where said genre is itself derived from a genre derived from an local style of Southern US hip hop? Great example of how cool stuff gets made because of how the internet allows international culture to go everywhere.
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Brainshocker！Interrogative （2022-09-18） 社团：fudarin ga'proy experimental hip hop, abstract hip hop 🇺🇸 Super online zoomers keep on winning. Imaginative sampling and beats is the main draw of the album for me, and the lyrics push that to a whole new level. Gappy's trumpet playing also adds charm. The two Touhou tracks on here is what I expect from Touhou hip hop in 2022. Not nostalgic throwbacks to 90s and 00s styles, but something that's actually boundary pushing. And considering said boundary during the last decade is literally just Tamaonsen, it's a low bar that, for some reason, is mostly reached by super online zoomers.

Writing something for these

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HELICON （2022-05-20） 社团：DualInsomiNa progressive metalcore, djentcore 🇨🇳
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Gensokyo 199X 2： Another Touhou 90's Album （2022-06-06） 社团：Nocti various 90s EDM genres, mostly the breaks & beats 🇫🇷
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Dispirited （2022-06-27） 社团：Dreams of Nihil blackgaze, progressive metal 🇨🇿 Some historically significant stuff. Plugging this list I made while I write something about it
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TOHO BOOTLEGS 5 （2022-10-09） 社团：IOSYS various EDM styles 🇯🇵 As someone who don't like IOSYS overall but do recognize their versatility, I like the Toho Bootleg series because they bring on guests that are more or less notable for their own work and are adjacent to the whole Touhou music scene. If you're looking for some cutting-edge arrangements from big circles, this is where you should look at.
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Quiet Voices of the City （2022-12-30） 社团：Akane crescendocore post-rock (?) 🇷🇺 not the type of post-rock I listen to regularly, but music that expresses the introspective side of city life has a certain draw for me. (and it could also be me being biased because of the circle's origins, as I tend to like a lot of this nocturnal, urban, cold-but-not-chill music from Russia, in particular the minimal EDM and post-punk genres.)
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东方风记录：U-01 （2022-07-15） 社团：いちごパプリカ ZUNstyle 🇯🇵
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東方風研究 ～ Smells Like Beer. vol.4 （2022-09-30） 社团：いちごパプリカ ZUNstyle 🇯🇵

Haven't listened to, but have some interests in

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（ （ （高） ） ） （2022-05-06） 社团：予報士`94 weathersoft 🇯🇵
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Deshielo ～ 一陽来復 （2022-05-08） 社团：ジャージと愉快な仲間たち Conjunto andino (I read some of the sources that talked about this genre and they're quite fascinating, lots of history) 🇯🇵 they're baaaaaack
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Touhou Champloo （2022-09-18） 社团：幻想诗篇Xanadu Canto erhu fusion, instrumental hip hop, jazz-hop, EDM, mashup 🇨🇳 Yeah that's the 00s nostalgia I'm looking for could do without the last two tracks. just feels like the circle ran out of ideas for combining Touhou with Samurai Champloo and decided to throw in le meme trance song cuz it's all 00s. the rickroll is kinda funny though
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Dreamland（WonderSky） （2022-10-23） 社团：WonderSky EDM "with a fantasy worldview" 🇯🇵 Not sure how to describe this sound, but I mentally group it alongside other rhythmically interesting EDM with instrumentation influenced by video game and acoustic music. Think something like Leon Chang's bird world and Ujico*'s 妖 on the light and bright side, versus Mr. Bill's Apophenia and Culprate's αριθμός τέσσερα for the nocturnal and weird side. All this is to say that it's an interesting sound and I'm all for it. Except for the last track I suppose, listening to the preview it feels like Hi-Fu stopped caring about the album concept and slapped a mainstream big room tune on it.
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Let's Start The World Anew（同人专辑） （2022-08-14） 社团：Squall Of Scream modern metalcore/post-hardcore/djentcore 🌐 Dunno if Squall of Scream has a name for this series, but this and Let's Change The World's End are the spiritual sequel to Masterpieces For Our Struggle the same way Holmgang Ov Gensokyo is to Barrage Am Ring. Both are collaborative projects about metal/"loud rock" music, but the former is strictly rooted in the cores while the latter is more straightforwardly metal (but doesn't shy away from the cores). I tend to not like modern metalcore/post-hardcore because of their tendencies toward cheesy pop melodies, but I'm willing to give this one a chance because it has DualInsomiNa and Takamachi Walk.
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The Fool （2022-10-09） 社团：Tengu Corp dark ambient, drone Has it really been 12 years since Drawn Drones Drown Drone came out? Feels weird realizing that one of the Touhou music nerd favorite albums is more than a decade old.
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秘封サウンドスケープ集 Ⅵ Embracing Wonders on Phantasma Grave. （2022-10-09） 社团：ごんばこんなか IDM (?), ambient (?) 🇯🇵 Torash's Hifuu Soundscape series, to me, is in this milieu of IDM/-adjacent music that combines the natural and the mechanical. It's not simply just layering a piano melody on top - it's about blending the abstract electronics with plenty of acoustic instrumentation and natural sounds, or a constant negotiation between the two. On these albums, the mechanical aspects are as overt as a modern The Flashbulb album, conveying a world where nature is either augmented or reconstructed by technology. The sense of artificial nature it conveys feels similar to what eco grime artists like tropical interface or Herbarium do while leaving enough space for the natural parts to not feel sterile. It's a unique futuristic sound, not just for Touhou arrangements but also for music in general. Interestingly, this album feels more influenced by EDM than the previous Hifuu Soundscape albums. Going by the preview, 緑のサラウンドスケープ and 走馬西来欲到天 have techno beats, 誰ソ彼アンノウン is Torash's take on hardtek, and 沈むは昇る水泡がため reminds me of the type of new age-y future garage that Clubroot does.
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I'm behind you now （2022-10-09） 社团：Eastern Scrapping Machine Orchestra various industrial genres 🇯🇵 that feel when the ultrakill guy introduces people to touhou industrial through fumoposting anyways check this out. the circle doing a touhou noise show. woaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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プリズムリバー三姉妹のソロ！ （2022-10-09） 社团：針の音楽 solo violin, brass rock (?), downtempo 🇯🇵 Conceptually, "Touhou music as played by the Prismriver sisters" has so much potential it's probably indicative of something about the scene that it took until now for an album of it to exist. Anyways, can you believe this album even puts twists on the concept? Each of the three Prismriver sisters are represented through two songs, one original and one arrangement of Phantom Ensemble. The music style chosen also represents the character, so Lunasa gets to do solo violin, Merlin gets peppy and jazzy brass rock, and Lunasa gets jazzy downtempo. Note that the latter two sisters' songs are not a solo instrumental effort - those songs have percussion and bass. Did they have Raiko and the Tsukumos play that? Who knows...
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Windwalker （2022-12-31） 社团：AGENT 0, nekka. djentcore 🇯🇵 agent 0 djent era real this is like the funniest thing. imagine telling a touhou metal fan in 2012 that agent 0 will pivot to djent On a more serious note, though, there are two style of djentcore at play here, going by the preview. Agent 0's attempt at the genre doesn't hide his background in death metal - there are many riffs that combines djent with 00s melodic metalcore riffing, which itself takes influence from melodic death metal of the time. In contrast, nekka. is more about the chugs, with a few melodic leads here and there. 2023 Edit: holy shit I just realized this: - Agent 0 - djent is associated with the number 0 the circle's djent era has been hinted at since the beginning Σ(っ °Д °;)っ
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東方眠世界 ~ Wonderful Waking World： Partial Soundtrack （2022-06-15） 社团：sincx ZUNstyle 🇨🇦 I came across this after checking out the artist's excellent album A World Divided and then realized it's the same person who made the Bowser's Castle music in the experimental Super Mario World collab hack YUMP 2. So yeah, pretty small world, eh?