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Embodiment of Frequency Modulation （2024-05-03）- 社团：+tek, blowitch, Yiter, konamiscc
FM synthesis, chip rock (mostly), digital fusion (some)
🇵🇱 🇪🇸 🇫🇷 🇦🇷
What keeps me coming back to +TEK's Touhou arrangement albums is its beefy, Sega Genesis-esque FM synth sound. The unique aesthetic helps too - when most of the FM synth arrangements in this scene are nostalgic technical exercises in recreating PC-98 Touhous, it's refreshing to hear people aim for literally any other kind of sound that's possible with this technology.
As mentioned in the Youtube stream description, the arrangements are hugely influenced by Yousuke Yasui's1 music. Style-wise, it leans towards rock with emphasis on hard rock/heavy metal riffs, as well as some funky bass playing, most notable on The Dark Blowhole and Retrospective Kyoto.
I like Yiter's tracks the most as they have interesting arrangement choices while the others keep things fairly straightforward. The soca rhythms on Candid Friend in particular makes it a fun tropical experience. +TEK's take on Alstroemeria Records' Bad Apple is another favorite as they incorporate parts from the original Bad Apple that isn't present on the arrangement. blowitch's The Dark Blowhole is also great but that's cuz I love the original track. Personal pick for most underrated ZUN song, in fact. And don't think I haven't noticed the cool textural works! The twinkly sounds and ZUNpet approximation on Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke is beautiful, and the subtle koto sound on Desire Drive should really be more prominent in the mix because it's such an awesome instrument.
With all that said, I am a bit sad that this series is over. I do wish +TEK would do some arrangements in the FM-synth-dnb style that led me to discover them in the first place, or some of that gothic digital fusion from their Melolignia collab album series. Still, this series did have a great run and it lead me to discover some cool musicians and games.
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TouWHO？？ 3 （2024-03-29）- 社团：Grazepoint
various EDM styles
🌐
So, the album description says this is the last Touhou album from this circle. I have some thoughts that's unrelated to the music inside, so they're in a collapsable.
Collapsable - click to toggle ->
The thing about exploring music on a constant basis is that over time you just know stuff. And that's what drew me to the circle at first - its contributor list was a surprising connection between different internet music spheres (They got Kommisar? They got two brony musicians??? And one of them is a huge contributor to the Pinkamena Party compilations???????). It was so surprising that I legit expected them to somehow get Em Essex or Toby Fox on a future album. Then DeBisco, one of the circle owners, DMed me to give thanks which is pretty awesome. (I don't get a lot of props for this work, I think more people recognize me from RYM and other music servers than from this wiki lmao).
Looking back at the exchange it was kinda funny. Since I listen to a lot of breakcore and DeBisco was on a few breakcore compilations, I thought he was an up-and-coming breakcore producer. It wasn't until a few days later when I realized he's been making music for more than a decade, and has been featured in multiple rhythm games. That's another thing about exploring music: there's always more to the world of music even when you've been doing it for a long time, and even if you limit yourself to a small scene. An obscure-looking artist that just popped up on your radar could actually be prolific and well-known in another community.
Something else I didn't know about this circle at that time is that both owners (the other one being Zovi, the Pinkamena Party contributor mentioned earlier) are founders of PARTY2012, a music collective that hosts many eclectic parties online and in real life. Reading this interview, I was amazed by just how many artists and areas of the online music sphere I recognize, from vaporwave to future bass to western J-core to YTPMV to furry hardcore and more.
I mention a lot of non-Touhou music on these lists for a bunch of reasons. For one, I want to introduce people to cool music, and looking at musical influences and talking about connections is a great way to do so while tying it to the album that's being talked about. Someone might look at the circle's page and think they're just another western circle, but they're connected to so many different areas of music that you can dig for an year and still have more to find. Plus, a lot of it is EDM - there's plenty of fun to be had here.
The standout to me is ZahranW's Vacant Discordant Girl, which combines ferocious chipbreak programming and elegant digial fusion licks into something awesome. The whole thing is like if Ecriss decided to go full-on chiptune and I could listen to that gorgeous intro over and over again. On the more hardcore side, elusive&two-faced dJ's Drag On! is slow but imposing gabber with a few rhythmic tricks thrown in. For something even more intense, there's Zovi's Onryou-kei: The Most Emotion, which explores Kokoro's character background with heavy industrial beats that sounds like gigadelic after a decade of working out at the factory. If this sounds super conceptual for a hardcore track, well, this is actually pretty tame compared to her more elaborate albums.
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FAKE KILL （2024-05-03）- 社团：UNKNOWN BEATS
hip hop, trap, drill
🇯🇵
Pre-listening notes:
As usual, I feel underequipped to talk about this circle, but from the preview they really tried to cover a lot of ground with the instrumentals, from the two house tracks at the start, the afrobeats H, to the UK drill of MAD and Unidentified. And with 22 tracks, more than the circle's previous two albums combined, you can tell this is some serious stuff.
As I expected, these guys cover a lot of ground in 22 tracks. While autotune is gonna continue being a hit-or-miss thing for me, I can still recognize that they're doing a bunch of different cool shit with it. The album's varity makes it difficult to predict what will happen next, and I have no idea how the circle decided on the track order. The drill songs, for example, are spread throughout the album. On the other hand, you have Unidentified, Know That, Milli Rock and Chase The Starry Sky all grouped at the end, seemingly linked by their feathery-light and peaceful RPG music instrumentation. But I can also argue that MAD and Night Awake also had that sound and wasn't put in the group.
I've mentioned a few standout tracks in the pre-listening part, but it doesn't cover the entire album - it misses Siva Slumber, which is full of phonk cowbells, and Dream Story (too poppy-repetitive for me to like it but a standout regardless), which had a distinct sugary chiptune pop sound (maybe influenced by Anamanaguchi? That's the most popular artist in that niche). Life is more laidback and r&b-ish, which makes me wonder if they'll ever try making straight up r&b as it has always had a close relationship with hip hop.
Unless something outstanding happens, I don't think anything will top this as the best Touhou hip hop release of 2024. Granted, there's barely anyone in this scene, so maybe it's time for more rappers and beatmakers to join the battle.
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Trials of Technomancy （2024-02-03）- 社团：ProfPrac
ZUNstyle
🇮🇳
As the Bandcamp description says, the music leans into the futuristic, synthy sounds of later Touhou OSTs, as well as the sparser and atmospheric sound of Trojan Green Asteroid. The last three tracks are basically trance-influenced shmup music like the Hellsinker soundtrack, but with enough ZUNisms to still feel like a Touhou track.
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無題(2024) （2024-05-03）- 社团：深夜放送
post-rock, post-hardcore/noise rock
🇯🇵
Were you expecting more noisy guitar freakouts as usual? You can have one song at the start. The main draw to me is the two minimalistic, repetitive guitar tracks that follows. This kind of textural guitar work tend to be type of first wave post-rock experimentation that I like, though how it's executed on here does get a bit boring.
The closer 素敵な墓場で暮しましょ is surprisingly chill for what you expect from this circle, but that's only if you ignore the glitchy mic rumbling noises that gets louder over the course of the song. Cool aural representation of mysterious things rising out of the graveyard, don't you think?
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We All Escape From the Moon （2024-10-20）- 社团：magic red kids
dream pop, shoegaze
🇯🇵
It's good. The vocal writing is too J-pop-rocky for me to love but I like the arrangements.
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Slaughter in GENSOKYO （2024-10-20）- 社团：Dark Inferno
pop trap (tr.1), metalcore (tr.2), trancecore/pumpcore (tr.3), alt rock/screamo (tr.4)
🇯🇵
The interesting thing about this circle is that it has ties to two unique J-screamo projects with underground popularity, That Same Street and Moreru. That Same Street, a vocaloid project by the circle leader Dex, mixes screamo with soft vocaloid vocals and electronic productions. Their use of trap beats and EDM sounds (even going so far as to put a trance track in one of their EPs) makes them look too commercial for the screamo crowd, but the fact that Dex actually screams and the music's lack of of modern metalcore/post-hardcore influences makes them too weird for the Vocaloud crowd. Moreru, which has Dex as a drummer and vocalist and 岩本雪斗 as a noisemaker and vocalist, can really be called avant-garde screamo - not only is it raw and noisy in ways comparable to grindcore or bedroom black metal, it also has trap beats and other electronic elements. The thing about moreru, though, is that they run on contrasts. As unpalatable as they sound, they throw in poppy vocal melodies here and there. While those parts aren't super catchy, they end up more memorable because it contrasts so much with the noise around them.
It's worth noting, though, that both bands mentioned aren't just something that's only popular within the Rate Your Music user microcosm but unheard of in their home country. Moreru actually got to play a concert with Boredoms and Violent Magic Orchestra which are more popular in the Japanese experimental rock sphere; That Same Street released an EP on Siren for Charlotte, a label run by two Japanese music critics. If there's one Touhou album this year that's gonna be more popular out-fandom than in, it's gonna be this. Listening to the preview, though, it seems to be a grabbag of genres which might end up not as exciting. The last track is more in line with what I was expecting and the first track might give Unknown Beats a run for their money.
Yeah the grabbag-ness of the EP made it not as impressive as it could have been. Magica and Raining Blood stand out for the reasons I've said above, the former putting a cutesy hyperpop spin on trap that Unknown Beats hasn't done before, and the latter being just a solid That Same Street song. The way that Raining Blood starts out as a midtempo alt rock song and gradually builds into ferocious screamo is beautiful. The title track I'm more mixed on - the riffs are mostly one-note 00s metalcore cliches, and it has autotune, but unlike circles in the scene who use autotune because they want to make cheesy mainstream metalcore or electronicore, Dark Inferno isn't aiming for that, so the autotune doesn't bother me as much. It's closer to Vocaloid singing, even.
(recommended)
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