It's been a while.
AND this post is fairly very late.
But nonetheless, a bunch of people put a fair bit of effort in this so even if it's too late to be of use to many people, we're getting it out there anyway.
Thanks to vermiliongrey for allowing temporary public access to dojin.co, thus allowing us to listen to all sorts of new stuff that we wouldn't have discovered otherwise. Also thanks to Zaton, Uguubee, Kralled and everyone else who helped get through the insane backlog.
The majority of this post is C85 and M3-32 releases, with a sprinkling of things earlier in the year (reitaisai 10, kouroumu 9, C84 etc). If you guys want us to go more in-depth on those other events, let us know.
Now, with no further ado, let us start tackling this behemoth post; it's split up unto genres, with a personal top 3 'digest' for those who are lazy:
Eggmun's Top 3
- Foxfactory - Kirisame Sweets Shop
- Shibayan - Retro Future Girls
- Fromadistance - 生年不滿百
Lawrell's Top 3
- Machikado-Mapoze - Natsuiro no Kesshou
- Cajiva's Gadget Shop - phantasticall sound finder
- Foxfactory - Kirisame Sweets Shop
Much more after the break.
Jazz
Eggmun: Starting off with something of a staple, Swing Holic vol. 12 is the first on the chopping block. To put it bluntly, the album is pretty much filler. Not that I blame them, these guys have been pumping out albums every 3~4 months like clockwork. That's not to say it's bad, it's just nothing fantastic. However, tracks 9 & 10 are seriously good songs and pretty much carry the album. 愛の星空 is a bouncy, upbeat song that's sugary-sweet and won't fail to make you smile. 'one to ten' is a real smooth number, with A~YA clearly in her element. In sum, it would make a good addition to a playlist you put on when you want to listen to something, but don't want to get distracted because the music's too good. ★★★☆☆
Eggmun: Another solid NEETs album, this time exclusively EoSD songs. For the unitiated, 'bakuon jazz' literally means 'explosive jazz', and TANeets have (and continue to) deliver consistently in this regard. Much to my pleasure, the album includes a little take on the EoSD title theme, and includes both Meiling themes. Unfortunately the U.N Owen arrange is some half-baked ska attempt, and unsurprisingly does little but waste some 4 minutes. Nonetheless, the album is overall another solid addition to NEETs' explosive jazz album lineup. ★★★★☆
Eggmun: More NEETs! Can't complain, especially when it's all PCB in this album. The arranges are all really nice and unique too, with almost every song being a combination of various themes. Although I did like Bakuon Jazz 4, I will admit that the arranges were a little plain at times. This album fixes that in a big way, with each song feeling 'fresh' thanks to its flawless merging of different theme songs, and the sound overall is much tighter and gripping. I don't think I can really fault this at all - it's very solid from start to finish. ★★★★★
Surreacheese - Comte (C85)
Eggmun: A new discovery for me, Surreacheese have been around for almost 5 years but I've never taken the time to listen to anything until now. The guy behind (almost) all of it is Con, who you may be familiar with as they've done stuff for DDBY and Touhou Jazz Messengers.
The album on the whole is pretty chill, like Swing Holic. Except nothing really stands out, it's all just better-than-okay tier relaxed jazz. Also like Swing Holic 12, it makes for a decent listen when you don't want the music to be so good that it distracts you. ★★★☆☆
Tomatogumi - Midnight (C85)
Eggmun: Midnight makes the second Tomatogumi album with Ike Mai on vocals, and by God, she adds a whole new dimension to Tomatogumi's work. They were good to start with, but she has a lot of synergy with their style, and although she only features on the first two tracks, she adds a lot to what would otherwise still manage to be a very good album. Unfortunately a couple of the songs around the middle of the album don't match the quality of the rest, so I can't give it the 5 stars I'd like to. The Ike Mai tracks ― Flowering Night and Septette for the Dead Princess ― are must-listens; The Gensoukyou the Gods Loved arrange, and the Flowering Night instrumental track is also great. ★★★★☆
Eggmun: I'm a little divided on this album; on one hand it's some really nicely arranged jazz, that adds a lot to the arranges thus giving the jazz a real natural feel. A few solos especially remind me of a smoky jazz bar I visited in Kyoto, there's a lot of talent and passion behind the composition. But on the other hand, the MIDI sax sticks out like a sore thumb at times. I'm usually very uncompromising when it comes to MIDI jazz, but the arranges are more than enough to make up for that. I could listen to Shanghai Dancing Girl all day, it's probably the best Meiji 17 jazz arrange I've ever heard, and the rest of the album is very solid too. ★★★★☆
Achiranoakaboshi - VOCAFE 4 (C85)
Lawrell: Can't really go wrong with the main members of Tokyo Active NEETs serving as a backing band for a vocalist (simply called "that"), right? Well, truth be told, it's just a decent listen. Neither the vocals nor the arrangements are energetic enough to grab your attention for a focused listening. That said, it still is Akai Ryu-sei's band we're talking about, so it's definitely above average. The vocalist himself isn't bad either - I just don't think he's outstanding. Regular doujin music fare, you know. It also might be nice to know that the last (non-karaoke) song is a live recording, which is quite nice. Overall, a good album, but nothing too spectacular.
★★★☆☆
Chillout
Eggmun: This is hands-down my favourite release of C85, and probably 2013 on the whole. I could write a paragraph on just about every song, it's really an incredible album. This album would be the poster child for iyashikei as a genre of music. The arranges of Magus Night, Doll Maker of Bucuresti, Flowering Night and Voile (Tracks 1, 2, 4 and 7) are nothing short of perfection, and the other songs don't fail to keep up either. When I listen to it I can close my eyes, get lost and imagine myself spending an afternoon relaxing in Marisa's sweet's shop. This album is a must-listen, I cannot recommend it enough. ★★★★★
Eggmun: This album wouldn't be out of place as a soundtrack to Recettear or some other Carpe Fulgur game. It's fairly upbeat for chillout music, and has quite a bit of variety while still maintaining it's overall chilled out atmosphere. For example, Morning Breaking is piano with a hint of glitch, おでかけ気分で is acoustic guitar and violin, 靴下をはいた猫 is some cutesy piano+glockenspiel, while Pacemaker is an entirely synthesized track. Claire is a particularly nice track, I can imagine it would start the day off on the right note if you listened it while you walked to school. Same goes for the rest of album which isn't incredible, just simply pleasant overall. ★★★☆☆
Lawrell: To be frank, I don't remember much about the other Cafe de Touhou albums, save for 3-4 songs. They mostly felt to me like pseudo-loungy stuff, which isn't as good as it sounds. This entry made my perception of those a little better, thanks to the very smooth jazz piano on this album, which seems to be taking up a good 3/4 of the album. Once again, there aren't any tracks which are very outstanding (maybe except the last, which makes me feel very peaceful), but on the whole, the jazz piano is better than the usual serving of synth-flavoured lounge and smooth jazz. A light and quite pleasant listen. ★★★★☆
DDBY - Iyashi no Kaze vols. 1, 2, 3 (Reitaisai 10, C84, Kouroumu 9)
Lawrell: The title of this series of albums being roughly translated as "Wind of Healing", it is not surprising that these are similar to DDBY's other chillout albums (Cafe de Touhou being used a benchmark here, since they're his most well-known). These albums, however, aren't completely instrumental, and are even more chilled out than Cafe de Touhou, which are more lounge-oriented, and therefore have the occasional sketchy synthy song. The arrangements on this album use less instruments, yet are slightly more varied, employing more acoustic guitars, vocals (Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and [very bad] French), (synthesized) stringed instruments, accordions, etc. The collaborators on these albums are pretty good too, CON of surreacheese; tanigon of Twitter Touhoubu; Shishimai 3 gou of Shishimai Brothers; and the very nice guitar of JeetSingh, from Magical Trick Society, whom I had never heard of before; among others. They are quite pleasant to listen to, but you probably won't need your full attention for them. ★★★★☆
Lawrell: Definitely one of the best chillout albums I've listened to, and I'm not saying this for only this year. I've initially picked this up thinking it would be like their other classical albums they've released this year, but after listening to this, I've realized that pretty much anything they try to do stands out from the rest. One of the most noticeable things for me is that this is one of the only album where I've heard actually decent Touhou bossa nova (or at least, what bossa nova seems to generally sound like for doujin artists), on the songs Drive on D and Into the Lake. Like most good chillout albums, the genres featured on this are varied - jazzy piano, acoustic pop, bossa nova, chamber music, and something reminiscent of Pia-no-jaC, on Lissajous. It might be interesting to know that the English sung on The Sunlight and the Morning Dew is actually perfect, and the titular song reminds me a lot of Ghibli songs, somewhere in between Kaze ni Naru and Itsumo Nandodemo. Highly recommended. ★★★★★
Piano
As you could have guessed from the circle and the album title, this is a jazz piano album, with solid pianists to back it, including Zimuin-G, Akai Ryu-sei and Marasy. Speaking of them, they commercially released (so I can't talk about it much) 4D-PIANO ANIME Theater! in June of that year, make sure to go check it out. Anyway, I honestly don't know much about the other pianists (panoman and Sanokan), but they make up 3/4 of the tracks on this album, and it's not too bad - they play smoothly and solo decently, like the guest performers. The problem with this album is that it feels a bit too safe: all of it is just above average piano jazz, the solos don't stray too much from the song itself, the drums and bass barely have any time to shine, and even the guest performers aren't quite as good as they usually play. That said, Touhou Piano Trio is still a very good album, just a bit disappointing considering its staff. This makes this album more of a light listen. ★★★★☆
Eggmun: I was going to make a comparison and say that logical emotion is pretty much just Marasy with a bass and kit to support. But whilst writing this, I realised that's actually the truth - logical emotion is Marasy on keys with drm on bass and tab clear on drums. It all makes sense to me now. Anyway, the arranges are pretty solid on this. They mix things up a bit, add a bit of character to each. Satori and Rin's themes are jazzed up, The Gensokyo The Gods Loved and Crimson Belvedere arranges are slow and powerful, with growing intensity over the course of the track. All in all, it's a good listen. Previous logical emotion albums have been plagued by poor recording quality, but that's all taken care of in #4 - each instrument sounds good and they're mixed well to boot. ★★★★☆
Eggmun: The way I see it, Marasy's solo albums have basically got the vanilla piano arranges covered so well, there's little point competing. Thus making other artists with a similar idea do something to separate them. In Shirashiraake's case, the Shishimai Brothers decided to go with a piano trio set-up like logical emotion's, but with a touch of synth to mix things up. The resulting sound is more upbeat, intense, and engaging. That's not to say the electronic side of things takes over - much the opposite: the soft, understated synth plays more of a supporting role, so it is still most definitely a piano album, albeit with a very different mood. The arranges are relatively creative, giving the tracks that fresh-yet-familiar feeling that keeps the touhou music scene interesting. It's by no means a huge release, but it still makes for a nice listen. ★★★★☆
Orchestral
Eggmun: Short but sweet, Tutti's new album clocks in with a total playtime of around 15½ minutes across 5 songs. The tracks themselves are all pretty good, but I see this album as a promise of what's to come. I think this album shows a certain maturation in neo's composition. News of the TIPICA and Flower Tune are good examples of this, though that's not to say the other songs don't show it too. So, while this may only last a couple of quick listens, this album is worth giving a shot, if only to give us a taste of what could very well be a mindblowingly good full-length next album. ★★★★☆
Lawrell: After listening to various of their previous recordings, I've come to the conclusion that this is the sound that Machikado-Mapoze usually aims for. I'm not quite sure what it is exactly, but let's say that it wouldn't feel out of place if it was used as the OST to a show like Spice & Wolf. That said, it mostly gets that sound because of the flutes, which may or may not turn you off from the rest of the album. That said, most tracks still have their excellent string quartet backing (or leading) them. The real meat of this album, however, are the vocal songs, especially the cantata. The cantata is what made the album for me, it is just extremely well composed. A conversation between Fujiwara no Mokou and Keine make up the lyrics, but even if you don't understand or even particularly care about the lyrics, the vocalists are quite talented and fit in perfectly with the music and the general Renaissance-like feel of the album. If the flutes and recorders don't turn you off too much, then this is a must-listen, if only for the cantata. ★★★★★
Eggmun: I'm quite fond of this. Mr. Sound Postman was Machikado's Kouroumu 9 release, and it's simply a touhou string quartet. No funny business, no random song with a wooden flute, no surprise vocals, it is just 11 songs of a string quartet playing nice touhou arranges. It's even got a nice 4-movement Sonata - 'Nitori in D minor'. The recording sounds rather professional, too. The arranges are done really well to fit the quartet setting, too. They have that quality of sounding like a new song whilst retaining the melody and feeling of the original. The Flowering Night arrange is particularly deserving of praise, with the rest of the album just regularly deserving of praise. Machikado-Maopze definitely have a lot of talent amongst them, I look forward to hearing their upcoming releases. ★★★★★
Lawrell: A fairly interesting mix of Japanese folk and orchestral. Keep in mind that this is a Kancolle album, the only one in this whole blog post specifically because of that mix - if the songs on this album stick close to their source material, then Kancolle music probably isn't very interesting. The instrumentation on this album, however, is, so it's worth a listen just because of that. Sadly, half of the tracks don't make good use of the Japanese folk instruments (save for the percussion), so half of the album is rather average synthesized orchestral arrangements of average music. Still, the songs that do use the instruments are quite interesting, and the circle has also made Touhou albums, so go look for them. ★★★☆☆
Pizuya's Cell - Zuiun (Reitaisai 10)
Lawrell: While this album is in the orchestral category, it isn't completely made up of songs with an orchestra. It is, however, just enough to fall under this category. That said, most of the time, the (synthesized) orchestra is mostly there to back up the piano tracks. The piano itself is pleasant, but nothing mindblowing. On some tracks, the piano is accompanied by the violin or the cello, which is quite nice. These tracks are the album's highlights. Most of the album is made up of solo piano and piano accompanied by orchestra, but some are pseudo-jazzy tunes, and some are just the orchestra - I feel that those are the album's weakest tracks. Overall, a very light listen, pleasant, but nothing extraordinary. ★★★☆☆
Folk
Lawrell: When
an album opens up with the sound of a summer night, you know you're in
for a particular kind of relaxing album. Maybe even otherworldly, since
the sounds of nature never really go after the first song. This is the
kind of album that you need to have your eyes closed, imagining yourself
at every spot that each song tries to transport you to. The general
sound is very minimal, only having one or two intruments on most songs.
Two other things to note: some songs don't even have any music, they only
have the sounds of nature; two other songs (鳥の休む岩 and Night Daydream)
are ambient electronic, which would be fine on other albums, but on this
one, it just kind of breaks the immersion. However, the whole is better
than the sum of its parts - even with the two aforementioned songs, phantasticall sound finder managed to be extremely relaxing every time I listened to it. For anyone looking for an album that's so relaxing that it takes you places, this one's for you. ★★★★★
fromadistance (spctrm) - 生年不滿百 (C85)
Eggmun: Before I even start this review, know that instead of reading this review, you should just go and listen to this album. You don't need to read this review to know that you really ought to listen to it. Okay, so with that out of the way, this album is touhou East Asian folk with a modern twist. Most other touhou folk is Irish folk, so this fills a really niche spot in my library - and what's more it's executed extremely well. It's modern enough to be enjoyable to people who aren't extremely big on traditional East Asian folk, but not too modern so as to scare away those who really do enjoy their folk. The arranges in this album are extremely good, too. It may be a personal preference, but I like my arranges when they take the theme, and create something totally new from it. Shibayan is especially good for this, and it's nice to see that style of arranging be used in a folk album. This really is an album to get lost in. It's easy to forget that it's a collection of touhou arranges, because if it weren't the occasional allusions to familiar themes, it'd be an album of original composition that still merits some very high recommendations. I'd go so far to say that this album is an experience, and anyone who hasn't heard it is sorely missing out. ★★★★★
Lawrell: For such a short album from a previously unknown circle, this is a rather promising release. The musicians in this circle are rather talented (by doujin music standards, anyway), especially the violinist. My main issue with this album is that it isn't exactly distinguished folk, but that does not mean that the songs themselves are bad, in fact, they're quite pleasant. They're not too fast nor too slow, and apart from the backing instruments (drums and bass) on some songs, the instruments aren't synthesized. All in all, I look forward to another release from them. ★★★★☆
Electronic
Eggmun: I can't elaborate too much and give a proper review on this sort of stuff, as it's really not my strong suit. Hence I don't have much to say on these two, so I'm doing them together. Unitone's M3-32 releases, Erbshaft and phase:02. The former an EDM album, the latter dubstep. It may go without saying, but this isn't exactly stuff I normally listen to. The only time really is when I'm playing games, and for that these albums are pretty good. I've got a gaming playlist filled with Shibayan, Pendulum and whatever other electronic stuff I think is conducive to going ham, and these albums fit right in. They're listenable, not every song is a gem - in fact some songs are probably worth skipping every time - but for the most part, they're pretty decent. It's also worth mentioning that since I was actually able to listen to these albums, at the very least they'd have to be fairly accessible (not that I really know enough to comment about accessibility in this genre, but hey). It's interesting to see where doujin music goes when not tied down to sticking to established musical themes. This stuff could easily be played at a party or a club or wherever, and not feel out of place. ★★★☆☆
Eggmun: Shibayan kicks ass. This is the first album I scouted out from C85, because not only is Shibayan consistently good, but also that his last release, Magico, remains my favourite all-time doujin album. Now, Retro Future Girls isn't quite the 'Magico 2' that I was hoping for, but it IS good. Really damn good. Featuring another damn fine Nagi Yanagi song, more nachi doing cute things, and even more Myons, it surely doesn't disappoint. Shibayan opted for (surprise, surprise) a more retro sound in Retro Future Girls. I'd still classify it as nu-disco, but it's definitely toned down the intensity, and is lighter, more disco music than the strong, driving beats of Magico. Super Fine Red, Myon!^7, Spring Rouge and Desert Years are the songs to especially look out for on this album, though the other tracks are still very solid. ★★★★★
Eggmun: Electronic isn't usually TAM's modus operandi, but here we are. The vocalists (KEiNA, Momoko and Yuka) are all pretty good, and the album has a lot of breadth. The first and last tracks are slow, piano and violin duet pieces, and the rest have varying degrees of electronic. If you were to graph intensity against track number, you'd have something that closely resembles a bell curve - although that theory falls on its ass on track 5. Everything else conforms to said bell curve, but 希望の日まで feels incredibly out of place, and it's nothing special. If you were at add this album whole to a playlist, I'd definitely recommend taking that one out, or at least shifting it to the start or end of the album. ★★★☆☆
Eggmun: Here's something fun. Take your standard high BPM touhou electronic music and add a shamisen. Kagura is the traditional dance and music associated with Shinto rituals, and this short little number stays pretty true to that idea. The first three '七つ' tracks are Kagura/electronic. The first and third have some sugaru jamisen business (ala Yoshida Brothers) going down, and have got me hooked on the idea of high bpm electro+shamisen. They go really well together. The last track is a bit more traditional, no crazy BPM or synths going on there, it's just a nice neo-traditional piece. I'm not sure what's going on with the fourth track, it doesn't fit at all - but that's not to say it's bad. Overall, this album is really fun, but unfortunately it's almost exactly like the Tutti Sound release in that in total it's 15½ minutes across 5 songs. I'd really like some more of this, and I'll be on the lookout for it for sure. ★★★★☆
Eggmun: Electronic may not be the best category for this, but I'd say it mostly falls under electronic more than it fits in any of the other few categories you could argue it belongs in. Anyway, this album covers a lot of ground: there's orchestral sections, eurobeat sections, metal sections, trance sections, a ridiculous cutesy 3L song, and several other subgenres of electronic that I'm unable to name. I only put this here to provide a bit of balance to this post, and because it's such a broad album, I'd wager that most people reading this would find something to like in it. Aside from the 3L song, I'd say that none of the songs are really that bad for their respective genres. But none of them are particularly good either, so it's basically the definition of mediocre: 50%. Thus rounding to: ★★★☆☆
What mythical creature is this? An update!?
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot, I for one welcome - err, am grateful for the work you guys put into this!
No puns allowed.
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