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I've never played a Touhou but the fans' cover game is on-point

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Immortal Madness 2020 — CROW'S CLAW (Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke)

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Circle Introduction: Crow’s Claw

I’m finally getting around to posting my old BuyDoujin stuff. Originally posted: June 2016

Crow’s Claw has existed forever. They haven’t existed quite as forever as COOL&CREATE or Alstroemeria Records, but as far as doujin circles who are still relevant in 2016 are concerned, Takao “Taka” Kawano - the man behind the circle - is an elder statesman.

How elder? His first album, helpfully named Crow’s Claw (or possibly CROW’SCLAW, if you’re looking for style points), was released in 2004 at M3-13. The album is Final Fantasy arrangements, as were many of the things he worked on in the early days.

This may seem surprising to a modern fan who came to know Crow’s Claw through their Touhou work, but it shouldn’t be. 2004 was an era before Touhou established its hegemony over doujin music, when most releases were arrangements of visual novel and JRPG themes. It was a very different time for Japanese nerd culture. We’re just lucky we never ended up with Taka trying to turrn Tori no Uta into metal. He had the good judgment to go for Type-Moon instead of Key Visual Arts, which suited his sensibilities quite nicely.

The truth is that even though he’s known for his Touhou arrangements, he’s never been married to one franchise to the exclusion of all else. His pre-Touhou work included Final Fantasy and Type-Moon as previously mentioned, besides Ragnarok Battle Offline, and two excellent original albums. More recently, he was one of the very first to see what kind of potential KanColle music had with Iron Bottom Sound in 2013.

Taka performed as a guitarist and guest arranger for many different circles in the early days, and he made friends very quickly. His 2007 album CROW’ZFEST shows as much, showcasing now well known doujin metal artists like Demetori, Myon, and YAMAGEN In fact, this was actually YAMAGEN’s first appearance anywhere that I can discover. It may have been contact with them that drove Taka to release his first Touhou album - Frozen Frog - in the same year.

Since then, he’s made a lot of Touhou albums, and that’s probably what he’s best known for in our English-speaking corner of the doujin music world. More recently – and by “recently,” I mean since 2011 because I have no sense of time – he’s been getting back into original work, and arranging other games as mentioned before.

That’s all slightly beside the point, because as with all doujin artists, what he’s arranging is less important than how he’s arranging it.

In that case, what is Taka’s style in 2016? The answer is, uselessly enough, “It depends on the album.” Like any circle which has been around for so long, Crow’s Claw has tried a lot of different things. If you’re a Crow’s Claw fan, you’re probably thinking “Ah, like his alternative metal vocal albums!” And you’d be right. But Taka would tell you it goes further than that.

I’m not sure just how far this goes back, but he’s made it a point with at least his recent work that each album has a theme. For instance, Indigo Blue and Black Stout (original) makes heavy use of blues rhythms and grooves - something he’s played with many times before, but never for a full album. On the other hand, Seven Wonders of the Lotus Land (Touhou) is 44 minutes of Taka trying to come up with as many ways of structuring a solo as he can. “Particular” is how he described them. I’d say that’s apt.

Interestingly, he’s also taken it upon himself to help teach other doujin artists all the mixing and recording techniques he’s picked up during his long career, publishing informational books and hosting mixing competitions. He himself remastered much of his older catalog back in 2009 with Original Intention. Taka is an excellent musician, but his early work had questionable mixing at best, and Original Intention makes those tracks shine. They serve as a watermark to how far he’s come.

I’d say his interest in mixing and recording techniques is part of a broader interest in musical techniques in general. He’s one of the few doujin artists I follow on twitter who frequently talks about his process when composing and arranging. Do you want to know how he constructed the meter for a track from a half-decade old album? Because Taka would very much like to tell you all about it in great detail. That is, so long as you speak Japanese.

As for information in English, we’ve got you covered for that. You can browse through some of Crow’s Claw’s more recent work on our site lol not anymore! and of course, we’ll have details about his next album when it’s available well, we did. It’s difficult to say what someone like Taka will try next, but whatever it is, it’ll probably be worth checking out.

Epilogue: On March 3rd, 2017, Taka announced on his blog that Crow’s Claw was going inactive.

Actually that’s not right. He announced Crow’s Claw is no longer active as a circle which will show up to events and put out full length albums on physical CD three or so times a year. He still posts music online every now and then, when he has something to share.

To paraphrase his post: When he began the circle, he figured he’d make three or so albums and move on. Cut to ten years later, and he’s made dozens. Recently though, he simply felt like he’d done everything he wanted to do. In fact, he believed his three 2016 albums alone exemplified all the qualities he wanted to put in his own work. It’s not hard to see why. Seven Wonders of the Lotus Land is an excellent riff showcase. Soundtrack of the Fairy Tale plays around with different styles and production techniques. Tsuioku no Sacrament is a solid alternative metal/post grunge vocal album. From there, Taka didn’t know where to go, and he didn’t want to just show up to Comiket each year with reprints of his old work. That’s why he decided to move on to the next thing.

Nowadays, Taka spends a lot of his free time hiking and climbing mountains. It seems like he’s having a good time. Check out some of the cool pics on his blog. True to his word though, he’s been posting tracks every now and then on youtube. What has he been posting?

Why, Fate arrangements of course!

Looks like 2004 is here to stay.

#crow's claw #touhou music #doujin music #touhou #I guess it's a circle eulogy now

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Hey, I wrote something about Crow’s Claw for BuyDoujin. It’s technically an advertorial, but there are only one or two things I’d have changed were I writing it for @touhoupop instead.

Taka says that there’s nobody who writes about this stuff in Japanese that he knows about, so he was kinda exited that someone in the English speaking world of all places would try to document doujin circles.

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