Touhoupop

Your questionably accurate guide to dōjin music

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fwiw I'm working on a new intro to Touhou doujin music with a friend that should exist in both video form and as a convention panel.

Well, "working."

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A profoundly mid performance, but as promised, now you too can watch me get absolutely owned by the audio levels!

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As long as this blog is active again, there's an oddity I found crawling through old vgmdb credits. I'd never heard of forestpireo before, but it seems like everyone who was anyone in the 2010s doujin scene was on a forestpireo album at one point, like a baffling level of talent for a circle that seems so obscure, at least from the perspective of... a random observer from the English-speaking internet, over a decade later. Do you have any idea how that happened?

Zero idea. I'm guessing they're just really good at networking. Even their official member list is pretty long – a true circle-like circle.

Their homepage in 2008 was pretty fancy for a doujin circle with a bespoke Flash media player for their crossfades (which are of course broken now, thanks). Maybe they also had money? I sorta doubt that's it. I can imagine mastering and album art would be commission work for circles which don't include people who could do those things, but my read on the culture is that asking an appearance fee for contributing a song would be un-doujin (and bad business – it'd punish failure for small circles and success for big circles). The community seems to take the "you shouldn't be in this for money" principle pretty seriously, so I imagine most of the time circles just share the profits, but I don't really know much about the business side. It's a big blind spot in my knowledge.

(also I'm always active, just not posting – anyone is always free to send whatever they want)

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fwiw I'm working on a new intro to Touhou doujin music with a friend that should exist in both video form and as a convention panel.

Well, "working."

[touhoupop]

I'm also not sure what to do with the Alstroemeria Records series, because when I started there were less than 50 albums. Minoshima is currently on ARCD85. Whoops. I still kinda think the project should be encyclopedic in aspiration, if it even makes sense to speak of a project anymore, but I'm…no longer thinking of strictly marching one-by-one up the chronology anymore.

Notionally, the list of album writeups I definitely want to do is like

>Chronologically up to Lovelight >Exserens >Fragment Reactions >Plastik World >Double Counterpoint >The first three Dancehall albums >POP | CULTURE, mostly to bitch about the whole series >The EDs he did for Nyaruko-chan with REDALiCE >idk probably some of his post-Dancehall, post-Pop Culture work like So Many Colors and Horizontal Connections?

The plan would be to listen to each album, do a little background research, and decide whether I want to actually write anything about it. The problem is that there are wide swaths of ALR's discography that suck – and even some of the albums I like probably aren't gonna be worth writing at any length about. Right now I'm listening to Structured Dancehall because I discovered I literally hadn't re-listened to the whole thing since it came out, and guess what? It was pretty good the whole time. But man…it's Another Dancehall Album. What I'm saying right now is the whole of what I have to say about it. It'd just be me pointing out tracks I like. Maybe that's worthwhile?

There's also the idea that I could do like…a History of Alstroemeria Records video or something that covers the whole sweep, and I might still do that.

[touhoupop]

fwiw I'm working on a new intro to Touhou doujin music with a friend that should exist in both video form and as a convention panel.

Well, "working."

[touhoupop]

I didn't even know I created a tumblr but I guess I did when I was 13. Anyway I hope you still exist. I need help, in regards to "tohou dojin" genre or whatever. I've never liked any music really. Until I discovered touhou dojin, or more specifically a vocalist who goes by "Ayakura Mei". 136 songs I could find sung by her. I'm very grateful to have found this many but I crave more. Are you able to help me out with this?

I do exist!

Your best bet will be vgmdb, which as far as I'm aware, is still the most complete database of Touhou doujin music. You can find Mei Ayakura's page here.

You'll probably find most of the songs listed there on youtube (or maybe Spotify? I don't use it myself), but for the rest, you can try either doujinstyle or the Touhou Lossless Music Collection. These are currently the two best maintained pirated Touhou music archives that I'm aware of.

Good hunting!

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This is a track which Nomico and Nachi seem to have commissioned from Linjin (Zytokine) for a live performance, and which they sold together at the most recent Comiket. Did this really need to be translated? Nope. It’s not even Touhou technically so does it really belong on this blog? But here we are.

I like their anime OCs. They’re cute.

Lyrics under Read More.

いつかどこかで聴いたような itsuka doko ka de kiita you na 懐かしい光を感じてた natsukashii hikari wo kanjiteta 耳に残ったままのフレーズ mimi ni nokotta mama no fureezu 心震わせてる kokoro furuwaseteru

Nachi: I felt a familiar light, like I’d heard somewhere before. It left a phrase in my ears. My heart is atwitter.

出口の見えない闇の中 deguchi no mienai yami no naka 独り彷徨い続けては hitori samayoi tsudzukete wa 歌い続けたあのフレーズ utaitsudzuketa ano fureezu 今も覚えてる ima mo oboeteru

Nomico: To this day I remember the phrase I kept singing as I wandered alone amidst a pathless dark.

何個分の一の nangobun no ichi no 偶然だけど必然 guzen dakedo hitsuzen 出会った意味が今は deatta imi ga ima wa わからなくても wakaranakutemo

Nomico: This is just a chance among chances, Nachi: yet it was inevitable. Nomico: I don’t know why it was we met, Together: but…

終わらない夢 owaranai yume 終わらない愛 owaranai ai 終わらない歌 owaranai uta 響かせよう！ hibikaseyou! 瞬間全ては奇跡 shunkan subete wa kiseki 心と心今合わせて kokoro to kokoro ima awasete

Together: Our endless dreams our endless love, our endless song: let them all ring! Every moment is a miracle. We’re together heart-to-heart.

想像以上の未来へと souzou ijou no mirai e to 新しい歌聴こえるよ atarashii uta kikoeru yo 果てしなく続く旅路も hate shinaku tsudzuku tabiji mo 重なるのならもう怖くない kasanaru no nara mou kowakunai 歌おう utaou

Together: We can hear a new song coming from a future beyond our dreams. We no longer fear if the endless journey should go on. Let us sing!

Lalala〜˚✧₊⁺˳✧༚

独り返すだけの毎日に hitori kaesu dake no mainichi ni まるで色を重ねるように maru de iro wo kasaneru you ni 耳に残ったままのフレーズ mimi ni nokotta mama no fureezu 心踊らせてる kokoro odoraseteru

Nomico: A phrase was left in my ear, as though to add color upon color to these days which only ever end alone. My heart dances.

初めて会った気がしないね hajimete atta ki ga shinai ne いつだって不思議に感じてた itsu datte fushigi ni kanjiteta 歌い続けたあのフレーズ utaitsudzuketa ano fureezu どこへ行くのだろう doko e yuku no darou

Nachi: I don’t feel like we only just met. That phrase I always sung felt so mysterious. I wonder where we’re going

何個分の一の nangobun no ichi no 偶然だけど必然 guzen dakedo hitsuzen 出会った意味が今は deatta imi ga ima wa わからなくても wakaranakutemo

Nachi: This is just a chance among chances, Nomico: yet it was inevitable. Nachi: I don’t know why it was we met, Together: but…

変わらない夢 kawaranai yume 変わらない愛 kawaranai ai 変わらない歌 kawaranai uta 響かせよう！ hibikaseyou! ときめく全てが素敵 tokimeku subete ga suteki 心と心今一つに kokoro to kokoro ima hitotsu ni

Together: Our eternal dreams our eternal love, our eternal song: let them all ring! Everything which sparkles is wonderful! Our hearts are now one.

これから出会う世界へと kore kara deau sekai e to これからの歌届けたい kore kara no uta todoketai 果てしなく続く旅路を hate shinaku tsudzuku tabiji wo 照らす勇気だけを伝える akirasu yuuki dake wo tsutaeru メロディー melody

Together: We want to reach out towards this song, towards whatever world awaits: a melody to show our shining courage on our endless journey to eternity!

想いを重ねて歌いたい omoi wo kasanete utaitai

Together: I want to sing all my feelings.

例え君が見えなくても tatoe kimi ga mienakute mo ずっと歌いたい zutto utaitai 聴こえますか？ kikoemasu ka?

Nomico: Even if I can no longer see you, Nachi: I just want to sing. Together: Can you hear us?

終わらない夢 owaranai yume 終わらない愛 owaranai ai 終わらない歌 owaranai uta 響かせよう！ hibikaseyou! 瞬間全ては奇跡 shunkan subete wa kiseki 心と心今合わせて kokoro to kokoro ima awasete

Together: Our endless dreams our endless love, our endless song: let them all ring out! Every moment is a miracle. We’re together heart-to-heart.

想像以上の未来へと souzou ijou no mirai e to 新しい歌聴こえるよ atarashii uta kikoeru yo 果てしなく続く旅路も hate shinaku tsudzuku tabiji mo 重なるのならもう怖くない kasanaru no nara mou kowakunai 歌おう utaou

Together: We can hear a new song coming from a future beyond our dreams. We no longer fear if the endless journey should grow too much. Let us sing!

Lalala〜˚✧₊⁺˳✧༚

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Retrospective Touhou: Alstroemeria Records Part n.11: Blue Note

In August 2006, at Comiket 70, Alstroemeria Records released its first full vocal album.

To the world, Alstroemeria Records is forever a vocal arrangement circle.  Their early, predominantly instrumental work is (fan) culturally irrelevant. Minoshima’s next best-of album after this (Exserens) will be almost entirely vocal, even though he will release plenty of instrumental work between here and there. It all starts here.

Why is that? I’m gonna save that discussion for another album down the line. Instead, let’s talk about Nomico.

Nomiko Kase in 2006 was a little bit like Ayaka without the cosplay gravure angle. She was a theater kid in high school, and kept honing her acting skills in community theater well into the 2000s. Her true dream seems to have been to break into the anime industry as a voice actress and singer. After debuting as the backing chorus in the opening of some PS2 game, she worked here and there in the doujin world until in 2006, she got a break. Her anime debut came that spring in Majipokan as Jun: a pink carrot-shaped…bunny? I guess? A few months after recording Blue Note, she’d appear again as a gag idol character named Anone Kobukuro in Kujibiki Unbalance, who randomly shows up in a truck to give a guerilla performance of a song that’s just her saying “ano ne” over and over again.

This would conclude her career as an anime voice actress.

I’m not sure what derailed her anime ambitions (read: I’m still doing internet archaeology piecing it together), but her doujin career was just beginning.

Her partnership with Minoshima opens with the track Crystallize Silver, which…is not a particularly inspiring performance.

This is mostly Minoshima’s fault. Nomico becomes a very good and distinctive vocalist in my opinion, but at this point in her career, she’s not the most accurate singer, and she’s being asked to sing notes that are definitely just a bit out of her range. They’re both learning.

But it’s a really nice track, and it represents a new style for Minoshima. This is chill, laid back j-pop. This isn’t a style Minoshima will revisit all that much, but he uses many techniques – for instance, a kind of vocal processing – that he certainly will. Nomico’s other track on the album – Shanghai Alice in 1884 – lets Nomico’s qualities as a vocalist come through a bit more clearly. It almost seems like she has a lisp when she pronounces s-line syllables, which I’d guess is a conscious affectation.

It’s actually kinda impressive how sharp a break this is from his previous work. You can absolutely hear echoes of it in tracks like Voyage 1969 from Nite Versions, but it still takes me a bit aback.

Of course, Nomico’s not the only artist on this album. Ayaka has three solo tracks: one in the same laid back mood as Nomico with totally inscrutable Engrish lyrics, and the other two as happy hardcore. Minoshima isn’t really a happy hardcore producer, but he makes a stab at it, and so does Ayaka. Masterspark is kinda weak, but Ancient Temple is such dumb off-key bullshit that it’s…actually kinda charming. It’s the worst thing Ayaka has ever done, and also the best.

But Ayaka wasn’t just singing on this album: she was also writing all the lyrics. I quite like them. She loves seasonal imagery, which complements the mood in Nomico’s two tracks very well. This is music for women taking a walk through a slice of Japan sheltered away in 1884, where people don’t have anything to do all day but look at nature and write poetic love letters to each other using nature metaphors like it’s the Heian period. And then get beat up by some redwhite jackass because a 500 year old teenager decided to fuck up the weather.

She doesn’t get another chance to write lyrics, because this is her last work with Minoshima.

It’s very obvious why. I just hope that there weren’t any hurt feelings. She disappeared from the cosplay world in 2007 too, and nobody seems to know what she’s doing these days. As much shit as I’ve given her for not being able to sing, let it be known that this is an Ayaka Matsunaga support blog.

Instead, from his next vocal album until 2015, Minoshima’s lyrics will be mostly written by Haruka, whose moodiness will come to define Alstroemeria Record’s lyrical aesthetics. But I think Ayaka shows how it could’ve been different.

The last (real) track on the album is a duet between Ayaka and Nomico, and is the one I’ve uploaded. It’s a happy hardcore tune set to the melody of Sakura, Sakura, and shows off both vocalists quite well. It also shows off a vocal technique that Minoshima will use in the similar Suwa Foughten Field on Harmony, and it sounds just as good here.

Blue Note shows off a lot of good things tbh

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Retrospective Touhou: Alstroemeria Records Part n.11: Nite Versions

Reitaisai being fairly close to Comiket, Minoshima did not decide to do another triple release for RTS3. Nite Versions was his only release, which he sold that May alongside the very first Cytokine album and IOSYS’ first foray into Touhou. God help me, there may come a day when I talk about all three of those albums in more detail, but it is not today; it will not be tomorrow either.

Nite Versions takes a step back from all the trance Minoshima put out at C69 and mostly explores a few varieties of house. Ghostly Eyes, Night Bird, and Voyage 1969 are all…I guess you’d have to call it progressive house, because they’re all way too light and melodic to be tech house. Night Bird is closest to that end of the spectrum, with Voyage 1969 and its funk guitar sample and Korg M1 piano VST verging closer to disco house at first. It’s all pretty low key, and all quite nice.

On the other hand, there are also two tracks which according to the recently issued 3rd edition of the Electronic Music Genre Standards and Classifications Consortium Guide are probably classified as “filthy electrohouse.” I’m not quite satisfied with that, but I’ll leave the hair splitting to qualified electronic music taxonomists. I’d rather not get into it at all, but nobody’s put this album on youtube I'll put it all up eventually. I can’t just link you the songs; I have to actually explain them.

Anyway, between the two, Dreams of Springwind is way better in my opinion. Forsaken Doll feels discordant in ways I don’t think are intentional. They, along with two guitar-centered tracks that I don’t much care for, and two nice chillout pieces to round things out, complete the album. I’d compare it to MAI from 2004 for both its overall quality and its focus on house and techno rather than trance. I liked MAI quite a bit, so consider that an endorsement.

Minoshima put out so much material in 2005 that it’s easy to forget that he’s only been regularly releasing albums at this point for about a year. 2004 had two albums; 2005 had five. There aren’t many artists who release as much material a year as the most active Touhou doujin music producers. It’s kinda nuts. No wonder they put out inconsistent work from time to time. It makes it all the more impressive that the last few albums have all been so good.

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Retrospective Touhou: Alstroemeria Records Part n.10: Lily of the Incas

This is the third album of the three Alstroemeria Records released at C69. It has two CDs: a best-of selection, and a live set. As funny as it is that Minoshima was already releasing best-of compilations, the live set is what interests me the most.

-and you can tell it’s really live because Minoshima’s PowerBook bonks at him about 2m44s into the second track!

It was recorded at the very first Touhou Carnival: a live event put on by DJ Technetium. He was around the doujin music scene from the very beginning and was a founding member of Hardcore Tano*C. It was held September 3rd, 2005 at Nakano Heavy Sick Zero, and featured:

>Minoshima alongside Ayaka >a super obscure artist named Tomoe Mizuki >Hase and good ol’ Betwixt&Between together as RaverRose >Beat Mario (of course) >another somewhat obscure but still semi-active artist named Spelunker >DJ Technetium himself.

I’m not sure it was the first Touhou live event, but it was certainly an early one.

And it looks like a totally good time!

This video is actually of Touhou Carnival 3, but at the very end you see Minoshima and Ayaka performing Force of 60 Years – which was also a part of this set. Ayaka’s…even worse live, but hey, she’s doing her best!

It’s kinda funny that this was recorded only months before Minoshima would record Bad Apple!! with Nomico.

It’s hard for me not to feel a bit romantic about the whole idea. I think it’s normal for people who came along after the fact to feel like this about the imagined early days of a subculture they like, but I really do think it’d have been fun to go to one of these early concerts. As someone who mostly only knows Touhou fandom from online, the very much analog nature of this stage of Japanese Touhou fandom is interesting to me.

There are pictures from the actual events archived on the old site too.

There was video of Beat Mario performing too, but it never got archived properly and is probably lost to the ages. Of course, there is no lack of video of Beat Mario performing on the internet.

There are also a few sketches (not sure whose – I assumed Tats but I’m p. sure that’s not true now), also immortalized by the wayback machine

This one shows Marisa disappointed that the crowd goes wild for HELP ME, ERINNNNNNN! and not LaserMari Is Not Difficult. Note that the vocal version of Help Me, Erin! wasn’t around yet – this audience participation was for the electronic version. The meme gave birth to the song, the song didn’t give birth to the meme.

Anyway, this is a post about Alstroemeria Records.

Minoshima played a good set, which he actually leads off with a really nice orchestral Otokoke Sounds track. Unlike a lot of other Touhou orchestral arrangers, he seems to understand that dynamics exist and you should use them. Whatever VSTs he used sound really good for 2005 too. I almost question whether he managed to record with live instruments. I really gotta research this guy, because he disappears off vgmdb in a year and I want to know what he’s up to.

The rest of the set continues for about 40 minutes, and is pretty basic in terms of actual mixing. This may be shocking, but Minoshima isn’t a turntablist. He’s not up there with his crayons marking off where to drop the needle on the vinyl he doesn’t actually have. What he is doing is playing some neat trance arrangements of Touhou songs for a bunch of nerds like us.

I dunno, I think they enjoyed it.

One final note: the last Touhou Carnival appears to be Touhou Carnival 7 in September 2011. I think the suicide of Betwixt&Between might’ve…understandably derailed things, but that could’ve been just one of many reasons which I can only really guess at, since Technetium never made an announcement. Touhou live music, of course, continues strong as ever.

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Retrospective Touhou: Alstroemeria Records Part n.09: a. aurantiaca

Oh god. Welcome to 2019. Where were we?

Comiket 69…it was Comiket 69, and Minoshima had three releases. The first was a collaboration with the artist circle Cradle alongside many other musicians in the now quite rapidly growing Touhou doujin music community. The third is a live album which I’ll get to in a moment. This – a. aurantiaca – is the second. It’s Phantasmagoria of Flower View themed.

And quite good.

I’ve uploaded the first track, which is a nice, laid back deep house tune that…goes along at a trance-like clip. It’s got a nice Ian Pooley circa Since Then feel to it, minus the guitars and the samples. It’s also absolutely unlike anything else on the rest of the album, which is mostly progressive trance.

Minoshima’s getting pretty good at trance at this point. There are a few tracks where the lead synth line is uncomfortably bright, which is a mixing problem as much as an arrangement choice. Not to worry. Minoshima still puts out tracks that are uncomfortable to listen to, so clearly it takes more than bad mixing to get in the way of a good artist.

There’s variety even among the trance: some of it wants you on the dance floor, and some of it wants you sitting down zoned out listening to the music – in a trance, if you will. Like most of Minoshima’s work from this period, his more melodic and driving tracks do still stay away from lengthy breakdowns, or anything soaring and anthem-like.

Ayaka’s back. She’s been gone since Minna no Moe Uta, but a year and a half later, she’s back, trying very, very hard to sing a Fate of 60 Years arrangement. Like many Fate of 60 Years arrangements, the track has an odd languid feel, and somehow Ayaka’s amateur vocals add to it. Intentional off-key vocals are often a component of denpa, but I’ve never heard a track where the vocalist being legitimately bad adds materially to its atmosphere. It’s almost certainly the best thing she’s ever been featured on.

Her track is prefaced by a cool experimental track, and followed by a downtempo chill out track: both also very good. After two “carnivalize” remixes – which I’ll explain in the next post – the album ends.

And when it ends, I’m left with the impression that this is probably the best album Minoshima had put out by that point in his career. To be fair, it’s been years since I’ve listened to MAI, and the live album he released beside this may be better, so I may not be able to make the call. What’s certain is that this album has no bad tracks, many quite good tracks, and doesn’t drag. This not only makes it a good album for this period in Minoshima’s career, that makes it a good album for anything Minoshima has ever released.

Trivial aside: I’m p. sure this is also the first album where Minoshima worked with Tats for the packaging design.

[touhoupop]

Well that was optimistic.

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Circle Introduction: FELT

Originally Posted: Never, actually. I’m a bit hesitant to post this. BuyDoujin made a quick and dirty Japanese translation for Nagi and MC to review, and I passed along a few questions, but I never did get a reply. I dunno if this is because BuyDoujin never actually sent the email, or FELT never replied, or what, but whatever the case, consider this one an unapproved draft.

The Touhou community both here and abroad has an idiosyncratic way of labeling their music. What precisely are you getting when you click on a crossfade or video labeled “Touhou Vocal?” Will it be prog rock? Will it be electro house? Will it be a madrigal? Who knows? It’s a ～mystery～. But if such a genre really existed, FELT would be one of its reigning champions.

It was 2009 when NAGI☆ (no relation to vocalist Nagi Yanagi) and Maurits ‘ZEN’ Cornelis (a pseudonym) first appeared as guest arrangers on Hatsunetsumiko’s fourth album, Unchained Melody. Maurits has become a regular fixture on Hatsunetsumiko’s albums as both an arranger and as the resident slap bass master, but the most important result of this collaboration was NAGI☆ and Maurits becoming interested in founding their own circle.

About a year later in 2010, after a few months of planning and coordination between NAGI☆ and Tim Vegas over stuff like naming and web hosting, FELT released its first album, Milky Wink. They shared a booth at Reitaisai SP with Hatsunetsumiko’s, just as they shared vocalists and talent. Indeed to this day, Hatsunetsumiko’s is credited on FELT's site as being their "supervisor," but make no mistake: FELT is as much its own entity with its own driving force and personality as Hatsunetsumiko’s.

And what is that driving force? Aside from “Touhou Vocal,” the other word you hear describing FELT – and the one FELT occasionally uses – is “J-Pop.” Specifically, this is music that would not be out of place in an anime opening or ending. At least, that’s the general feeling. The truth is, like most things called “pop,” FELT’s influences span a large breadth.

Despite being separate circles with separate styles, NAGI☆ and Maurits split their tracks in about the same way Tim Vegas and Maurits split them on Hatsunetsumiko’s albums. Both have their own styles and contribute to the overall atmosphere of the album in their own ways.

Maruits, though his understanding of how to construct a cool bassline often shows up and gives his tracks a certain edge, is generally a little bit more experimental on FELT releases than he is elsewhere. For example, Maurits calls Crumbling from Grow Color a mix of metal, funk, and emo. The fact that these three things are not very easy to imagine together is one of the major reasons that FELT is interesting. I can’t blame anyone presented with such an unorthodox blending of techniques from just throwing up their hands and calling it “vocal.”

NAGI☆ shares many of these traits, and since NAGI☆ runs the circle, there’s not much that you can say only about NAGI☆ that doesn’t apply to FELT as a whole. As I said before, FELT is, broadly speaking, pop. It can be a dirty word, but he's very good at making it, and bringing it to life. His work is full of interesting vocal melodies with well thought out rhythms and production decisions.

Beyond that, some early FELT albums have distinct trance influences, and lately, now that Eris remixes are a common fixture on FELT releases, there's also been a very limited amount of trap, electro, and big room house. I'm not entirely sure how Eris became involved with FELT, but they provide a compelling answer to the question of what FELT tracks would sound like with a buildup and drop structure. (Now that I’m not writing for BuyDoujin, I can safely say that this is not a question I ever wanted answered, but hey. You do you, FELT.)

The third pillar of FELT’s success is its vocalists: Vivienne, Maika, and Mika. Very little is known about them, as none of them use social media. NAGI☆ and Maurits, when asked, usually joke that Vivienne is “a Frenchwoman living in Osaka,” and say very little at all about Maika. All we really know is that they’re both excellent vocalists, whose ranges give NAGI☆ and Maurits many options, and whose charisma is one of the defining features of the FELT aesthetic. Vocals are very important to FELT, and they always take special care to consider the quirks of the vocalist they’re writing for. This attentiveness to detail is part of what makes their work shine.

Their collective skill has won them many fans, both in Japan and elsewhere, and I doubt that they’ll stray from the current path too far in the future. The motivating force behind FELT has always been to write whatever kind of tracks they find interesting, and given just how much they find interesting, the likelihood of FELT suddenly going in a completely different direction is unlikely. Whatever the case, FELT has done nothing if not improved over the years, and this is one trend which I’m sure we’ll all be happy to see continue.

For more English-language information about new FELT releases when they come around, keep checking in here.

(Where “here” now means “touhoupop” and not “BuyDoujin”)

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Circle Introduction: hatsunetsumiko’s

Originally Posted: July 2016 This one was really fun because Tim Vegas gave me a massive amount of feedback to my first draft and answered questions.

How do you translate「発熱巫女～ず」?

“Hatsunetsumiko’s” is a perfectly fine romanization, but if you did want to translate it, would you write ”Burnin’ Hot Shrine Maidenz?”

“Feverish Miko~s?”

I dunno. Maybe it should be "Burnin’ Hot Shrine Maidennnz” with a bunch of Ns because of the tilde.

It seems like a simple question, but when you try to get into it, the answer turns out to be not very simple at all.

The same goes for hatsunetsumiko’s music. What would you call their current style? Electro Funk? Nu-Soul? Nu-Disco, even? All of those are kinda true, but none of them are quite true. Tim Vegas says he’s got a lot of very firm tastes behind his music, but doesn’t like to talk about them. In fact, he says he seems to forget all about them afterwards. Part of this is because it’s very difficult to talk about music in any language besides music itself, but another part is that he wouldn’t want to limit the number of ways people can interpret his music. After all, one of the reasons he likes making doujin music as much as he does is because he gets to hear the reactions of his listeners.

2008’s Synchronicity is his first album by CD number. It’s an odd mix of dramatic orchestral swelling, bossa nova vocals, swing, and straight up rock rhythms, with Condor King joining Tim Vegas on his nylon string guitar. It’s good stuff, but you couldn’t in a million years read hatsunetsumiko’s current style from what he did here. Maybe if you pay close attention you can find some essence that unifies Tim Vegas’ music, but at this point, it seems like he was simply happy to be trying a bunch of different ideas. Luckily, doujin music is the kind of scene that encourages a lot of experimentation.

He began thinking about what he truly wanted the circle to be by the third album, and by the fourth one, Unchained Melody, his feeling around begins to form the basis of the sound his circle is currently known for. This is where his old friends Maurits ‘禅’ Cornellis and NAGI☆ first appear - the first of many times. MZ not only came to contribute his flavor of arrangement from that point forward, but also his excellent bass playing. You cannot do funk without a good bass player - especially slap bass - and boy does he deliver. Even on tracks where he seems to be using a software instrument, his technical knowledge seems to have helped out.

That didn’t stop the experimentation entirely. Back then there were glitchy breaks, straight forward pop (for lack of a better word), heavy guitars (by way of hiro☆yuki), and a lot of something Tim Vegas calls “piano house.” Now to me, being a 90s rave music fan, the words “piano house” have etched in my mind an image of Korg M1 pianos banging out chords to diva vocals, but his vision of piano house is somewhat more sedate. The term seems to point out something completely different in Japanese - it’s almost more like piano trance.

As the circle developed, he became acquainted with and made us of a very large number of talented vocalists. Youka and Chen-U are familiar names today, but narco and capo less so, despite singing some really hard-driving duets early on. Along with Tim Vegas’ tastes, these vocalists have helped shape hatsunetsumiko’s aesthetic over the years.

A lot of hatsunetsumiko’s songs are in English, which isn’t very unusual. What is unusual is that the English, pronunciation aside, is really good. Credit for the English lyrics goes to “Laura April,” which raises a few questions. Tim Vegas is a pseudonym, but Laura April may legitimately be an anonymous westerner working behind the curtains to make cool music with TV. It doesn’t particularly matter who she is though, only that she’s quite good.

I’d say it was right around 2014 and the release of DANCES with WOLVES that hatsunetsumiko’s really dived into funk. It was always there, but that’s when it became to focus. That said, TV isn’t the kind of person to limit himself to only one style, as his past work shows. The funk comes through a bunch of different lenses, showing off his (and, frequently, MZ’s) tastes. They’ve been very successful so far, and all of their albums since DANCES with WOLVES have been various shades of fantastic.

Where will he go from here? I’m not entirely sure. Tim Vegas continues making music because he’s in a place where he can make what he wants and people appreciate it. As long as that remains true, hatsunetsumiko’s will keep going on, doing its thing for eternity – or at least into the indeterminate future. There’s a lot of things TV wants to do – pop arrangements, for instance, and revisiting old material. The difficulty is always time. No matter how much support he has from MZ and his frequent guests, he’s just one person. Doujin music may have started as a hobby, but even if it’s not your job, it certainly seems like it can keep you busy like one.

At any rate, however long Tim Vegas keeps making his music, you’ll be able to find it on BuyDoujin wow that sure was an audacious claim.

[touhoupop]

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.

[kbnet]

Just stumbled upon your Touhou music blog. Do you know what happened to buydoujin? Also, do you still have the articles you wrote for them? I'd be interested in reading them if you do.

I’ve been meaning to repost them for a while now, thanks for reminding me!

I was never able to get in touch with BuyDoujin again after their domain lapsed, but they explained their situation as of January 2017. I hope I’m not committing an indiscretion by sharing some of this, but I also know that there are a lot of people who’d like to know the story.

A husband and wife duo ran the company as a side project, alongside a few other people who helped manage inventory and shipping. The husband did business with the doujin circles and handled the website, while the wife handled the actual logistics. The fact that this was a second job for both of them was what ultimately killed it. BuyDoujin did better than expected, but was still nowhere near profitable enough for them to quit their day jobs. Unfortunately, not long after operation began, various work and life related problems made running the company much more difficult. I began having trouble keeping in touch with them a bit before customers began having trouble with the service.

My knowledge gets sketchy after January 2017. It’s pretty likely that their damaged reputation led to worsening revenue, but I think it also soured their relationship with some artists. This must’ve been a quick process. I remember asking Babbe whether he’d heard from them lately in December 2016, and he said all was fine. It was only in June that he mentioned having trouble with them and decided to pull out. BuyDoujin disappeared not long after. I imagine reduced revenue and possibly things falling apart with artists combined with the unneeded stress of running the business to drive their decision to fold. It honestly wasn’t a surprise to me at all that they closed, though I was surprised that they just up and vanished.

It’s a shame, because circles loved BuyDoujin while times were good. They were making deals with all kinds of people for a while. I think that if things hadn’t gone wrong in their lives so early on, BuyDoujin would still be around. I hope they’re doing alright. I can’t speak for the artists, but I can say that they were never anything less than courteous and fair with me.

[touhoupop]

Visit Original Link

Hey, I’m back-ish! The reason I haven’t been posting on here is because I wanted to make sure not to step on BuyDoujin’s toes, but at this point it seems perfectly safe. (They’re still in touch. More content with them soon™)

This year, Masayoshi Minoshima released not one but two albums on behalf of his vocalist buddies: Loudspeaker for Ayame and Sol et Luna for Mei Ayakura. Did they look at what Shibayan was doing with Nachi and want in on the action too? Who knows? If you’ll recall, this isn’t the first time Minoshima has put out a promo album for a partner. And yet, they didn't see fit to include washed out pictures of Ayakura and Ayame in cheapass bunny maid cosplay, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. It’s almost like that was a terrible idea.

What is for sure is that Mei Ayakura especially deserves recognition for her generally excellent and prolific work not only with Minoshima, but across the doujin music scene. She does not have the range of 3L or the soul of Ranko, but her voice is nonetheless instantly recognizable. This makes her agile across any number of genres, but of course, here you will mostly just find Dutch House and Big Room.

That’s because Minoshima is taking only from his own discography, and mostly just from after Haunted Dancehall. The earliest it goes is Plastik World. Needless to say, this album retreads a lot of the same territory as Exserenseses This Isn/t Best. It’s disappointing, but understandable, because these songs aren’t just rearranged: they’re straight-up rerecorded wth new vocals.

And the vocals sound great! Mei Ayakura has only become stronger since first she appeared, and Minoshima has taken the chance to make some changes to the tracks, mostly for the better. The album starts wth Ancient, marking the second time Minoshima has messed with the track, but he still managed to make it better and not worse. In an ideal world, I may have wanted a new version of R.I.N by ShibayanRecords, but this is fine too. After all, maybe this has simply spared us the spectacle of Shibayan’s meticulous mastering being mangled by Minoshima’s hands.

That’s the downside to a lot of these tracks: Minoshima has no sense of dynamics and apparently could not give less of a shit about cutoff and distortion. And why would he? His music is meant to be played through crappy earbuds on the train to work, or generously, on an out-of-phase club sound system. It’s just a shame it even occasionally washes out Ayakura’s vocals on an album meant to showcase her.

Still, these are mostly excellent re-recordings of tracks that range from great to mediocre, and it all ends in Sol et Luna: easily the best thing Minoshima has written since Lights from Cloud 9. Are the harmonies and chord progressions cheesy as fuck? Damn straight they are, but obviously I have no problem with cheese. You’re reading someone whose main complaint about the doujin music scene is that there’s not enough breakbeat hardcore and Italo House.

Here’s where I say “you should buy it from Diverse Systems,” but nope. Sold out. Hopefully Minoshima reprints a few so I can get my hands on a legit copy myself, but this is the doujin music business. Even Minoshima probably can’t afford to store back catalog if he prints too much. But on the bright side, this is solid proof that Japan recognizes Mei Ayakura for what she’s worth.

(She’s worth a lot)

[touhoupop]

Visit Original Link

Woah.

So, Close Together is a compilation album Alstroemeria Records put together of remixes that’ve been on his albums. Most of them are his own, more of them are REDALiCE’s. It’s pretty standard. Grab it if you want a cleaner version of the ALR Rewind remix of Necro Fantasia that appeared on Abandoned Dancehall.

And then, right in the middle, there’s a door. Through this door is another dimension. Across this other dimension is the year 2008.

And this track.

I’ve never heard Minoshima do such a clear throwback before. ‘S cool.

[vetobendover]

this sounds like it came straight out of the Sonic OVA OST

[touhoupop]

That is…that is true and now I’ll never be able to unhear it.

[touhoupop]

Oh wait, I was randomly listening through some Touhou Raver’s Nest xfds when I found that this track actually was featured on Touhou Raver’s Nest 3. I knew it sounded familiar, but I thought it was just the sample.

Still a really neat throwback regardless.