TOP 3 ALBUMS OF 2010: #3-1

Is your body ready?

Best albums of 2010: #10-4

Continued from last post.

I haven't been updating a lot recently: Top 20 albums of 2010 (current opinion) #20-11

I know this blog's existence is solely for fueling this silly fantasy that someone might give a shit about my poorly written opinion's on music, but I should at least try to make an effort to post something every now and then.

So, today, I'm going to make a general list of my top 20 albums of 2010 at this moment in time. This list is not solely doujin music, as Comiket 79 hasn't even come to an end yet, and, I'll be honest: I have only listened to maybe 50 or so albums from C78 out of disinterest. I have went on a spree back during 77, so I have a better grasp of what I do and do not like, which slashes down the albums I listen to considerably, but even then, I still took chances with many types of music outside of the doujin scene this year, so let's see what it boils down to.

Let's get this show on the road. This is my personal (at the moment) list of best albums of 2010:


20 to 11:

minimum electric design - 少女は電気河童の夢を見る

minimum electric design

少女は電気河童の夢を見る

[minimum electric design; 2010]

3.9

Matsui has released five works (if the catalog numbers on his site are to be assumed accurate). To not muck up after this many albums is pretty impressive, since most circles drop the ball at least once by their third. The way he would fail, however, was impossible to predict. He never once struck me as someone who would work well (or consider) pairing up with a vocalist, but on his latest EP released at Comiket 78, ルミコルミヲ performs vocals in three of the five songs. Although not even grating like many of the female vocal in doujin music (for example, 95% of them), her delivery isn't much better, and taken in as a whole scope, probably even worse than the eight billion so-sugary-moe-you're-choking-on-your-own-glucagon singers that poke their heads out of the woodwork come every mid August and late December.

The first gripe I have with ルミコルミヲ is that she sounds so tired and passionless, almost like she was forced against her own will to participate with matsui's most recent creative output. Her raspy vocal performance in 少女は電気河童の夢を見る sounds like she hasn't slept in four days and just got back from finishing a triple work shift. Her deadpan performance in とある紅茶と非日常 do not blend in with his samba rhythms and acoustics, and no matter what language your song is in, having "loo-la-loo-la"s as part of your lyrics is a fucking unpardonable sin, and there is no detectable effort in her tone and pitch to try to get into a groove with the instrumentals in 四季折々. However, matsui is also at fault. Take for example the song I have formerly mentioned. It feels like he was under the impression that because ルミコルミヲ was singing (or talking depending on how much credit you're willing t give her) on this EP, he felt that he could slack off. Personally, I wouldn't be fazed if the reason he got the aid of a singer was to meet a deadline and to avoid having to complete songs that were probably only half-finished. 胎動する sounds like a cool demo until you realize it is only a minute long song, and 今此処に在る隙間 is missing all the bells and whistles of what made his first LP border-lining on brilliance.

少女は電気河童の夢を見る is a tragedy after 幻想郷 Electronic Shoegazer and sanae telegraph. Granted, the C78 release wasn't a xerox of either of the two, which is worth some credit, but not enough to pardon the poor execution. Maybe if we're lucky, matsui has learned his lesson from this instance and will think twice about getting a vocalist, or perhaps will collaborate with someone who isn't so damn apathetic about it.

My super secret zero readers blog is now in peril

Mushi/Lumpy/Musique Concrète - A Bug, Touhou, and Strawberry Jam

Mushi/Lumpy/Musique Concrète
A Bug, Touhou, and Strawberry Jam

[Mushi/Lumpy/Musique Concrète; 2010]

7.6



No, I ain’t bullshitting. t+pazolite’s Lumpy circle really did making a third release over three years after A Bug, Touhou, and Melon Soda (Hydrocyanic Acid), the ying to Honey Milk’s yang. I’m not sure what brought it on, but according to the broken and inaccurate translations provided by babelfish, I think it had something to do with a get together with various other circles and booze. The first album was breakcore, the second was ambient noise, so one would expect a theme with their first release in the new decade. However, there is no set sound. Sure, we get some breakcore and ambient, but we also get swing, hardstyle, and whatever the fuck one would call Shitty Night (Derpcore comes to mind).

We also have a wider cast of arrangers from various circle’s making their first (and probably only venture) into the wacky world of Lumpy, including REDALiCE (ALiCE’S EMOTION), Tainokobone (Azure&Sands), oiko (N-Tone), and Dobu Usagi (dBu Music). We also have many familiar faces such as circle founders t+pazolite, Yuuna Sasara, and ziki_7, along with LV.4 (CODE-49) who appeared in Melon Soda back in May 2007.

This is Lumpy’s most assessable and friendly to newcomers due to it’s wider variety. Fans of dBu Circle will be appeased with tHe minD aNalyzeR, a jazzy swing arrangement of Satori Maiden ~ 3rd eye that rewards attentive listeners with very subtle ambient soundscapes that could easily be missed in the first five listens. Those that have been yearning for two ZUN tracks in one song will have their thirst quenched by t+pazolite’s Luv the lUNatic??, a spastic drill and bass track that Christian’s the a perfect marriage of Hartmann's Youkai Girl and U.N. Owen was Her?. Fans of Deep Forest back on Honey Milk will find much to celebrate about its spiritual successor Cherry Blossom Underground (Lovely Mound of Cherry Blossoms ~ Flower of Japan), which is also done by ziki_7.

Personal highlights include the two arrangements of Stirring an Autumn Moon ~ Mooned Insect. Yuuna Sasara’s バグレイディオ is a four and a half minute track that sums up everything I loved about Honey Milk with melodic glitch, instrumental rolls, and breakneck breaks, and Tainokobone’s 熱すぎて触れない虫 is the closest attempt I have heard at recreating Board’s of Canada’s sound with a downtempo beat, surreal ambient soundscapes, and a melancholy guitar a la The Campfire Headphase. If it had a hazier sound, you might have been actually able to pass it off as a work by the fame Scottish duo and trick a few diehards.

There are many brilliant arrangements here. However, you (yes, YOU. The only reader who has visited since whenever this highly neglected blog was made) are probably asking “why only a 7.6? If it’s really so awesome, why not give it an undeserved 9.2 with BNM on the sheer basis of it not being trance shit like you always do with “unique” releases”? That’s because what’s really good isn’t quite good enough to forgive A Bug, Touhou, and Strawberry Jam’s sins. The two weakest tracks hit you like a one-two punch by Mike Tyson.

Shitty Night, although humorous and whatisthisidon’teven worthy within the first two or so listens, is a novelty that wears off, mostly considering of samples of men fart, grunting, shitting (hurr get it), and wet stools reaching the bottom of the toilet bowl. Perhaps the worst part about the song is that you THINK they’re sampling infamous noise punk group The Gerogerigegege’s Night EP, but they aren’t. Still, if you need a cheap laugh to shut up the eight year-old boy within you, then hearing Gensokyo Millennium ~ History of the Moon recreated with bodily functions will satisfy your craving. REDALiCE’s state-of-the-art is two-thirds passable, and one-third more obnoxious than Shitty Night. You know that faux-pas ethnic electro sound people use to mock bad techno? Imagine that but it being an arrange of Mystic Oriental Dream ~ Ancient Temple and outside of the realms of parody. The album comes to a close with oiko’s drill-saturated arrangement of Septette for the Dead Princess Degeneration, and seeing as we already got the brilliant micro-sampling dnabgib kaerB back four years ago from the same circle, it already suffers by being in the shadows of the zenith of Doujin music, ultimately making it the weakest and most forgettable track.

Then we have some tracks that are immediate dividers. ziki_7’s London Bridge is droning ambient with noise for the first album that develops into a Schizophrenic collage of sounds and buried beats, all of which make a track that sounds nothing like The Bridge People No Longer Cross. LV.4’s Collapse Day completely flips the mood of Fires of Hokkai upside down, turning it into the quietest song from UFO into an epileptic fit.

A Bug, Touhou, and Strawberry Jam is not an album that will appeal to everyone, but most will find one track they like, so it’s not a complete waste of time looking into it. It’s clocks in at a rather standard 45 minute length, and showcases ten sounds from eight artists placing at least a foot outside of their comfort zones. This is what happens when artists bullshit around. The result is more fascinating than that of their "professional" works. People are quick to embrace or reject it.

MA.S ATTACK - 珍時怪異

MA.S ATTACK
珍時怪異
[MA.S ATTACK; 2009]
9.6









Not all doujin music is UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ. Not all doujin music is guitars and cliché metal riffs and the SSKKKKKRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE that is in every Dragonforce song that minami has adopted from time to time. Not all doujin music has the prominent melody delivered by a vocalist (or a semi-realistic computer program). There are some out there that ignore the popular trends in the scene they have anchored themselves into and called their home. Upon listening to the opening track of 珍時怪異, MA.S ATTACK newcomer (or one-shot artist) ユタカナウシロ is already awkwardly out of place once you realize he’s in the same scene as circles such as the hard rock/heavy metal circles like CROW'SCLAW and IRON ATTACK!, the hardcore figureheads such as t+pazolite and REDALiCE, and the unbearably quirky IOSYS.

珍時怪異 is the very rare Touhou arrange album you might get two or three of released at Comiket that averts what everyone else is doing in such a drastic way you would be hesitant to lump together the aforementioned artists, or swear that ユタカナウシロ is from a different continent altogether. Ambient techno is already rare in the doujin scene, but to hear someone take a stab at the genre and make it so thick in texture is like witnessing a miracle of the universe. Take Spring Rain, for example. Ambient drones, the leading melody, glitch, various beats and breaks, and shit tons of other sounds that are along for the ride. It’s in the same realms as 青空の影へ, but contradicts the minimalist beauty of the opening track with the busyness of a well-oiled machine. 雲の閉ざせし路は has three or four different breakbeats at once molding together to create a single entity. 幽霊客船へようこそ has the busiest moments on the album with enough ambiance at once that could be separated to create two or three tracks. It appears so simple while being densely layered.

Even fans of more intense and faster music have something rejoice over. The chaotic dreamy glitch of エソテリア-prototype- proves to be on par in abrasiveness as some of the tracks you would find on PURE EXISTENCE and Speed Ball Z. After the last five tracks, ユタカナウシロ’s final track Rich Umbrella sucker punches you in the gut with harsh distorted bass and noisy synth melodies while still holding on tightly to the ambiance of previous tracks. The last two tracks are both arranges of Interdimensional Voyage of a Ghostly Passenger Ship. モリタ’s helluva fun arrange contrasts with 幽霊客船へようこそ’s dub-inspired ambient with glitchy breaks and a clean piano providing the melody at a hurried pace, and NEET師匠’s resembles a mixture of the Sonic CD GST and the Reading Rainbow opening.

The production and mixing would make 95% of the circles out there embarrassed or envious of ユタカナウシロ. There is so much activity, but every little piece is audible and easy to find with a little focus. The layering of so many sounds waiting to be found is what makes this album so much damn fun to return to. If you treat the last two tracks as bonuses and don’t let it bother you that one song is arranged three times on the same album, this is about as close to a perfect Touhou arrange album can get. 珍時怪異 is a brilliant rarity, mixed and produced with the utmost love and care.