Hardcore Technique - DJ Technorch - Gothic System ~Trancecore meets Gabber~

DJ Technorch
Gothic System ~Trancecore meets Gabber~
[2005; Hardcore Technique]

9.3

No, I am not reviewing the remixes, because they could be their own separate release, and honestly, I don’t feel like analyzing five versions of Gothic System when there are eight tracks made by the man who single-handedly got me interested in doujin music: DJ Technorch. After listening to his free downloads, I went through a Japanese Hardcore Techno faze which took around two or so months to snap out of, only to realize that most of it is generic and all of it doesn’t even deserve to be placed under the same classification as anything DJ Technorch has made, much less have the honor to piss a urinal away from the man.

Gothic System ~Trancecore Meets Gabber~ is the first full-release album by DJ Technorch, featuring eight glorious tracks that still srand unparalleled by not only the hardcore techno scene, but the whole doujin community as a whole, and five remixes you wouldn’t bat an eye at as soon as you separate them from the preceeding tracks so as they don’t get dirt on the real meat of the CD, which I will at times find myself repeating after finishing. What separates Gothic System from your average hardcore techno release is that it’s not just hardcore and no song can be pigeonholed into one genre. The Cosmosmith opens up quietly and slowly unveils itself with fast, intense melodies and breakbeats, all the while losing none of its tranquility. The minimal oddball Machine’s EXtream boarders between ambient techno and psychedelic experimentation.

While many “J-Core” artists will constantly bust out the “HARDCORE NEVA DIES”, you can find Technorch sampling speeches by Malcolm X over breaks accompanied by low-tone piano chords in opening 極楽鳥 (Oldskool Mix). Title track Gothic System keeps repetition fresh through effectors, turning a normal synth melody into something fluid and lucid. Even the drum machine-centric 暗転 leaves a number of producers in the dust. PARANOiA TCN 〜Dirty Mix〜, a definite nod to the KCET mix from 2nd Mix Plus, is the most traditional remix of PARANOiA we have had in years from someone who has been apart of any Bemani project.

No song tries to be a Hardcore anthem or displays passive Tourettes through sampling.  DJ Technorch is a man who goes on producing songs and ignoring the trends, the tired tropes, the clichés that swallow up many of the “artists” today in the hardcore techno scene. Even on an off day, Technorch can still take groups and artists like DJ Sharpnel and P*Light to school and even leave competents like REDALiCE, M-Project, USAO, and kors k a damn good lesson. Gothic System ~Trancecore Meets Gabba~ is one of the very few doujin releases that I can point at saying "this album as got balls", throwing in minimal, ambient, and hardcore onto the same compact disc. If you start out with J-Core with this artist like I did, you will be most likely setting yourself up for heartbreak if you're pinheaded enough to find someone like him.

CPY - CPY～はじめてのサンプルCD～

CPY

CPY～はじめてのサンプルCD～

[CPY; 2010]
0.0

















Regardless of how bad your typical Touhou doujin album is, they are at least trying to resemble the melody of your favorite songs as they savagely beat it with no remorse. You can look back on most bad remix albums and say "Yeah I don't like it, but that's because it didn't appeal to me. I am sure this might be somebody's cup of tea, but just not mine". I hate pre-Strawberry Jam The Ramones, Burzum, and a bunch of other bands and music groups, but I can fathom somebody getting a kick out of them for whatever the reason. There is no album I have come across sans the likes of brokeNCYDE where I would aggressively assert that you would have to be batshit insane or live in a parallel world where trite music is like Brian Eno until now.

CPY～はじめてのサンプルCD～ is guilty of every crime you can commit against music: Terrible mixing, below bedroom production values, boring riffs, tone deafness, the inability to sing, and having the gall to announce this as a teaser for an album which will be released four months from now. This album wouldn't get a trial or wait on death row, but instead would be shot in the head upon sight without hesitation.


Now upon listening to East on Light, you might be like me thinking that the way the painfully synthesized violin sounding like it's being sodomized by a tiger is CPY's attempt to be obnoxiously quirky or avant-garde. The moment that talk-in-a-half-assed-sing-songy voice kicks in, you start to honestly start wishing he was being artsy and pretentious as opposed to sonically butt-fucking A God That Misses People ~ Romantic Fall with a condom lined with razor blades. After those 114 seconds coming to an end after going on for two minutes too long, we are treated with the 70-second ear sodomy dubbed Love Bomb, which takes the already criminally overrated and remixed Flowering Night to the nadir that it has been striving toward since August 2005. I am at a loss as to describe the most unconvincing guitar opening other than an off key carousel burrowing its way to Hell in hopes that it can fall in the fires of the damned and end its miserable life. The vocals are not only off key, but also off tempo. By this point, you would swear that CPY is honestly fucking around with us and holding back his laughter each time someone came up to him at M3-25 purchasing his craft work, which was probably done in a single sitting with no retakes or planning. The final "sample" is 空白回想, where he is now performing a hit job on Tabula rasa ～ 空白少女 from The Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, complete with your stereotypical metal kick drum-heavy line. It figures that one of the only times a PC98 songs gets attention, it gets stuck in the biggest troll doujin album of the year so far.

The last track on the album 東○大運○会 実況中継 appears to be CPY talking with his friends for 15 minutes from what sounds like through a 360 headset, most likely chatting about how much the people who bought this are complete suckers for Touhou remix albums and how they'll still probably purchase the full version at Comiket 78 even though it's an unredeemable 4 minutes of hell, making the idea of putting a stethoscope on the amp during a Swans concert sound tempting as permanent deafness is the only guaranteed escape from the full release of CPY～はじめてのサンプルCD～ coming August 2010. It's music like this that I use to propose that there can be no God, and the only consolation is that I see them struggle on how there can be an all-loving creator who would allow this to be exposed to any kind of public.

ALiCE'S EMOTION 2009 - Chaos Flare/COLORS/Lycoris/Sphere Caliber

 

ALiCE'S EMOTION

Chaos Flare/COLORS/Lycoris/Sphere Caliber

[ALiCE'S EMOTION; 2009]

3.5 / 4.7 / 8.3 / 7.5

REDALiCE has always been one to release a lot of albums in a year's time. Back in 2008, he put out seven, and six the year before. This does not mean he's slowing down, as he still makes appearances on other doujin albums left and right, churning out hardcore techno at a miraculous consistent pace. When he wasn't sticking his head into every hole he could find, he and circle co-founder Ayumi Nomiya were making and releasing four Touhou remix albums, each of which was released a few months separate at one another.

There is so little of interest about Chaos Flare that it actually leaves me a tad red-faced that I have nothing to say. I personally blame myself for going backwards from the releases, with Sphere and Lycoris making CF look completely boring to listen to by comparison. I guess color me wrong for saying Mizuhashi Jealoussic Park, which was kidnapped by IOSYS for their 2010 release, was from a better album, because CF is worse than Toho Ageha.

COLORS is a vast improvement on Chaos Flare, but also falls victim to having most of the album easily forgettable. If you have heard one vocal remix of Necrofantasia, you’ve heard them all, and Sleeping Beauty is nothing special. Artificial Flower Garden is the musical equivalent of chronic masturbation, always edging but never climaxing. Don’t let the guitar credits for title track COLORS lead you to believe we are getting something special, as it’s just monotonous chords that don’t really contribute anything to the song. Taken out of the context of being on an ALiCE EMOTION release, the electro-house Elebreaka could be mistaken as something made by Traffic Jammies. Tears Doll uses what I like to call “manipulating vocals to sound as artificial and whiny as fucking possible” technique, which combined with Michiru Kaori’s shrill squekly vocals, makes it the worst track out of the thirteen on here by miles. COLORS is filled with some hits and a lot of misses.

An aggressive sound made pretty with joy-filled vocals in Fallen Flower and un;balance, high-spirit synths in lolite, pretty percussion in Alkaloid and a hint of mischief in Morphine. The outer-worldly drones and synths of Hidden Radiance, Magical Higan Tour 2009’s ambient to breakcore blasts, and Oriental Darkcore’s buildups add a feel of mystery and suspense. Despite the rather dark and grim cover, the sound Lycoris boasts is of that that leans more towards celebration than of an ill omen while still being on the lookout.

Given the reputation that doujin has when it comes to vocal tracks, you have every right to be cautious, especially when they are apart of more than half the track listing much like Chaos Flare. Sphere Caliber is the most mellow out of the four releases, with trance being prominent. If you can pardon a bit of moe-ish voice, Ghostly Parapara Ship (Hardcore Edit) uses vocals as a necessity rather than a tag-on to conjour the energy needed for this fist-pumping speed rave. PsychoSniper and under the black, over the shine have better vocals than the aforementioned track, but are musically weaker. Searching For... has more of a lounge groove, making it kind of like the black sheep. REDALiCE goes back to a more light-hearted sound with Heian Inferno and Law Field resembling tracks on Angel Rings more than Crimson Hardcore. Magnolia is THE JAM OF A LIFETIME a masterpiece of bouncy hardstyle. If all of the tracks were up to par with REDALiCE's material, Sphere Caliber would effortlessly outshine Lycoris, but there is so much baggage and dead weight that it hurts the overall quality of the final release of 2009 (seriously? P*Light? Are you bullshitting me?).

With each passing release, an evolution in sound is apparent. There is an awareness that if they keep going along with the same basic structures, Akai Hito and Ayumi Nomiya would be pigeonholed as dime-a-dozen J-Core hacks. It might be the guest-star artists influencing them, or perhaps a sudden burst of inspiration with the release of UFO, but I can see the boldness developing gradually, hopefully promising a better future for the circle and the artists who hop on board, making remixes together in the not-so-distant future, possibly influencing a new route to follow. I cannot help but feel a tad optimistic.

Phonotaxis - Phonography

Phonotaxis

Phonography

[Phonotaxis; 2008]

4.9

I must admit I found this because of Doujincore, a site that uploads doujin music X times (read: whenever the fuck they feel like it) a week. The only reason I bothered listening to this as because of the main post having the words “This is not the shit I’m looking for.”. Given the heavy bias for J-Core on the site, I decided to download this for shits and giggles, hazarding the guess that it was probably ambient or mellow, and I hit the nail on the head. Still, I wondered why the hate right off the bat, as much worse shit has been shared on their servers for seven days, more deserving of verbal assault, so only why do they feel to call out an album now?

All of the tracks have a bit of ambient influence in them, but utilize it in different ways. flashback utilizes instrumentation and vocals, but feels too uniform to prove of any interest. The polyrhythm drum and bass sections in the second half of bulbous scape overshadow the forgettable first two and a half minutes. harmonoise desperately tries hide the fact that the piano playing is dry, lifeless, and forgettable with crackling static. Despite being the longest song on the album clocking in at over eight and a half minutes, tight light go space has neither buildup or payoff and even less variation. orange is the highlight and the keeper of the release, implementing jazzy rhythms and instrumentation styles with soft synths in background. One of my biggest issues with Phonography are the inconsistent pause times between songs, with some ranging between 5 seconds to a near whole minute.

So nearly 40 minutes of music later, I finally find the answer to the question I asked myself earlier: It’s because it wasn’t lively enough like their precious J-Core. These are the same people who turned their nose up towards the zenith of C77 SUBHUMAN while not batting an eye at an extratone-heavy fecalrocket like PURE EXISTENCE. I can just see them rolling their eyes while groaning when having to upload something that doesn’t average 170 BPM. What rational reason would their be to let a whole load of crappy albums slide without a well-deserved slap upside the head and feel the need to call out something like Phonography that is merely mediocre at worst? Genre-racism.

Blck Onyx - DiGiTiZED FAiRiES

Black Onyx

DiGiTiZED FAiRiES
[Black Onyx; 2010]

5.7

I don't get three-flavor ice cream cases at all. I mean, I can understand the concept behind them, but just how many people buy them because there live with several different people in a house, each of whom don't like certain "basic" flavors, and just how in the name of hell is a third of a case satisfactory? Too much for one bowl, and not nearly enough for a second serving the time after. It leaves you unsatisfied unless you aren't too picky and would eat the other flavors (or perhaps take from the other flavors as well). And so this is exactly my beef with DiGiTiZED FAiRiES, the ultimate example of a Touhou remix album that is basically a three flavor carton of ice cream, being a third Trance, a third hardcore, and a third DURRHURR (or mint strawberry pineapple blueberry all in one).

The first third consists of trance tracks such as the reverb-heavy opener Milky Child. セプテットテープセット throws acid onto the field, with a start abusing various effectors at the start before becoming fairly standard afterwards. Flandre Underground Rave Party!is the highlight of the album, feeling like a track you would hear at a club by not being too direct of a remix with an explosion of energy at the end, and FLANDRE SCALET as our piece of Engrish for the album as a bonus.

The middle is the weakest portion, being entirely hardstyle tracks. saw-soul thundering bass drowns out the more subtle layers. TRAUMA MUThAfUckA and cruel punisher use samples that anyone who has looked into the Japanese Hardcore scene for more than an hour would immediately recognize. cruel punisher is the best song of the three, borrowing breakcore and trance elements, but it's not saying a whole lot. もふもふ, frankly, baffles me as to what to label it as, with quiet melodies and distorted uplighting drones done in the form of ambient, and a deep bass seen in techno techno but at the tempo of hardcore. ?63HiiraossHuikgoeH53? corporates breakcore, chiptune, many shifts between various instruments, tempo shifts, etc. that makes it stand out the most from the nine, but in the end come off as an abandomed clustefuck that could be passed off as a B-Side track on ABT&HM(P). Code Red Biological 2010 is another remix of U.N. Own was Her? and is significantly weaker than Party Rave, but still has a fantastic buildup with increasing beats, musical layering, and fade-ins.

What we have here is not an album, but three collective extended plays aimed at different audiences. If you like trance, the first half is for you. Hard style nut? Dig into the center. Want a mish-mosh or a surprise? Skip to the seventh track and leave the player on until the end of the album. If you like all of them, you're mostly like going to find something you like out of this.

Subroc Records - SUBHUMAN

Subroc Records

SUBHUMAN

[Subroc Records; 2009]
9.1









One thing to get out of the way: This is NOT a remix album. It may look like one, it has a strong vibe like one, but all 14 tracks are not based directly off of any song from Serial Experiments Lain, but are instead original tracks inspired from the widely-praised cyberpunk masterpiece made in the late 90s. This must mean we are in for some quiet, calming, ambient pieces, right? Wrong again. SUBHUMAN is inspired from SEL from the atmosphere the soundtrack provides, but for the most part takes a sharp turn, trading in eerie drones for industrial breaks with dark ambient soundscapes abound.

Opener Depesonalization completely shatters the average SEL track length of around 80 seconds, clocking in at more than six and a half minutes with curling low-bass drones, static, and lo-fidelity sampling. The darker, more beat-oriented Re:Duvet starts out as a freestyle rap duet growing into an aggressive breakbeat rock ballad. The Accelerator contradicts every song on the original Lain soundtrack while still capturing the feeling of anxiety with it’s fast, loud, panic attack-induced bass trills that would later on swim from one ear to the next in yoshihisa nagao. Memory takes a note from noise rock distorted guitars and vocal implementation while unwavering from its ballad song structure. hello, weaher evolves from a quiet piano track to a trill-heavy marriage between a samisen and a guitar.

On the subject of dance-style tracks, Bolt opens up as a space ambient techno club jam with a glitch-chime middle, finishing up as a drill and bass-meets-breakcore riot. Protocol In Dub brings the vibrating bass of dub into the Dark Ambient world of Subroc Records founder 3x6, proving to be the only song ever made where I can tolerate wobbling bass. The tracks that ground itself deepest into the more wallpaper music feel of the series include subconscious image and Wired_lainのいる世界, both mostly made up of minimal drones and sprouting beats at the two-third point. The album finishes up with a Bonus Track, an accoustic version of a vocal segment of Re:Duvet.

I know that there isn’t a single hint of enthusiasm throughout my painfully dull analysis, and I contribute my poor writing to the fact that I am awful at praising genius when it’s right in front of me. Out of the one-hundred plus albums I have heard from Comiket 77, SUBHUMAN is the one that comes closest to perfection. No blights to point out, nothing to nitpick, not a single worthless track to be found. “Good for a doujin album” would be an insult. “Essential doujin album” doesn’t cut it. These 74 minutes of hard hitting dark ambient mood swings has no need for such crutch-like words.  Even if it remains unacknowledged by most, this will always be the crowning jewel of the most recent Comic Market.

IOSYS - Toho Ageha

IOSYS
Toho Ageha
[IOSYS; 2010]

4.3








Marisa Stole the Precious Thing: The doujin anthem we love and/or hate that introduced many westerners (and possibly Japanese people) to the Touhou series. “Overdrive” (as dubbed by Americans): The birth of EASY MODO, still used when anyone dare mentions they have starting to play the (by typical shmup standards) entry-level bullet hell. Cirno’s Perfect Math Class: The spitting image of what every “primary” fan hates. IOSYS has had a strong impact on the memes, the behaviors of the fanbase, and, arguably, one of the only reasons why there are westerners who ever found themselves giving a flying-fuck about the one-man project series. It’s been quite a while since ARM, miko, and co. have cooked up something worthy of a laugh to some and to stand as the manifestation of the “true fans” hatred. Their solution to following up such infamous videos: Terribly dull parodies, cherry-picking other peoples shit off of other albums, and juvenile humor.

Toho Ageha is 25 minutes of parodies, with the not so subtle, Engrish-laden bitchslap to the ears Letty Whiterock Rock You!, the Tarou homage/failed attempt to create another memetic anthem Captain Murasa's Ass Anchor, which is enjoyable in a way you are always red-faced when listening to kind of way (probably because Murasa’s theme is the bees knees as is), along with an ARM arrange, who should really sing more songs because it gives me a chuckle, kind of like what Akira Yamaoka would sound like if he were a dime-a-dozen J-Rock vocalist who washes his throat with liquid angst. I must admit, I do applaud Convictor Yamaxanadu! for being one of the most creative ways to basically have a flag reading “Pendulum sucks!” even if that was not their intention.

Tenko's Love Domination from Below! Excla-lala& love-me-tion! would have worked better as a short drama track at half the length, seeing as how it’s smack in the dead center of the album, instead changes back and forth better a deluge of puns and singing. Taking up 10 minutes (and being the two longest tracks), Mizuhashi Jealoussic Parkmusic and Hinarin's Relation of Misfortune appear to have been kidnapped from what I assume to be better albums. MJP changing between drum and bass, breakcore, and hardcore with youtube poop-esque vocal pitch shifts and cuts whenever miko isn’t talking like an office worker who has downed a whole pot of coffee and hasn’t slept in three days days or screeching like a banshee. HRoM is better, boasting strange transitions, with the highlight sections having a 4/3 hardcore swing-like groove, which are tragically short-lived.

Toho Ageha is already long forgotten by fans. The best stuff could use some tweaking with musical and vocal direction, and the worst just cannot be saved. Being only 15 minutes of content made for the album (12 if you disregard ARM’s rendition of Ass anchors), every minute counts. Their big song of the album Ass Anchor is still better than their other meme milestones musically, now only survives because of everyone making fun of it’s lazy, slapdashed, and down-right crapass flash quality. It’s rather funny just how well that video managed to sum up the at-the-time forecoming Toho Ageha.

Mushi/Lumpy/Musique Concrète - A Bug, Touhou, and Honey Milk (Poisoned)

 

Mushi/Lumpy/Musique Concrète

A Bug, Touhou, and Honey Milk (Poisoned)

[ Mushi/Lumpy/Musique Concrète; 2006]

9.0

For a fan of DnB, especially of the experimental variety, Comiket, Reitaisai, etc. prove to be a barren wasteland for fans of the genre. However, every now and then, an album like A Bug, Touhou, and Honey Milk (Poisoned) will be unearthed, perhaps several years after the original release date. Drum and bass and ambient is freakishly hard to come by as is in the doujin community, much less an entire Touhou remix album dedicated to the genre(s).

The nature of the album is mostly rooted in breakbeats while being remarkably diverse. The album opens up with Ultimate☆8bitCrash's chiptune breaks. Deep Forest exchanges chiptune for ambient featuring breaks and beats which are reminiscent of µ-Ziq’s Mouse Bums from Bilious Paths, and ぶれいくこあ? sounds like a ragtime performance gone awry. 最モ危険ナ童遊ビ is basically what Kid's Festival ~ Innocent Treasures would have sounded like if Venetian Snares did the music for Perfect Cherry Blossom. misT is a cluster of drill and bass blasts and scratchy distorted melodies, which, quite frankly, becomes dull quickly while 門番の知られざる17年 -E't'B- proves interesting despite being done in a similar style.

This album also has remixes of remixes, such as the high point of this release dnabgub kaerB, which knows not the meaning of the word "calm" and greets you by kicking you in the fucking face with a chaotic splicing job of JAZZ 2005’s 我儘お嬢様の為の Bigband, making it sound so different that one could confuse it as an original track for the first half out of the context of the album. The closing track Cirno foolish! is also a remix of a remix of Scarlet Destiny’s Cirno Stylish, featuring much cleaner sample rips than the former, mixed in with somewhat lo-fi breaks and synths.

The album takes detour from the drum and bass breaks and trades it in for a more ambient feel with wwrriiggggllee, which is tied with dnabgub kaerB for my favorite, but is on the complete opposite end of the music spectrum, being an ambient piece with intensive sampling (one of which being David Bowie's Neuköln of "Heroes" fame) and no beats. The following track tele-phony terror (i wanted to believe it) is on the same page, but develops a beat after scaring the piss out of you. The soft glitch Enter Fire Power begins the transition that leads us out of the atmospheric nature of the previous two tracks.

After three tracks, we are brought back to chiptune breaks with 夜折り折り折り折り折り, only for Unlimited Voyage 1480 to throw us a curve ball by giving us another remix of a remix, this time being of hardcore artist t+pazolite’s Unlimited Spark!, featuring the same editing styling seen from dnabgub kaerB mixed with a Hardcore bass beat. Preceding Cirno foolish!, we have DEMY, the poster boy of the album providing us with various genre elements we have experienced from the past dozen tracks.

Now that we have an idea what you will be getting into when listening to this album, how does it stack up musically? In my opinion: Really damn well. It might be me just getting tired of the dime-a-dozen trance and rock arranges out there, or perhaps it’s because I have a very biased favoritism for experimental drum and bass artists like Squarepusher and Aphex Twin, but this was like an oasis in the middle of a desert for me. With fourteen tracks and a wide variety of genre fields covered, it can withstand multiple listens, which is just as important as simply being a good album, and with a length of nearly an hour, it needs to be varied. Any other album of similar length rooting itself in a single genre would be hurt from replaying. The track order in A Bug, Touhou, and Honey Milk (Poisoned) changes it up enough to remain appealing from start to finish.

The abrasive and bipolar nature of ABT&HM(P) traps your attention in a vice grip and puts you on a wild journey that very few doujin albums can provide. Even if you disregard "doujin standards", it's fucking remarkable. This is just not your typical Touhou remix album, but also a 57 minute-long lecture on what remixing should be: Breaking songs down and rebuilding them from the ground up as you see fit.