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.

IOSYS - ごっすんリミックス アイン and ツバイン

IOSYS
ごっすんリミックス　アイン/ごっすんリミックス ツバイン
[IOSYS; 2008]
4.2/5.6

I am not a hater, nor am I a fan of IOSYS, but this is fucking bullshit. If there was a line separating "asinine but with explanation" and "complete retardation", they have purposely chosen to disregard it and run into the retard zone until they have disappeared over the horizon. I can understand a one disc remix album a year after release, but TWO discs TWO years later? It takes a lot of stones to be riding on one of the songs that put you on the doujin music map.

In 2008, the same group that gave birth to F.O.E. and Overdrive (much to your pleasure or dismay) have released the 2+ hour two disc set spanning 27 songs, all of which are remixes of Marisa Stole the Precious Thing from various groups. I have put myself through the ordeal of listening to the whole thing expecting to be showered with remixes so horrid I'd piss myself laughing, but instead was greeted with a bunch of mediocre recreations.

We kick off with a moderately enjoyable Detroit Metal version by Live House S.S.H.'s 埼玉最終兵器, and then immediately get thrown into a bunch of mediocre electronic remixes such as the rave version by 株式会社スーパースィープ's 細江慎治, taka's glitch house from Junkan Production's, typical Cis-Trance, well, trance from Technetium. dbu music's どぶウサギ brings some joy to an otherwise painful experience due with quirky sampling and general playfulness, while WAVE brought my hopes up for an ambient remix which deteriorates into half-assed drum and bass. The genre-hopping remix by Innocent Key's yohine takes a shit over everyone else on this disc, and half of that fecal matter is later eaten by Masayoshi Minoshima who rekindles my hate affair with Alstroemeria Records. After more forgettable remixes, we finally come to a close with another mediocre rendition with IOSYS superstar ARM slamming the final nail in the first disc's coffin, only to sport a shit-eating grin while purposefully hit it hard enough so that the rest of the wooden frame splits a bit, forcing us to start all over again, which unfortunately gives rise to disc two.

Thankfully, disc two is not nearly as difficult to sit through as the form compact disc, even with the edition of another song. We open up with 電開製作所's 柏木るざりん metal/hard rock cover, complete with hilarious lo-fi vocal recording and barely sounding like a remix, and then we have SOUND HOLIC who is joined by the Swing Holic Band making with their take on the track, and by "take" I really mean "insert singing into the recording in a very unconvincing style", making the listener yearn for a clean version. 999 Recordings breakcore remix DJ Technorch goes the full distance to demonstrate why he's the best J-Core artist out there and fucking floors me with not only being the best remix on here, but one of the best remixes I have ever heard in my life. It takes a so-poppy-your-jaws-starts-to-tire song into a fierce, well-mixed, abrasive, and surprisingly complex track, destroying the song and reconstructing it all the while having its roots familiar to the listener. This is why I love this man. He always goes the extra mile, even for stupid and terrible crap.

Continuing the trend of MStPT remixes that sound like original tracks with vocals inserted into them is 有限会社モナカ's 中矢博元 orchestral "remix" that comes off as stereotypically "epic". I can only imagine how at home hardcore artist/voice-sampling fetishist REDALiCE must have been, and Silly Walker's すぺらんかー must have interpreted it as a sort of challenge to see who can dick around with the vocal track the most. イオシス's D.watt, much like many of the people on disc 2, sounds like he dug through his unreleased lounge creations and layered the vocals on top of it. Much to his credit, it sounds like he spent more than 20 minutes integrating them, which is more than I can say for Shibayan from ShibayanRecords' take. bassy from Barbarian on the groove is the first people in Lord knows how long to have their remix to sound like it was made to be a remix. Innocent Key strikes again with 溝口ゆうま's genre fusions with rock such as hardcore techno bass, synthpop keyboard, turntablism, and occasional vocal distortions. We end again with another ARM "remix" (by which I mean another song with vocals thrown in). You would figure with so much hiphop funkiness, there would be more fucking around with said-vocals, but not really until the second half, which is still highly lacking.


On disc one, most of the remixes were crap ass, and on disc two, many of the tracks of the tracks barely or don't even resemble the original song they were remixing, and would have faired off loads better without miko's less than average singing voice. Get the Technorch (which is the only reason why this is getting a two and a half) and maybe two other remixes and cast off everything else and just pray that one day we'll get vocal cuts for most of the tracks on the latter half. There's probably something in this beast that someone might enjoy, but why bother getting the whole kit and kaboodle for a dumpster full of hit-or-miss mixes you'll never listen to again?