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.

WAVE - Morrigan - Monolith "II"

Morrigan

Monolith"II"

[WAVE; 2010]
8.8



Doujin music is not a very profitable business, and while it is hard to make big money off of, it's even harder to become a big name in the community with the "big names" seemingly chosen at complete random. With the release of Monolith "II", we are greeted with a piracy warning on the back of the CD:

It is no surprise that music piracy is a problem in the doujin music community, as the artists are releasing music for a profit, just like everyone else. However, I have never recalled a time when a circle spoke out against music thief, and WAVE is so far one of the only circles to date to put an anti-piracy warning on their releases to date.

The three-track Monolith "II" is so ambitious for a self-release that it would be forgivable to mistake him for being under a label. It opens up with the ethnic-dance jam Reventon, which puts the listener off-guard when the deep pulsating yet relaxing bass of Peak Lounge. The title track Monolith "II" has a heavier bass with breaks and ambient drones and synth melodies, one-upping the likes of The Flashbulb by doing the one thing he could never accomplish: Dedicating enough time to a track for it to actually evolve.

With the amount of effort put into these 19 minutes and 47 seconds of music, it becomes very easy to see why WAVE are so pissed off. We all have heard a number of boring and run-of-the-mill doujin albums that are just so typical, uninventive, and a chore to listen to that we feel no guilt for not throwing so much as a penny into their rattling cup for smearing our car windows with wet newspaper. Morrigan has not only cleaned out windshield, he has also vacuumed the interior, waxed the rims, fixed the dents, and got rid of the Lord knows how many scratches on the side door. When you try this hard and nobody gives you a dime, you have a right to be pissed off, so rain hell down upon me for getting this off of mediafire!

Blasterhead - Blasterhead Works 1995-2003

Blasterhead
Blasterhead Works 1995-2003
[Blasterhead; 2003]
5.0





I remember listening to Blasterhead's first original album back several months ago, gnashing my teeth after every track, criticizing the fuzzy recordings, and the abuse of the hardcore bass beat for track after track after track. I dismissed it as complete and utter garbage and a ghastly selection of songs for one to choose for their first album. Upon a second listen, I have grown fond of several of the tracks. However, enjoying five or six tracks out of sixteen doesn't really bode well, since that still leaves you with the other two-thirds being hard to keep down inside my "J-Core"-jaded stomach.

Much like the chillout/ambient techno Retake and the dnb/breakbeat sora nuxx, BW95-03 takes a different direction with the genres prominently displayed, with hardcore/acid techno being dominating the 67 minutes on the compact disc. Guitar loops play a huge part in BW 95-03, including in the acid techno opener Shadow Under The Shadow. If you hate Alec Empire, don't feel ashamed if you skip Pop Chaser, Hurry Up Pizza Boy, Do It Runrun, and Friendship. Coastal Waters And Wood gives listeners a vague idea of what to expect from sora nuxx. After we take another acid techno detour with Girls On The Palmtop, we return to hardcore. R-99 is strikingly similar to Do It Runrun if slowed down, and the resemblance 4M L.E.D.-G vs GUHROOY's ErAseRmoToR maXimUM is humorous. The jewel of the album Fire's bass drills are delicious, and Close Your Eyes (GB Edit) proves that chiptune can have pretty music as it fades in and out, bringing Blasterhead's first real release to a close.


This isn't anywhere close to as bad as I recalled it being, but it's still a far cry from his future releases like the two albums mentioned early on in the review and Killbots EP if you are a fan of chiptune. To those who were unimpressed with BW, give the other releases a chance. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Sharpnelsound - Mad Breaks

DJ Sharpnel
Mad Breaks
[Sharpnelsound; 2005]
8.0






I have never liked DJ Sharpnel. They're overhyped, mediocre, and ride on a the gimmick non-genre "lolicore". They're are far better J-Core artists out there. DJ Technorch has made great song after great song, and was my gateway to doujin music. REDALiCE isn't all that, but he has Angel Rings and a few decent arranges backing him up. USAO wrote some pretty nice shit for USAO CD vol. 3, I enjoyed Roughsketch's 108 Sketches, along with t+pazolite work on the same album and neetmania. I guess what I'm trying to say is that nearly everyone can have one time they do something right, and for Jea and Lemmy, that release is Mad Breaks, an hour long album of J-Core that actually frightens me with how good it is.

Don't get me wrong. I still hate him and his anime-clip-splicing parlor trick, but this proves to have some craftmanship put into it. It opens up with the surprisingly slow (by Sharpnel terms) Gate Of Dreams, which proves promising with not a single chipmunk-voiced sampled clip. Hot Pepperz kicks up the tempo (along with the quirkiness factor) and uses audio clips from Galaxy Angel. Zettai Remix by Society Suckers rips classical music and evolves into an audio-splicing track in the significantly more interesting second half, and we return to Sharpnel with the hardcore part-hip-hop, part-hardcore techno, and part-chiptune Star Wars homage titled Bounty Wars, followed up with the even more enjoyable hardcore rockabilly rave Complecks Baby.

You Don't Know What is the most honest song title in doujin history, as I have no clue whether it wants to be a speedcore song or a hardcore hip-hop mix. It seems to have thrown its hands in the air shouting "fuck it" and splits it 50/50. Together As One flounders with the same amen break sample we hear throughout half the album and generally has very little to offer. If you cannot tell that SF-C and SF-R are "tradional" Japanese hardcore remix of Chun Li and Ryu's theme respectively from Street Fighter II and have owned/knew someone with an SNES, you've wasted your childhood.

The out-of-place saxophone sampling and vocal rips gives Solitude Sun some personality and sophistication, which the mindless and wild Speed Disco Vol. 2 compliments it by being the exact polar opposite. The piano and synth melodies 20031023 are so out of place on Mad Breaks, you could probably fool a few people into thinking it's a Touhou remix. Although I'm not a fan of Mugenjou Project's Audiovisualism, I can easily imagine it growing on some people. The album ends on a good note with Blue Army, which actually deserves praise people give it.

I will not lie: I originally revisited this album to completely tear the shit out of it as writing a review trashing something is easier than praising it. Instead, I listened to an hour of mostly pretty great music. It balances the silliness that attracted an overseas audience while still keeping the geeky-side of the hardcore techno scene in mind. Not too stupid while not too retardedly abrasive. Instead of riding this off as a freakish fluke, perhaps I should reevaluate my stance on the most famous duo in the doujin community.

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?