Thursday, September 25, 2014

A Place Where You Hope - EP review

Yokomin started producing Vocaloid music not a long time ago – only one year has passed since the first his work was published on Nico. But here we are – an EP’s already out, presented at Comiket 86 event August, 17 and sold out the same day. The latter came quite unexpectedly for the producer himself – 80 copies seem to be a horrific amount for the first time :) Well, my congratulations!

I must be a spoiled person, but the EP’s title… Don’t you find it a bit… eh, too customary? Well, perhaps that’s because it’s in English (Yokomin tends to name his songs in English as well). Some “Anata ga kibou suru tokoro” would sound alien enough to pass :)

The cover art, drawn by the expert hand of Gonmaru-san, must’ve contributed to the success substantially. See for yourselves.



Tuesday, September 23, 2014

ALGORITHM - album review

The much anticipated, long-awaited new album from Utsu-P is out, and if that’s not gross enough event to kick VMW out of termless hibernation then I don’t know what is! :)

Unlike the previous release, “Warufuzake”, which was recorded under the ‘traditional industry’ ‘big label’, this album falls back into the category of indie titles. Doujinshi, if you somehow prefer Nippon over English. So, basically, all that means just there has been less hype over it this time. Honestly, hype hardly can make good music sound better, and hype around bad music isn’t a proper thing at all...
”Algorithm” was presented at 86th Comiket, the venue being the very essence of doujinshi subculture. Moreover, Utsu-P explicitly refers to “Algo” as the fourth his album, with the third being “Moksha”. So “Warufuzake”, despite being a ‘commercial breakthrough’ etc., is disregarded as a mere spin-off from the circle MY SONG IS SHIT. And this circle should still be considered the main form for producer’s creative work. At least for the music from the heavier side of spectrum.