Monday 24 October 2011

M3-2011秋: Zero-Shaft's 「My Voice」 and 「 まほロリっ!」

Just six months ago, hard-working douijn circle Zero-Shaft gave us two great albums in 「COVERST@GE」 and 「ちびロリっ!」. The former was a pretty cool anisong cover album, but the latter was a delightful collection of ロリ-style songs performed by some of our favourite singers out there (talking about ココ, ななひら, 桃箱 and more!) Better yet, both were listed at a ridiculously low 500¥. Well guess what, they're at it again!



That's right, Zero-Shaft are bringing two brand new full-length albums to M3-2011秋 and they're pricing them at 500¥ once again. First, let's take a look at 「My Voice」 which is the fourth entry in their THEiDOLST@GE series (the first one was downloadable). As the name implies, this is an idol-genre album with 9 original compositions that are usually a bit more "serious" in tone. However you still have extremely cute songs involving singers such as りこ。 and 愛原圭織. Most songs are individual efforts, but there is a pretty interesting quartet on track #8 「レンアイREVERSE」. The above PV gives a clear indication of just how exceptional this album should turn out to be.



While THEiDOLST@GE is clearly Zero-Shaft's flagship brand, their ロリっ! spin-off is clearly doing pretty well! The second installment is titled 「 まほロリっ!」 and is a 魔法少女-inspired album. Now here are some pretty mind-blowing facts about this album: a mere 500¥ will get you 14 tracks featuring 19 different vocalists! As if that wasn't unbelievable enough, we're talking about quality vocalists such as ななひら、なゆ、kana、ゆきまめ、ひななた、mega and many, MANY more! All of them got quality illustrations which range from lovely to kinky! This also includes SD characters from 大山チロル who also sings and regularly contributes artwork for ちぃむdmp☆ (what a talented lass). Let's not forget about the brave composers who wrote the songs, including しの、遥風 啓司、Yu and BBレモネード (from おでんぱ of course).

The bottom-line here is you're looking at 23 tracks for 1000¥ with 24 of the net's hottest singers, not to mention a great variety of earnest and downright silly music from up-and-coming composers. This thing's a no-brainer, get both! Those who buy the two albums at M3 will earn themselves unlimited praise from Zero-Shaft, as well as this cool reversible poster. Did we mention that 「 まほロリっ!」 ships in a white DVD case? WHITE! Sweet plastic ambrosia.

Sunday 16 October 2011

M3-2011秋: Second でんぱ☆スタジオ album 「ぴこみこ☆」


The Fall edition of M3-2011 is around the corner and as expected, a non-Touhou music event means a new おでんぱ☆スタジオ release! This time though, they're c-c-c-combo breaking their string of 4 single releases and going with a second album! 「ぴこみこ☆」 will have 5 new songs as well as the requisite でぱらじ segment. As if that wasn't exciting enough, how are we supposed to handle this news: とろ美 is doing guest vocals! Talk about a dream collaboration, check out a 1:50 sampler of the opening track:


Signature BB・Lemonade composition if there ever was one! Of course the とろ巫女ちゃん vocals are a perfect match for this song. As was the case in the past, the rest of the album will not necessarily reflect the "shrine maiden" theme set forth in the opening song. Note that a crossfade was not yet posted as of this article, however おでんぱ themselves just this morning previewed the album on their ニコニコ channel. It should be a matter of days, if not hours, before one's available for general consumption. Here is the full tracklist:
  1. ぴこみこ@オンライン~おでんぱ神社へようこそ~
  2. うれしょん゚・*:.。
  3. ぽにっとふぁいやー☆
  4. Girl Friend
  5. けもみみDANCE!~もーっちゅ!りみっくCHU☆~
  6. でぱらじ☆ふぃふす (radio show feat. とろ美)
What else, what else? The first 50 fans (although this may have been increased to 100?) to "preorder" the album will score a tin pin! Of course you'll need to pick up the album from the denpa unit itself at the M3 event in Tokyo on October 30th... or have someone pick it up for you! Otherwise, the new album (sans pin) should be available from fine stores such as あきばお~こく and とらのあな, just keep refreshing those links until it's up for grabs!

Monday 10 October 2011

PARANOIA PARADOX goes 電波 with 「ぱらのいあぱらどくちゅ」



Doujin circle PARANOIA PARADOX is usually known for its trance/electro/serious business "Re" Touhou arrange series, including titles such as 「RE;FLECTOR」, 「Re:alize」 and 「Re:sonance」. That's pretty cool, but dig in just a bit deeper and you'll uncover some interesting facts. First, 桜ふみ (SAKURA Fumi) is actually the lead vocalist for this circle! Recently she's popped up on a couple of KuKuDoDo compositions, so that's a good start. Next, a quick look at head producer いたちま also reveals a long history of Vocaloid compositions, including the occasional denpa song. So there's definitely a lot more than meets the eye with this circle.

However, for the release of their 6th album 『ぱらのいあぱらどくちゅ』, they are taking a page from circles such as HolicService/InnocentKey/Birdtune and will release a full-on denpa/moe album! This 180 degree turn also brings about a grand total of 10 guests, not the least of which is メトロポリちゃんV making her grand Touhou vocal debut! Yes, you read that right. Metro-motherfucking-Pori-chan, full-time nurse, goddess of underground trains, born in 1941. Don't say you don't know who she is, or she'll fucking beat the crap out of you!

Regardless of your opinion of this shock-jock-idol, her performance on 「てゐのデート大決戦脳内戦略会議室!!」 is flawless. From the short sample posted, she comes off joyous and ecstatic. It's a wonder this is her debut doujin song after being a part of the underground scene for such a long time. Has she performed various denpa songs under a different moniker or is she really just that good?!? Let's hope for more collaborations in the future!

The other songs on the sampler are just as catchy. Regular PP vocalist 桜ふみ takes care of the third track 「たぬきにおまかせ☆」 (the first being a splendid instrumental introduction). Her unique and commanding voice radiates maturity and experience... gotta love her vibrato! Never gets old OR annoying! Track 4 「Blooming moon」 is a heart-warming 萌え ditty from 佳織みちる , who also writes her own lyrics.

Yet another highlight of this new album is 「うぇるかむ・とぅざ・なずーりんりんらんど」 sung expertly by 愛空アキハ. Y'all know her from her various Conagusuri hits such as 「チルミルチルノ」 and 「カパネットにとり」 of course. Once again she demonstrates her passion for the genre and delivers an intense performance. This is followed right away with another high-tension track 「アリアケ幻想」, this time from 田川まゆみ. The album ends lightly with another cute little moe song 「猫娘☆ぱらだい☆CHU♪」

As with all of their past releases, PARANOIA PARADOX have turned to 雪月佳 for the album artwork. The interesting connection here is that 雪月佳 also provided the illustration for the recent ななひら UTAU album 『なないずむ!』. Just one more element in making sure this becomes a memorable Touhou Denpa albums... since most of them are, so it's a tough crowd! The album comes out October 17th during the 7th 東方紅楼夢 event, but you can also preorder from Akibaoo.

Sunday 2 October 2011

Twitter Cluster: Best of September 2011

For better or for worse, our twitter account @denpanosekai has taken over this site for bleeding-edge denpa news delivery. Various factors are at play, but suffice to say those who use both Blogger and Twitter will agree the latter has a much snappier interface than the former. It's also pretty cool to connect with various Japanese artists, who never cease to be amazed some lowly foreigners would have any interest in their godly music. Finally, Mandi is behind a fair amount of the twitter posts while I, "denpanosekai" am in charge of blog stories, so it's a good way to share the workload.

That said, as an engineer I don't really trust twitter's ability to save messages forever and I don't appreciate how "old" tweets quickly get buried under new ones. For posterity, we will now be archiving tweets on a monthly basis. Although we have a very nice amount of twitter readers (let's go for 500!) this blog still drives a heck of a lot of traffic thanks to search engines (lots and lots of folks searching for denpa music torrents... and other weird things). At the very least, this will force us to have at least one post per month!

Note: format may change from month to month until we figure out a good way to do this.



September 3rd 2011

September 5th 2011

September 8th 2011

September 9th 2011