New Chibi-Tech single 「Moe Moe Kyunstep」 and live video

We are way past being fashionably late to the party, but this is one riot that won't stop anyway! On October 25 2012, legendary chiptune composer Chibi-Tech released the single 「Moe Moe Kyunstep」, a two-part epic which features fascinating backstory in lieu of lyrics. It is available in a pay-what-you-want format on bandcamp, which includes "free" if you're so inclined. The fantastic cover art you see above was created by none other than mandichan!

As if that wasn't amazing enough, those of us who missed Chibi-Tech's live Tokyo performance on October 21st 2012 can just watch it online! This insane set features all of chibi's latest hits, visuals by NO CARRIER, plenty of stagedives, sweet boobies, more mandichan art and a dancing maid who pens Persona theme songs for a living. Pure insanity!

If you haven't kept up with Chibi's latest activities, this blog entry will get you up to speed. I still think her 朝からずっしり♥ミルクポット tracks are out-of-this-world awesome (having hilarious titles such as Gaze at my Sour Cream Burrito is a bonus). And if you're just at the starting point, might we gracefully recommend our 2008 interview for reference?

Exclusive KuKuDoDo Interview (Holic Service / Birdtune)

BirdTune and Holic Service are two well-known Osaka-based doujin circles specializing in Touhou arranges, among other things. Most fans are familiar with their music, but what about the man behind the synthesizer? Over the past three years, I've developed something of an obsession over KuKuDoDo (his name is really fun to say, try it out loud) and his strange-yet-completely-natural mixture of denpa and UK New Wave genres.

Not only are his compositions and arrangements unique, he has always had a knack for recognizing talent as well. Over the years he's collaborated with and featured songs from stalwarts such as t+pazolite, かめりあ, リズナ, 実谷なな, 桜ふみ, めらみぽっぷ, ななひら, ゆきまめ, 未来派 and plenty more.

If the names Holic Service, BirdTune, KuKuDoDo, Gumi and nanano don't mean much to you, start by checking out websites for Holic Service and BirdTune, as well as our 2009 "under the scope" feature to discover some of the most original denpa songs out there.

Please note that all following MP3s have been uploaded with KuKuDoDo's full consent.


- How did you start creating music?

I started creating music well before computer software made everything much easier, so I had to get creative. For instance I would chain up multiple beatboxes and synthesizers together. The end result would often be strange sounds, which I tremendously enjoyed. After a while, I eventually turned to a Yamaha MSX PC and gradually made my way up through the generations of music sofware and DAWs.

At some point I decided to form a band in order to release this music and perform it live. A couple records came out of this and I got the occasion to play synthesizer at multiple club events with various genres such as trance, techno and shoegazer. Over time, it struck me how much New Wave had in common with denpa, vocaloid and doujin music in general. That's why I started BirdTune Records in 2007, as it was clear to me that this would become the best outfit for my artistic expressions.