Thursday 28 October 2010

M3-2010秋 round-up: iDOLST@GE, SteinGarCoo, 33.turbo + more


Compared to the spring edition of M3-2010 which spawned two large articles, this upcoming fall edition round-up is a bit lighter. Perhaps it has to do with the massive shift to Touhou arranges (which are more or less absent from M3), or perhaps circles are just focusing their efforts for Comiket 79. Either way, there are still quite a few interesting releases for denpa/moe fans. If you wish to purchase any of the following releases, note that doujincore.com is running an M3 group import until October 29th.



Let's start things up with something a little different, but still totally related to this blog. Doujin circle Zero-Shaft has been working on its iDOLST@GE series for around two years, yet they will finally release their first album this coming Sunday. The appropriately-titled 「FirstSt@ge」 packs 13 new songs and an intro, which you can sample on the official website. If you like what you hear, go ahead and download full versions of their 13 previous songs.

At first sight this might seem like an iDOLM@STER arrange album, but everything here is original... except for the concept of course. It's also worth noting that some of the singers have also been involved in denpa projects. There's the delightful ココ of course, who is regularly featured on  (the good) Innocent Key albums. Then you also have 小宮真央, who appeared on the quintessential denpa masterpiece 「エネルギー冷麺 お受験せんそ→☆」 from KuKuDoDo's Holic Service. But whether you know the girls or not shouldn't matter anyway; it's all about the execution and this doujin release certainly rivals Namco's own output.



したいがぁるくぅ (apparently romanized to Stein Gar Coo) is an interesting new unit. They've been around since August 2009 and have two mini-CDs under their belt, with a third one dropping this weekend. The first (self-titled) CD was created under the theme of "yanderock" and had a cute girl with a big pair of bloody scissors on the cover. For a debut, the songs are actually pretty good. You'd think they would have continued in that direction, but somehow they followed it up with a superhero drama CD...

Now they're back with a musical album, and a denpa themed one at that! Although they have offered very few details about the upcoming 「sweeCHU kiss」 mini-album, they have repeatedly stated on their blog that this will be denpa-kei. The imagery sort of gives it away, but this circle introduction video has a very short sample (we're talking less than 20 seconds). Either way, we here at 電波の世界 fully support new denpa units so let's give them the benefit of the doubt until they release longer samples.

UPDATE: They have released a sample MP3. Furthermore, ベイビー・レモネード from melo9/おでんぱ☆スタジオ will be a guest artist!



Good old おでんぱ☆スタジオ have been regular M3/Comiket fixtures ever since their late 2009 debut. Their discipline is second to none when it comes to releasing new music, let's just hope they keep working hard until they reach that next level. This time the odenpa girls are fighting it out at an athletic meet; school's back after all. There will be a "three-legged race" song, how often does that happen? No doubt countless (sexy) mishaps will happen during this brutal sporting event. Unfortunately, no samples are available right now, keep checking the official website for an eventual update.



33.turbo is a cute little denpa/moe unit that sporadically releases singles every now and then. For their M3 single, they took three "little sister" stereotypes (yandere, malicious, righteous) and created four songs out of them. Presumably the fourth one has the trio singing, but the niconico sample only lets us preview the first three songs. Their previous single featured four arranged K-On! songs, so it's good to see them go back to original compositions.



The last time 桜ふみ (SAKURA Fumi) was featured on this blog was also her first. This girl is all over the place: touhou arranges, iDOLM@STER DS, countless eroge theme songs... and don't you dare stop her. 「SIGMA] is her second full-length album, which features both commercial work and brand new songs. One of them is particularly interesting: track #3 「ウイステリア」 was composed by KuKu-motherfucking-DoDo himself. There's also a killer MUZIK SERVANT track; they're all pretty good anyway. If you're looking for some high octane pop/rock with mature female vocals, then this is definitely worth checking out.

That's it for now, but there are a couple more interesting releases in the "denpa watchlist" to your right. Toromi is supposed to have something new. nao/DystopiaGround has a third single coming out. We'll update this post with new releases as they are announced, perhaps even after M3 has passed.

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