Watch でんぱ組.inc live as they prepare for maxi single launch

Despite having only a handful of songs in their repertoire, でんぱ組.inc have been playing more and more shows these days. We're still far from an album, but their second Lantis release 「ピコッピクッピカッて恋してよ」is coming up on July 6th 2011. The track listing hasn't been made public yet, however the maxi single should contain at least 2 new songs; one of which is the ending theme to anime Baby Princess 3D.

The official PV for that ending theme runs a bit short, but that doesn't matter as full versions of their new songs have been uploaded to Youtube... better yet, they're live performances! Although they were posted on May 25th, the following performance took place in late April at a Tsutaya store in trendy Roppongi. Their setlist in order:

1. 「わっほい？お祭り.inc」
2. 「kiss＋kissで終わらない」
3. 「ピコッピクッピカッて恋してよ」
4. 「BEAM my BEAM」
5.  Bonus! "Making-of", photo shoot and introduction

Good thing they had some diehard fans mixing things up, because it would have been a pretty boring crowd otherwise! That last video shows a pretty artsy-fartsy introduction (what's up with the stilts?) and some fascinating behind-the-scenes footage. The whole thing was put together by collective Saizen00, who seem to be running a gallery dedicated to the budding idols. The video quality is high enough that it could be made into a DVD, not to mention the crazy photo shoot. We'll see how this turns out!

Blip Festival returns to NYC for fifth anniversary event

Blip Festival 2011 by BlipFestival

Strangely enough, there was no 2010 edition of North America's premiere chiptune event, the Blip Festival. Instead, Tokyo and Scandinavia played hosts to Nullsleep, Bit Shifter and friends; as well as tons of invited artists, both local and foreign. This year, curators 8bitpeoples didn't want to skip NYC again and they sure didn't want to wait until December either. In fact, the 2011 NYC edition starts tonight, May 19th.

Can't attend? WMFU's got you covered with a full live webcast. Nowhere near being there in person but it's possibly the next best thing. Actually their Accu-Playlist promises to be updated with photos and have a realtime comments board. They will also have guest DJ XC3N hosting and playing his music between artists so it could be a great alternative experience.

In related news, there's a nice flashback article with Rainbowdragoneyes reminiscing about his 2009 set. Also if you're planning on visiting Tokyo later this year, Blip Festival will once again hold an event on October 22 and 23 2011. Full details about the 2011 NYC edition follow:

// HERE IT COMES

No stopping it now — BLIP FESTIVAL NEW YORK 2011 touches ground this THURSDAY, kicking off three nights of pulse-pounding chipmusic and dazzling motion graphics served up by 30 of the world's most talented representatives of the global chipmusic underground.

// TWO NEWLY-ANNOUNCED DAYTIME PROGRAMS

In addition to the Blip 2011 NESDEV workshop, we're pleased to announce two new programs: Dissonance and Consonance: Harmonic Analysis and Discussion of Chip Music and its Many Forms (presented by Joey Mariano a.k.a. Animal Style), and Atari 2600 Music Composition (presented by cTrix). For full details and ticket links, visit:

http://blipfestival.org/2011/daytime-events/

// THE BLIP FESTIVAL GALLERY

Taking Blip Festival’s spirit of "obsolescence as the beginning" into the realm of visual art, a nightly screening will be presented by artists who are bringing new life to the technology and aesthetics of our recent past. Curated by Lindsay Howard; includes work and premieres by Sterling Crispin, Alexandra Gorczynski and Nicolas Sassoon.

http://blipfestival.org/2011/blip-festival-gallery/

// OFFICIAL AFTERPARTIES + CLOSING PARTY

If 24 sets of live chipmusic aren't enough for you, three nightly afterparties (courtesy of our friends Babycastles) and a not-to-be-missed closing party (courtesy of our friends Cheese'N'Beer and Noise Channel) round out the official Blip Festival event program. For specifics, visit:

http://blipfestival.org/2011/schedule/

// FESTIVAL PASSES SOLD OUT

Admission is still available for individual nights, whether via advance tickets or at the door. But be advised that Blip Festival events have been known to hit capacity in the past, so delay at your own risk.

http://blipfestival.org/2011/tickets/

// CAN'T BE THERE IN PERSON?

We're happy once again to be partnering with WFMU, who will be webcasting the event's audio live via WFMU.org. Nothing's quite like hearing chipmusic live, loud & in person, but if you can't make it, WFMU's got you covered.

http://blipfestival.org/2011/wfmu-webcasts-the-blip-festival-live/

// WANT TO HELP?

If you're interested in being part of our volunteer staff, we'd love to have you — let us know at contact@blipfestival.org.

例大祭8 roundup: Innocent Key, IOSYS, 天然ジェミニ, Siestail

We've done roundups for M3-2011春, M3-2010秋, M3-2010春 Comiket 79 and hell, even 東方紅楼夢6. But nothing on Reitaisai, the grande messe of Touhou? Originally, we were planning on helping you build your shopping list back in early March, but the event was postponed to May 8th 2011 because of y'all-know-what. Of course you could always visit doujinongaku for the complete list of participating circles, but we've hand-picked some of the best (denpa-related DUH) albums which are coming out this weekend.

Note that many of these may already be available in stores, but they still deserve coverage nonetheless!

Let's start this round-up with Innocent Key... how often does that happen? Well, this is actually the first time in four years that we're taking a good long look at an Innocent Key album! We did select a song from 2010's superb「ココボク」as a "top denpa song of the year 2010" but of course the main draw was ココ and her awesome voice. Still, thanks to that album and now 「東方スクール」 (a full-on denpa album), it's finally time to give Innocent Key credit where credit is due.

The titular track dictates the pace and tone, playful and cheery tunes abound! Only "transmigration" takes a more serious turn, but it still somehow fits in just well. ココ is featured on most songs of course but dare we say this is yohine's most focused album? 溝口ゆうま also did a fantastic job arranging timeless Touhou themes with flair and panache. Somehow Lord ARM makes a welcome guest composer appearance. It also helps that most of the male vocals are downright hilarious! While 「リリーの花粉最前線！」 may just be the strongest song on the album on all accounts, you just have to LOVE Innocent Key parodying ULTRA-PRISM with 「収穫イモ娘」... really clever cover which we're sure put a smile on aniki's stern face!

Can somebody please tell ForestPireo that 「Party Poche」 can mean "boring party" in French? In certain parts of the world, at least. Regardless, this is not a boring party by any stretch of the imagination... especially when it has girls like ななひら, なゆ and ココ!!! This wild trio will light up any social gathering, but the other girls aren't exactly Debbie Downers either. Not to mention we have a couple of ikemen in さつき が てんこもり and Innocent Key's 溝口ゆうま. For once, we have a ForestPireo album that is mostly upbeat so... pretty awesome shindig after all!

Comiket 79 saw the release of the IOSYS mega-denpa-album "Touhou Unfufufu" which, among other highlights, had Queen とろ美 singing the opening track composed by Lord ARM. The dream duo is back for more, just as IOSYS have gone back to a more variety-oriented album format. Regardless, 「東方メレンゲ少女夜行」 is another worthy offering and still features tons of crazy denpa songs to sink your teeth in. Next to 「エンドレス・てゐマパーク」, miko's 「少女さとりのさとりったー」 is the album's other heavyweight. あゆ and her friends t+pazolite and Coda contributed a new ACT track which frankly is not as memorable as the material from their first single, but still highly entertaining. Speaking of ACT, they will release a full album at C80!

Lord ARM's remix album 「リ:キャンディッド! ARM東方リミックス」was the other big IOSYS release just a couple months ago. They've announced a few new ones since then, but this is still fresh hotness as far as we're concerned! This one remixes eight different songs from various IOSYS "eras", including some pretty old stuff. Any attempt to describe the album's genre is futile. After many coffee pots and a couple Red Bulls, Lord ARM let himself loose in his studio, kicked a bunch of computers+keyboards around and this is the result. It is not as "focused" as his own album 「ワァオ！ハイパー電波チャン -ARM商業作品集-」 in fact it's quite the opposite. "Fucked up" comes to mind but the real descriptor should be "incredible variety". This feels like a love letter to his fans so if you want to support Lord ARM, speak with your wallet.

monoROSETTA's 「GREATEST HITS(予定) Vol.1」 is one of the many albums that weren't available for the original Reitaisai 8, rather it was announced in mid-April 2011. Despite the "greatest hits", don't be fooled. It's more of a "retro" kind of joke (if that makes any sense), which honestly is in line with some of the music. These are all brand new songs, with only a few already published (?). Once again, there is a lot of variety at hand, from borderline disco (妖怪ディスコウサギのテーマ) to straight-up denpa (危ないカリスマ☆恋のスカーレット！ and a couple others) and even some good-old fashioned Ramones-esque kind of anthemic punk.

This new unit consists of two DearStage girls on vocals (夢眠ねむ (also a DenpaGumi member) and レナ) as well as VOID and a couple other IOSYS dudes writing songs and lyrics. Yours truly was lucky enough to see these girls perform live at the MegaPeer event in early January 2011 and judging from the crowd reaction at such an embryonic stage of their career, they surely have a number of years ahead of them. But since all songs here are high quality arrangements of Touhou classics, the real test will come in the form of an original album.

Although 天然ジェミニ (tenjemini) consists of 愛原千尋 and 愛原佑季 at its "core", they change their voices so much and bring in so many guest vocalists that it can be kind of hard to tell them apart from other similar units. But when one of these vocalists is ゆきまめ... it's time to party! Along with yet another guest (愛空アキハ) she sings the first song 「可愛いなんて言わせない!」which does a great job of setting up the new album 「東方マジカル☆コミカル」. We love Yukimame and hope she appears on more circles, but she needs her own album like Nanahira!

Compared to the former album 「東方女乱演舞」which had a couple of snoozer tracks, this new effort is overall quite pleasing to the ear. The two tracks from KANZAKI (yes, one of the TAMUSIC dudes) are extremely well-crafted but the real standout here is Loser Kashiwagi's delightful 「にとりときゅうりと謎の技術！」 which almost sounds like it was composed with real Genesis/MegaDrive hardware. It's good to see/hear one of denpa's OGs still kicking it old-school!

Rounding out today's roundup is Siestail with「ザ・ベストちぇん」their second Best Of album in two years; the first being 2010's 「ザ・ベストてゐ」. Now you might be thinking "two best-ofs in two years? that's fucking nuts!"... well, you're right. The thing is, Siestail's circle-master Spelunker is not human; it is a Touhou Arrange Machine From Hell (TAMFH). But at least, it has the decency of selecting fantastic vocalists for its admittedly uniques remixes. We're talking リズナ, 小宮真央, ココ, ℃iel, haru*nya, papico and a bevy of other awesome girls with awesome voices. Oh, you haven't heard of papico? We secretly posted her picture in a previous post, so there's a late Easter Egg Hunt for you.

No but really, Spelunker is doing its fans a major service by doing these compilation albums on a yearly basis. You see, between the original release of 「ザ・ベストちぇん」 (early March) and today, SEVENTEEN new songs were published on four different singles which we won't discuss today, despite being packed to brim with the great singers listed above. There's always next year... until then, do give this double-CD a chance. Surely one of the 32 tracks will do it for you, and as good as she sounds with t+pazolite, it's good to hear Miss リズナ under a different producer once in a while!

M3-2011春 round-up: odenpa☆studio, t+pazolite, HolicService

UPDATED 05/01/11: Added three new segments: Wisteria Magic, まめこ and 33.turbo!

ORIGINAL: Just like last fall, this spring edition of M3 is a little light on denpa (and related) contents. However, considering all of the events Japan has had to deal with in the recent past, the output is surprising. Do note that this list will mostly focus on the goods which will be available at M3 on May 1st 2011. As you may or may not know, Touhou-related music is mostly absent from M3; it gets its own convention a week later on May 8th when Reitaisai takes over the Tokyo Big Sight. That said, many albums originally slated for Reitaisai may also be sold at M3. If you wish to purchase any of the following albums, remember that doujincore.com is running an M3 group import until April 24th 12:00 PM (PST).

This time, we're giving our buddies おでんぱ☆スタジオ (odenpa☆studio) top billing! The guys and girls are working so hard and it shows. Each new release contains their finest material and they have shown no signs of slowing down. You also have to appreciate how diligent they are when it comes to releasing new stuff on time. Three new songs and a radio track are included on this fourth single 「ボクとまほうとあいすくりーむ☆」 which introduces a shota theme (but lolis are still an integral part). This time the denpa feeling is through the roof, especially on track #2 which is certainly BB.Lemon's bravest creation so far. As usual, they provide us with samplers of all tracks, so head on over to the new single's website and hear their evolution for yourself.

Our man t+pazolite knows how to please his fans... after summer 2010's terrific 「Honey I Scream!」 and the wacky 「Re;setup」, he's back with the motto "cute+hard=crazzzzyyyy!" That should tell you everything right there, but do go ahead and sample all five of his new tracks from 「cutie breaks EP」, two of which feature the lovely リズナ on vocals. As the name implies, this is a rather short album and it even got its own "sub-label" with the distribution code CHSEP-0001. The guy really shines on his concept albums so this EP might feel a little short in comparison, but it should tide us over until C80 rolls over. The artwork from うちゃコ is sublime and topazo really did a great job with his website this time!

Holic Service is BACK, BABY!!! Although the new album's titled「ニヒリズム！」(nihilism), don't be fooled. The theme is "Party X MoeDenpa X Parade" and it certainly comes true on the explosive tracks #2 and #4, sung by Chia (never heard of, GREAT DEBUT!) and なゆ (love this girl, nice choice!) respectively. Queen Gumi makes a couple appearances as a duet with さてぃっち. KuKuDoDo is certainly in top form and although this isn't exactly the proper follow-up to his delightful "Energy Reimen" series, we'll definitely take this! If you aren't familiar with KuKuDoDo or Holic Service... why? This article will get you up to speed, and this one covers pretty much the entire Birdtune catalog, on which KuKuDoDo frequently appears.

Another hard-working circle is Zero-Shaft. They've been plowing away at their own IDOLM@STER-inspired series iDOLST@GE for sometime and gave us「FirstSt@ge」at last year's M3. This year, they mix things up a bit with TWO new albums. The first one is the anisong cover album 「COVERST@GE」 that sounds fantastic and can be sampled here. Of course, the lovely ココ is one of the many featured singers but まめこ is also quite the moe generator.

As cool as anisong cover albums can be, they have another release which should be really high on this site's readers shopping list. For a mere 500 yen, they're offering 「ちびロリっ！」, a chibimoeloli album which has all of their singers doing their cutest voices. The first track alone should convince you: it has ななひら and the aforementioned まめこ as a duo! ひなうさ also appears as a singer and BBレモン of odenpa/melo9 fame is even a guest composer! WOW! If that wasn't enough, customers will also receive a FREE copy of 「おんなのこすいーつ」 as a bonus item!

We might not have written about 藤原鞠菜 that much over the years, but perhaps it is time we start giving her more attention. While she started her career in the early 2000s singing for the game industry, "Marinya" has mostly been associated to IOSYS as of late. Highlights include 2009's hilarious 「Club Ibuki in Break All」 and also the recent 「Daydream Syndrome」 anime single, which was performed live at the 2011 MegaPeer event (greatly pleasing this writer).

But Marinya is also capable of producing her own stuff under the circle Wisteria Magic, as evidenced by the stealthily-announced 「キミトマホウノヒビキ」 mini-album. Surprisingly, this one doesn't involve IOSYS at all: in fact it was fully composed by our good buddy 磯村カイ (ISOMURA Kai) of TONAKAI sound works! Yes, the Team Love Bullets dude who used to wish he would be a game programmer, but now writes music for some of the finest Japanese women.

Listen to this new album... do it!!! Reminds you of anything? That's right, it's strikingly similar to the Team Love Bullets of olde. Let's not turn this into a TLB discussion, but let's just say it's very refreshing to hear Kai go back to the more frivolous sound that made him a household name in the first place. As for Marinya, there's no denying she's extremely comfortable singing over this kind of soundtrack and it enhances her versatility. It's pretty cool they opted to go for a full 6 tracks as opposed to one of those annoying singles. There's a very good balance of hot-blooded and adorable songs! Hoping for more in the future!

We love 2-dimension for their quality albums and we love まめこ for her ambrosial voice, so it's pretty cool to see both of them work together on her debut album「Jewel」. Although this is not a denpa album at all (more like powerful rock meets glitter pop), it's still worth a quick mention on this site. After all, the main composer Kenji has been involved in many of ForestPireo's albums, as well as on the first 天然ジェミニ album, so he's definitely relevant to our interests. As for まめこ AKA SugarBunny*, well we've praised her on many occasions, but suffice to say that she is one of the hottest ZeroShaft girls, as well as the lovely うさ子 in the one-off Valentine's Day unit "チョコっと★ましゅまるん".

Last but certainly not least on this list is 33.turbo's latest effort, a mini-album with four brand new original songs going by the name 「ホイップライフ」. What's always been cool about 33.turbo is that the circle member have never dropped the "denpa style" qualifier and that scores major points with this site. The first two tracks are balls-to-the-wall fast with delectable vocals. The third seems to be a statement on the post-earthquake shopping panic, not unlike Hyadain's own contribution. Although 「愛の買占め」 sounds sad, it's pretty cool to see small doujin circles using music to make a point, in their own way. What does the fourth track sound like? Nobody knows! Buy the CD to find out more!

Japan Firsthand: Osaka (大阪) Photojournal

Just a couple more cities to go and this photojournal will come to an end! Writeups for M3 and Reitaisai (take 2) are still in the cards, don't worry. For now, let's look at Osaka, the third largest city of Japan. MOSAIC.WAV regularly play here and the Den Den Town is quite large and comparable to Akihabara. We ran into tons of hilarious Engrish signs and ate delicious food. Hotels in Osaka are extremely cheap and quite clean! It's also a great hub to other "nearby" cities such as Kobe and Kyoto. Siliconera recently had a feature on the Osaka gaming industry which may be interesting to some readers.

Still to come: Hiroshima and Tokyo! All pictures by CRIMExTHINK (click for larger resolution)

The Unboxening: MOSAIC.WAV「吟遊Planet☆AKIBA-POP」 "Extravagantly Extra-Equipped" Limited Edition

Hey, listen! Did you forget that MOSAIC.WAV just recently released their killer 5th album 「吟遊Planet☆AKIBA-POP」, along with an "Extravagantly Extra-Equipped" Limited Edition available for international mail order? Let the following video refresh your memory and lighten your wallet.

It's pretty nice that this massive limited edition comes packed in such a nice tight box. If you're running low on space (like me) then you'll be glad to know that everything fits neatly inside. You can put it up on a desk without a prop, it'll stand on its own. The booklet is full-colour and contains all sorts of things: lyrics, interviews, production notes, comics, artwork and a nice discography section. To see more pictures, refer to DJKnuxCore's excellent unboxening pictorial.

We'll try and have a complete review of the album in the days to come. It is definitely their most varied effort as they explore new soundscapes and the exciting new possibilities that come with them. Thanks again to Sham Studio and MOSAIC.WAV for this exquisite boxset, as well as allowing their international fans to order from the store.