As I come across new bangers that I can’t really save anywhere else, I’ll post them at the top of this post. I don’t expect this to be daily, but I will try to keep up here every so often. Feel free to follow along as I update this.

I use YouTube links, as well as links to other nonfree services, directly here, as the other options require a lot of overhead for something I’m only going to do for one post, at least as far as I can see. I’ll put a small warning directly behind any links to clarify that they are what they are.

2024-12-4 | tn-shi - Cyberfantasia#

The single jacket for tn-shi - Cyberfantasia Listen here (YouTube link)

A stroke of divinity from an artist I keep saying is underrated, but never looked into. Who would’ve guessed?

I found this one from a very difficult community chart for a “free-to-play” rhythm game I had never heard of before (Steam Workshop download), which I think is fun, but not great, personally; as I haven’t played it much, I won’t get too into it. The song, however, floored me when I first heard it, as tn-shi tends to do for me, and it’s a wonder I haven’t heard so much more of their work.

I guessed that tn-shi detuned their master on their tracks to give them a very unique sound, and I was very much right, as is admitted in the YouTube description for the song: Indeed, this version of the song is at A = 450 Hz; while 10 Hz off of 440 doesn’t sound like that much if you don’t know what I’m talking about, it is a world of difference when you’re listening to something like this. While I criticize 432 Hz for just often not working, tn-shi’s work is a very beautiful use of the sharp tuning, which, combined with the absolute masterclass of a chord progression on top of a fast, rhythm game-y song, synthesizes something absolutely incredible. This song is absolutely immaculate in every way I can think of.

I want to talk a bit more about the excellent chord theory that I wouldn’t even be able to dream of. I did not expect to see the double sharp symbol in a visualizer for a rhythm game song in my life, much less rapid fire quarter note progressions that I can’t even keep up with to read, and yet here we are. It’s like you’ve taken some alternate universe’s version of Jacob Collier and built him up with five years of rhythm game composition experience from god knows what actual stroke of heaven this production comes from. If you place Snail’s House admitting to not knowing the slightest about music theory at one end of a spectrum, I feel like tn-shi would magically appear on the other and inject a sus4add6 chord into the threads of the universe in the process.

I am watching a master at work, and by god, it is beautiful.

EDIT: SORRY WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS GUY NEVER STUDIED MUSIC THEORY

2024-12-4 | Honorable mentions#

I feel kinda bad for these. Nothing can top the main attraction tonight, and honestly, one of these songs got swatted away pretty hard when I remembered this song existed. …I was even meaning to do a full length post on Lacrimosa, and then this hit me like a freight train.

  • BilliumMoto x Silentroom - Sense (YouTube link)
    • This is probably my favorite entry from BOFXVII specifically, and I think it’s in part because it sounds like it shouldn’t be in a rhythm game. This is just a beautiful song, honestly, and I am all here for it; on top of that, it’s apparently part of a greater story from Team [Clue], and it very much feels like it. Unfortunately, I haven’t listened to all of the works from the Team [Clue] based EP this would eventually be put on besides Random, which was the track that actually won the event.
  • Silentroom - 驟雨の狭間 (Rainshower) (Vimeo link)
    • This is probably one of my favorite songs in the entire drum and bass genre of all time, and I’ve only recently been holding its prequel in Nhelv in as high of a regard. When I still did numerical ratings for music before I realized I didn’t like any of the services that offered that, this was probably the easiest 10/10 in the books for me, and I still consider it an incredibly beautiful work by an artist I find to be consistently good.
  • Silentroom - Milky Way Wishes (YouTube link)
    • You know what? I’m talking about Silentroom a lot already, and Sense was the track that got snubbed for main spot, so I feel like it’s only fair to go for the hat trick here. I think I’m in part captivated by the choice of visualizer here and in part in love with the harmonies in the melody throughout, but Silentroom’s chord progressions here are what I’ve come to love from their work as well.

2024-12-3 | HAYAKO - BlueWhite#

The thumbnail for the DJMAX ARCHIVE video for HAYAKO - BlueWhite Listen here (YouTube link)

It’s DJMAX day in the music thread today, because I spent all of last night playing rhythm games and looking through the song list for DJMAX DLC I don’t own.

Here’s a song I’ve loved for a while, from TAPSONIC BOLD, actually, but I’m very glad they put it in DJMAX RESPECT V. The idea behind it progression wise is very simple, but it’s got very fun fluorishes that make for a very interesting chart. Having heard a little bit of HAYAKO, one song of which I know I will be putting in the honorable mentions, this is a very different song from what I’d expect knowing what HAYAKO is known for, but given HAYAKO made both ANALYS and NANAIRO, I don’t think I can really comment on HAYAKO’s versatility.

There’s not too much to say to this one, either, but I do enjoy it. There’s not really much of an idea of a mood with this one, it just feels like a feel good song that’s made to be difficult in the rhythm games, and as I stated in my DJMAX media thread entry, it makes for a very difficulty spike heavy chart. It’s very interesting that it’s in major key, as I don’t often here those kinds of songs, and it very much uses that well with its theme; despite basically being a boss song, it doesn’t sound like one, which is something that I see a lot when it comes to what’s interesting in DJMAX. If you do play the SC charts for this, don’t assume this will be an easy, high rate entry.

2024-12-3 | Honorable mentions#

Here’s some DJMAX entries I gushed about in a Discord server because I had only learned about them last night.

  • Ice - Rhapsody for The VEndetta (YouTube link)
    • Ice strikes when I least expect it. It’s pretty obvious that Ice’s influences are here just from how this sounds, but the production is beautiful in a way that makes it clear they’ve grown from… what? Cytus 1? Cytus 2? …Nah, they were this good in Cytus 2, but when you compare this to, say, L, this is an entire world apart.
  • HAYAKO - KICK IT (YouTube link)
    • I was almost about to make tonight’s entry about this song, but I think it’s a lot less memorable than BlueWhite was. This one’s just a fun song in the style that HAYAKO is known for with ANALYS, but with even more energy and a very fun music video to boot.
  • sakyzuo - Cyberozar (YouTube link)
    • My feelings on pretty much everything Sakuzyo has made that is not Altale or Destr0yer are mixed; honestly, it’s a style of production that feels like it doesn’t lean in hard enough where it should and leans in too hard where it ends up feeling stale. That said, when this song hits, it hits hard, and I think that melodic drop near the end is very solid.

2024-11-27 | Kyotsugyon - SUPERNOVA#

The single jacket for Kyotsugyon - SUPERNOVA Listen here (YouTube link)

These are probably going to be added later than the date I wrote these, because I’m out of town and don’t have access to my website files besides my post. It’s all I need to get my thoughts down, at least, but there might not be images here for a while.

I still haven’t played to this part of vivid/stasis (Steam link) yet, but what I’ve played of it is incredible; instead, I discovered this through Quaver in a very difficult mixed rice map that I’ve been trying to get a decent score on for a while despite how absurd some of its sections are to hit. The song is beautiful, especially the main drop with how melodically cohesive it is, and it is incredibly obvious that it is a boss song for something, even if I didn’t realize what and where it was present until I searched it up to find its name for this thread.

I’d write more here, but honestly, there’s not that much to say about this one. It’s just a really good song. It’s got so many cool things going for it and really nothing that makes it uninteresting, save for the fact that the same kick is used throughout the entire thing, but I feel like that’s approaching nitpick territory. What I do know is that I should play vivid/stasis again.

2024-11-27 | Honorable mentions#

I’m probably going to slow down on these as well, as I can’t think of as many songs for these, but I’ll try to keep this going if I can.

  • Madeon - Hypermania (YouTube link)
    • Nothing especially new for me, just remembering when I listened to Good Faith for the first time. At the time, I did so in a liveblog on Discord around the time one of the Madeon News moderators was checking the server, so they got to see me think “my life is a lie” to myself after discovering that even though I think “Something Comforting” is a 10/10, I more consistently liked Good Faith than Nurture, as I had liveblogged Nurture prior in the same server and never listened to more Madeon than Pop Culture before that review.
  • Camellia - 辰砂 / HgS (YouTube link)
    • This is one of those songs I looped for a while, and it definitely demonstrates the ideas that got me to fall in love with Ashed Wings as an album in a very unique way; that, and the extensions of some of the beatmania IIDX tracks from Camellia that never got a full release are very welcome. There’s definitely a lot of Camellia that I haven’t listened to that I should, but I think there’s going to be a lot I end up getting disappointed by due to how good some of his more rhythm game directed work is in my eyes.
  • Scott James - Ballet (YouTube link)
    • There are a few songs that are surprisingly spiritual for some reasons I will keep close to my chest, one of which was a TikTok audio at some point for some reason, with this being one of the hardest ones to find in good quality on the internet, as the only legit ways to get your hands on a digital file for this seem to be MP3s from Amazon Music, which I will not do. If anyone finds a real, high quality FLAC for anything by this artist, please let me know where you found it.

2024-11-26 | Tyler, the Creator - St. Chroma#

The album jacket for Tyler, the Creator - CHROMAKOPIA, which St. Chroma is on Listen here (YouTube link)

This song is hope in a bottle; it didn’t save me, but it helped when things reached their worst. I feel like I will inevitably need to talk about this album; I’ve written up a review of the album for this blog, but it was too emotionally charged, so I plan to rewrite it when my emotions eventually stabilize; in it, I mention that the album reminds me of one of my sonas, Jackal, and let my emotions take me on a ride throughout the experience. Even then, I admitted the album wouldn’t be especially high on my list, but I’d have to take another listen to figure out exactly where things end up, and I’m not ready to do that yet.

Tyler’s work is very unique and interesting. It’s easy for me to be disappointed by what I hear when it comes to mainstream rap, but I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of what I’ve heard off of this album; I haven’t heard much of Tyler’s work, but I’ve been a fan of most of what I’ve heard, and now that I’ve heard this album, with the context that it’s based off of a lot of Tyler’s previous work, I’m more interested in going back and listening to it now. St. Chroma in particular ended up being my favorite song off of the album; I was already looping the teaser, so when the full song dropped, it became a mainstay on a playlist of mine. It’s a lot of what I love of Tyler’s production with interesting lyrical choices and a very defined theme of hope that plays somewhat into the rest of what you hear on the album. I love the build-up to the main instrumental section; I imagine this is reminiscent of some of his previous work in an interesting way.

Holding on to hope gets you far. I’m going to try to keep staying strong.

2024-11-26 | Honorable mentions#

I’m still trying to poke out the most interesting entries that I’ve listened to in recent years. Some of these may be strange picks, as I’ve knocked out most of the essentials already, but I want to push forward some neat songs.

  • Abel & RiraN - Lacrimosa (YouTube link)
    • I remember seeing a post not that long ago on fedi about someone randomly discovering a BOF:TT track when I didn’t realize BOF:TT was happening already; I haven’t been following it, but I should. This is a song from a previous BMS OF FIGHTERS from artists I remember distinctly not liking in future entries, but listening to this, I think it is considerably better than the actual song where they won the event; namely, I love that last drop, in part because it just beams an image of 4K 24th dumpstream into my head. I might do a longer writeup of this one one day if I don’t have anything better to write about, because I think I was meaning to talk about this at some point, but forgot.
  • DJSUSIEDELTARUNE (saoirse dream) - *you’re (SoundCloud link)
    • This one’s funny, I think. It’s very well produced for how short it is; it’s something I want to make a difficulty spread of for a rhythm game at some point, because it’s pretty clear now how good dariacore’s potential is for that. saoirse dream in general tends to be very hit or miss for me, and this one was absolutely a hit.
  • Jacob Mann Big Band - Pronk (YouTube link)
    • I haven’t listened to this one in a while, but everything about it is insane. A jazz big band track featuring Louis Cole (the KNOWER guy) on drums with Simon Fransman editing it is something that sounds so insane to my feeble mind, and it’s… incredible, actually, which, well, I’m not surprised one bit.
  • Asian melancholic - jazz in parallel world (YouTube link)
    • Kikuo tends to consistently make hits. I discovered this alias in particular from their 24/7 livestream while that was up, and thoroughly enjoyed the work; pretty much every song off of this alias has been a strong hit for me. Shoutouts to “stormy day” (YouTube link) as well.
  • Sungazer - Cytherean (YouTube link)
    • I discovered this from a JToH fan tower (Roblox link). I’ve not given Sungazer a consistent chance, despite liking what I’ve heard of them, as well as all of the work Adam Neely has gotten involved with.

2024-11-25 | AZALI - show me the sky. show me how to live#

The single jacket for AZALI - show me the sky. show me how to live Listen here (YouTube link)

I will be totally honest. I think AZALI is overhyped.

I don’t think AZALI’s work is bad, per se, and I enjoy a lot of it, having listened to a small bit, but it’s incredibly clear exactly who AZALI is when you look at their best work. I think there’s a pretty big difference between their collaboration work, things like “TO DUST THOU SHALT RETURN” (YouTube link), where a lot of the backing that expands off of what would otherwise be a track entirely composed of piano and Amen Break sampling makes for a very full sound, versus something like “MECHANICAL GOD” (YouTube link), which is very stripped back in comparison; in this dichotomy, I tend to like the more involved products, and as such, even though I did enjoy “MECHANICAL GOD”, I was iffy about calling it a song I especially liked.

Obviously, “show me the sky. show me how to live” isn’t that. It’s even more stripped back of a work, and I think that does it so many favors. This is practically a solo piano piece, besides the bits of ear candy and ambience that aren’t on the Spotify version. What we’ve got here is just a chilling, emotional piano refrain on a YouTube Shorts aspect ratio visualizer. I don’t think of this in the same vein that I think of other works by AZALI as much as I think of it as its own thing, and I think that does it so many favors; I imagine AZALI has done more like this than just this, but this very much stands out on its own in my mind.

It is simple. It is expressive. It is beautiful.

2024-11-25 | Honorable mentions#

Here are some songs I’ve been looking to talk about for a while, as they’ve been helping me through some tough times, but I didn’t have a space I wanted to talk about them in.

  • Kendrick Lamar- United In Grief (YouTube link)
    • I discovered this one thanks to osu!mania. I’ve been burnt pretty hard by some of Kendrick’s less creative work because I found the beats pretty lame, but on the more melodic beats, Kendrick becomes a storyteller. The Drake beef exemplified this in my mind; “Watch The Party Die” (YouTube link) in particular got me to go back and look at his discography again, and needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I’m looking forward to listening to GNX eventually.
  • Mameyudoufu - あわ (YouTube link)
    • I discovered this one thanks to Quaver. It’s a very fun tune from an artist I definitely want to explore more. I don’t think Hatsune Miku’s tuning on this is very sophisticated, but this sound adds a lot; I’m often critical about Vocaloid focused songs, as they tend to have a specific sound to them I don’t like, but this is a very fun track that doesn’t deserve that ire. I may do a longer writeup on this one eventually.
  • SOPHIE - Infatuation (YouTube link)
    • Another artist I haven’t really given much of a chance until recently, despite falling in love with a long time ago. I haven’t heard the album through, but I loved “Is It Cold In The Water?” and this has a very similar energy to it in my mind. It’s wild that this is the same album that “FACESHOPPING” is from. Rest In Peace, SOPHIE.
  • DOMi & JD BECK, Mac DeMarco - TWO SHRiMPS (YouTube link)
    • This entire album is a solid experience. I hadn’t really given DOMi and JD BECK much of a chance before I found this album, but after listening to it through, I see why I fell in love with them originally. This is my favorite off the album.
  • uyama hiroto - Departure (YouTube link)
    • I’ve never listened to this album front to back, as it’s a quite large one, but everything I’ve heard off of it has been incredible. This has been my favorite so far.