The Lost Emotions

One of the best arranges I’ve ever heard of Broken Moon and A Flower-Studded Sake Dish on Mt. Ooe, this is truly the perfect blend of pop and traditional folk.  I love how upbeat and energetic this arrange is, while those calmer sections in the middle really adds depth and variety that matches perfectly with the other parts of the arrange.

What makes this better is that festival ambiance they add at the very end.  During the entire song, Suika happily dances around in a grand festival, being merry and drinking sake while attending the stalls or making danmaku fireworks.  Then at the very end she vanishes into the crowd, as if she was the gathering and manifestation of the joyful atmosphere itself during the celebration.  Broken Moon is really the best theme for her.

About a month ago, Belisaria Yagami's/Twin Drive’s Youtube’s account was terminated.  Even though I haven’t been listening to it much nowadays, it was one of those first channels I listened to for Touhou music back when I was just starting to enter the fandom.  It’s very sad to see these inactive records being wiped from existence.  I’m just glad I save each song in my playlists to my hard drive ever since Tewi’s and Nitori’s channels came under fire some time ago.

When I started posting these videos, I created a playlist of songs I thought would be interesting to share.  This song was the only song from Belisaria’s channel, so in memory of their channel I present to you another FELT song.

Last Remote is one of my absolute favorites, along with Necrofantasia and The Lost Emotion.  You can go to my previous post Last Remote post to know why, but anyways, on to the arrange.

The intro was just amazing, I really don’t know what to call the sound at the beginning, I guess I could call them raindrops, but they set up the song perfectly.  That feeling of emptiness, but still with a sliver of energy and hope.  Those two bounce back together in tandem, really personifying Koishi herself.  The break in the middle really showed how fragile this is however, adding to the powerful emotions within.

Unfortunately, I’ve never read the lyrics before.  Once I do, I’ll add my thoughts on those here.

I’ve been busy with lots of school work, since it is the end of the semester.  Once all that is over I will have tons of time doing the stuff I want XD.  Meanwhile, here is an amazing arrange of the HM intro from SOUND HOLIC to keep you guys happy.

In my opinion, the Hopeless Masquerade intro theme is the best out of all the title themes (even though it isn’t even a title theme).  Just something about it speaks amazement and joy in and around the world of Gensokyo and the Touhou universe.  It’s super upbeat and awe inspiring.

While short, this arrange really builds upon the original.  It’s not as quick and energizing, but more mysterious and intriguing.  This was something I did not expect from SOUND HOLIC and it sounds very refreshing.

Exams aghhh!  Well, I was feeling down after my horrible stats exam score, but then I set the curve for operating systems.  I guess I’m just better at programming than at math lol.  That’s weird, isn’t programming just math...  Oh well.

And here we have more folk from Floating Cloud.  Perky and upbeat, this arrange really got me moving the first time I heard it.  The arrange is just so happy, so I thought it would be fitting since I’m quite pleased with myself (on the OS exam, not the stats one), and I haven’t posted folk in a while too.  

I really enjoy listening to traditional, authentic instruments often, as the sound they make is very ‘crisp’, for lack of a better word.  You can really feel the peculiarities of each instrument on every note, and it’s really refreshing in a sea of electronic sounds.  I’m not saying electronic is bad, it’s just that I value music variety a lot.

Also, I really like how Floating Cloud arranged The Dark Blowhole.  Sometimes, even though they play extraordinary well, they arrange the song in a way that I don’t enjoy as much.  In this case however, they really nailed the soft and upbeat parts of the song.  It’s really a blast to listen to.

Another calm arrange is it?  Well yeah, but this one gets a bit more menacing than usual.

The atmosphere this one creates is absolutely astounding.  While it’s nice and calm in the beginning, the introduction of those deep bass horns really gets you tense.  Then it goes back to calming you down before that ending.

What I get is this feeling of content and joy, with a subtle hint that not everything is alright and something horrible is going to happen in the near future.  It’s this sense of foreboding that I really want to be able express in some way in the future, whether through words or music.

There really needs to be more arranges like this, but honestly, I can’t hear a single bit of Heian Alien in here, so is this really a Touhou arrange?  If I had a choice of having awesome arranges or faithful Touhou arranges I’ll go with awesome arranges.  You never know what comes next :D.  As always, take care!

I’m tired and a bit stressed so maybe I should post another relaxing arrange, but screw that.  Here, have some Alice rock.

This is my kind of Doll Judgment, a super intense boss fight arrange.  If Alice went Extra boss mode, this is what I would imagine it would sound like.  Those organs at the start make for a very intense but smooth introduction to the rest of the song.  That really sums up the song for me; it’s an enjoyable kind of intense.  The arrange is great and the parts are very nice to listen to, with a good amount of variation.  Some rock arranges are just too painful for me to listen to.  Even though it may be louder and rougher and heavier it doesn’t help if I don’t want to listen to it in the first place.  I can listen to loud white noise if I want that.

No matter what though, I always get pumped up listening to this arrange.  The calm portion at around 2:30 breaks up the intensity a bit, but that’s good.  It’s nice variation and helps you recover for the finale.

It’s going to get very busy for me from now on, but I’m pretty sure some of you are busier than I am, so here’s some nice atmospheric Necrofantasia to help with relaxing.

This arrange is great; that soft piano and those whisper-y strings.  It slows and swells at just the right times.  I would love to be in Yukari’s position right now.  I would sit back and take a short nap, the cool evening air flowing around me as the light of the sun slowly dims to a pale glow (and then get vertigo when I wake up and forget I’m 50 meters high haha).

You know, this reminds me of Minecraft, especially those first times I watched the sun set from atop my stone house.  I will never forget my first world in Minecraft.  Shame that I haven’t touched the game for over an year, it’s just lost its charm somehow.

Now we’re getting to the relaxing parts of my backlog.  Don’t worry, I’ll mix it up.

This is one beautiful folk arrange of Interdimensional Voyage of a Ghostly Passenger Ship, which unfortunately is one of those themes I cannot remember from UFO very well.  I absolutely love the flute, which I think is a Shakuhachi; it sounds a bit high for one (out of all the ones I’ve heard so far), but isn’t as smooth as a flute or recorder.  I can’t identify the string instrument either.  Anyways, the instruments sound very nice.

Whenever I listen to this song, I always get some image of a journey, whether by boat, by horse, by foot, by hot air balloon, whatever.  Fitting for the song eh?  I’m starting to think the title and picture might be influencing me.  Anyhow, while the song is quite relaxing and calm, I also feel a slight tension hanging in the distance.  Maybe it’s because of how melancholy the flute sounds.

Obligatory searching for nice Tomboyish Girl in Love arrange for Cirno day.  I’ve got the standard piano, orchestral arranges and was even thinking about posting FELT’s Hail Storm, when I found this.

This is just the thing I needed today.  Super happy and upbeat.  I love how the harmonica was added :D.  Vocals are great and the arrange is fantastic.  To me this captures much of Cirno’s personality, just a happy-go-lucky fairy messing around in Gensokyo.

Happy Cirno Day!  I’m feeling quite tired and down lately, so I won’t be able to put much into this year’s Cirno Day.

Hope you guys are feeling better!

By たんたんめん -> Picture

This arrange, oh man...  RD Sounds is amazing.

In my opinion, RD Sounds is one of the best Touhou circles out there, because most of their arranges fall under two categories: great sounding songs with thoughtful lyrics and wonderfully unique instrumental arranges.  This one is the latter.

I really love how they mixed the arcade slot sound and the retro bit style instruments with traditional violin and piano scores.  It fits amazingly well due to the great quality of the arrangement.  It’s upbeat, energizing, and overall a blast to listen to.  Something about it just gets me moving haha.

The arrangement of Theme of Eastern Story is very well done, very unique, and is absolutely wonderful.  The slow parts are just the right intensity, building up to the upbeat parts which pump up the entire song.  However, if you listen carefully, you can feel other tones and feelings inside.  I won’t really go into detail on those other feelings, since they’re mostly subjective.

We have another metal arrange?  Oh yeah!  It’s time for some Song of the Night Sparrow rock!

My favorite part of Night Bird is the first piano melody (in this particular arrange this starts at around 1:16).  That’s the meatiest (pun not intended) part of Night Bird for me.  It emits a very complex emotion, like the remembrance of someone close to you which has since passed on.  After that, the feeling is like the strength to carry onward through the pain.

This particular arrange emphasizes the strength portion of Night Bird, though still contains that feeling of loss.  Because of this emphasis, and the fact that the bpm is high and it’s rock, it really helps me get pumped up to do something, to carry onward through the hardships I’ve been having that day or week.  I also like how he added in Deaf to All but the Song in the middle too.

One of the reasons why I wanted to post this arrange was to give Night Bird some exposure.  This and Illusionary Night ~ Ghostly Eyes are some of the most overlooked tracks in Touhou, I barely see any arranges for these two unless I specifically search for them.  This makes me a bit sad, because without these IN would be completely lackluster with only about two or three tracks I really like.  For some reason, I just can’t get much expression from IN themes.  Many of the tracks in IN also feel too repetitive for me and aren’t enjoyable to listen to.

When I first heard this song, Farewell Tour (決別の旅), from The Sealed Esoteric History fan-anime, it didn’t really stand out to me.  It was only after about a month when I re-watched the opening that it really got stuck in my head.

This is my third favorite song (as of 7-2015).  The lyrics have good meaning; the vocals, while imo not perfect, fit the song very nicely; and the composition is excellent.  I really like how they mixed Innocent Treasures into Girls’ Sealing Club.  The Necrofantasia part felt slightly out of place, but was still quite good.

While each component was good, they all seem lackluster compared to my other favorites.  A Song of Truth and Fragile Idol Worship, both by RD-Sounds, have excellent vocals and lyrics, yet are lower on the list.  Terminal Station, by GET IN THE RING, and Dear Universe, by IOSYS, are superior in composition, yet are also lower on the list.  I can safely say that if it is in the top 20 of my list, it beats Farewell Tour in something.  Why then, is it in third place?  I guess the best phrase to describe this song would be “Greater than the sum of its parts”.

I love the atmosphere this song creates.  It is one of curiosity, adventure, discovery, and fantasy.  This song perfectly describes the essence of the Sealing Girls’ Club; I can easily see Maribel and Renko discovering Gensokyo and its mystical history with this song.  This feeling is so great, I kinda get sad that I can’t do the same.  Each component; the lyrics, vocals, and composition, serve to further this feeling, and what we get is one beautifully made song which perfectly compliments the visual portion of the fan-anime.

To add to the greatness, the song also juggles the Maribel -> Yukari story again.  It seems like I’m very biased lol, as my top three favorites all contain some form of Necrofantasia and all relate to Maribel.  It might just be from this bias, but I also get a feeling of loneliness underneath the main “discovery of a new world” atmosphere.  It fits though, as one is usually alone when out discovering and adventuring.  You can also say that it’s because Maribel wishes to show the world the beauty hidden away in Gensokyo, but is incapable of doing so.

Back more than an year ago, I never thought I would come across a song that would beat Absolute One-Way Street in my favorites list, but now, it’s number 2.  This is, The Beautiful World.

What in the would could possibly beat a song investigating the psychological conflicts of Maribel Hearn as she transitions into Gensokyo as Yukari Yakumo while composed by RD-Sounds and voiced by Meramipop?  Well, a song investigating the psychological conflicts of Maribel Hearn as she transitions into Gensokyo etc... you get the point haha.  From an overall standpoint, the songs are literally identical.  The only reason why I like this one better is because I enjoy this composition and feeling more than Absolute One-Way Street.

Absolute One-Way Street really revolved around the separation between Maribel and Renko.  It was just depressing, as simple curiosity paved the way to irreversible consequences; the world literally chaining Maribel in and there was very little she could do about it, except to warn others.  Even though she enjoyed these changes to an extent, she had to adapt and throw her past away.  The past was the past.  She had moved on.  Don’t try to bring the past back, Renko.

The Beautiful World feels sad as well and contains the same longing for a past that could have been, but revolves around the definitive, absolute depiction of the separation between what was once Maribel and the now Yukari.  Maribel, in this song, had more of a choice.  She saw beauty and walked towards it.  As things became more intense, as she saw the changes within her, she didn’t hesitate to continue pressing forward.  She sacrificed everything, even her best friend, to walk the path she walks now, to enjoy and live in The Beautiful World.