Beat of the Week: Glitter (Starving Trancer Remix) feat.Another Infinity + extras

Posted by Tr3xus
November 18, 2012

It's that time again for the beat of the week!

This week i'll be talking about one of my current favourite song:
Glitter (Starving Trancer Remix) feat.Another Infinity

Album cover of Glitter / 神巫詞

I came across this song from watching the anime - Fairy Tail. It is the 11th ending song for the anime. There are some songs that will immediately goosebumps when you listen to it. Well, this song gave me lots of goosebumps the first time I heard it! Not many songs give me goosebumps, so this song is rather special to me.
 
Glitter (Starving Trancer Remix) is a remixed version of Glitter, originally composed by Another Infinity.

Another Infinity is an alias for musicians Starving Trancer and Ryu☆. The remix is basically made by the same people who composed the song ._.

The remix maintains a similar sequence with the original, but is altered to sound more ambient. I personally love the addition of the string instruments (violin) it makes the song sound very epic.



Another notable song by Another Infinity is Towa no Kizuna. Which was also featured on Fairy Tail.



and another notable song by Starving Trancer is Only My Railgun - Starving Trancer feat. MAKI. This song is part of EXIT TUNES which are a series of japanese trance music made by different artists. I love listening to exit trance, they all sound so good!

haha I know I went off topic showing you all other songs, but they are all awesome and I would like to share it with you readers :) hope you all enjoyed this week's collection of j-trance music!

Tr3xus

Beat of the Week: Iosys

Posted by IAmBored
November 11, 2012


Hey everybody!

It's time for Beat Of The Week! And since this is my first time doing it, I hope you all like it :)
With the exception of heavy metal and trot, I listen to every genre of music there is on Earth. However, I will mainly introduce music with strong beats as it is "BEAT" OF THE WEEK. So do look out for a mixture songs of random languages. (I also listen to listen to most languages except for Malay and Tamil. No offence, but the songs are not really my style :P)
If you guys don't know, I am a major Kpop fan... *hint hint* ;)
Ok let's go!

This is one of my favorite Japanese groups :D

IOSYS (イオシス)

Well, I'm not really sure what the symbol means, but their music is awesome. :D

Iosys is a musical ensemble and doujin circle based in Sapporo. There is practically almost no information about the members in this group. The only thing know about the members is that most of them live in Hokkaido and Kanto areas of Japan. 

They are not signed under any company or labels, but they generally release their music through doujin channels such as Comiket convention and their webpage, which is in Japanese so.... Google Translate it, yah?

Anyways, this group is famous for its parodies for character or themes in games such as Touhou Project and Atlus's Etrian Odyssey. Their music videos are generally flash videos of characters in the above mentioned games.

example of a discography

They also produced the 2nd ending credits for Penguin Musume Heart and composed the opening and ending credits music for Yumekui Merry.

They generally do quite a range of music, but they do focus very much on electronic music and rock. The main singers of the group are females, and their voices are rather high-pitched, but it is not to the extend of annoying. :)

On a side note, their Engrish is rather.... awesome. If you really want to know what they are singing, I strongly suggest everyone to look up the lyrics. Otherwise, you probably have no idea what they are singing about.

They have a lot of discographies, but I will just choose my favorite ones :D

Artifical Children

I really like the flow of the music. They use so many instruments. SO NICE :) And the vocals are also very very soothing. The lyrics are also very meaningful, but a bit deep for me to understand HAHA. No English in this song. The video is a bit repetitive because the original video is shorter than the song and the uploader tried to make it as long as the song. 

Border of Death

A rock kind of music. The lyrics are also nice but deep. The best part about the song? The ENGRISH :D JKJK It's a very very nice song. And there's lyrics :)

LAST ONE! 

Cirno's perfect math class

The cutest song EVER!!! Very very catchy song! Another electric kinda song, and the lyrics are hilarious. HAHA. This song is pretty short for Iosys. :) BAKA BAKA. LOL.

Ok that's it people!

Till next time!

*cough*KPOP*cough*

IAmBored

Edited by Tr3xus

Beat of the Week: Snow Angel

Hello there folks!

First and foremost, I know I'm procrastinating real bad uh, I mean, I need a break from frying my brain cells to death, so you might wanna ignore (temporarily) what DarrenW mentioned previously about me having exams.

Secondly, I do realize that I'm late for this week's Beat of the Week... I do sincerely apologize. >__<

Now, I know FayeA has introduced y'all to mainstream, LiSA, but today I'll be hitting the whole lot of you with a home run so hard you'll wake up in the Ice Age (figuratively speaking, of course). Why is that so? Let's just say that I don't know anyone in real life who knows the song I'll be introducing today... in my defense, if you look under my bio under the "Team" section, I DID mention that my favorite music genre is basically anything that catches my ear.

This song, Snow Angel, is sung by KOTOKO. While she might not be that obscure a name for you readers (since she's sung quite a few songs, e.g. for Shakugan no Shana), it's the anime that this song is used in that's really unheard of... Onegai Teacher, anyone?

Well, I gotta confess that I watched the anime only after listening to a few songs from the anime, most of which are sung by KOTOKO. (what a coincidence...) While this post ain't exactly an anime review, I would like to gently remind those who are interested in searching for it that Onegai Teacher is ecchi, and thus might be subject to viewer discretion. Undoubtedly, some of you will immediately search for it the moment I mention "ecchi", but ah well.

I personally find Snow Angel to be quite a pleasant mix between J-Rock and rather stereotypical anime J-Pop. The live (and often more easily reproducible than synth/dubstep/etc) instruments blend in well with the vocals, with neither one overshadowing the other too much. (the transition in the beginning from a cute piano mini-solo to a full blown band performance is also quite cute)

Lyrics wise, most unfortunately, this song is yet another run-of-the-mill J-Pop songs concerning love and all. A huge redeeming point for this song, however, would be the addition of snowy depictions (à la the title - surprise, how unexpected!) but that might be a bit biased coming from me because I like winter. :/

When I was searching for this song, it came to my attention that the live version of this song was sung in 2004 - further google-fu showed that the anime was shown in 2002. Whoops, I feel old...

Below, I shall attach two versions of the same song - the anime version (which is quite cute, especially if you understand the context of the anime) and the live version, which is, truthfully, surprisingly good because I tend to have a...less than fantastic opinion of J-Pop singers when singing live. Hey, I may like Japanese culture and all but I prefer to stay realistic.




P.S. This might be because I've never been to a live J-Pop concert before, but I don't quite get the point of backup dancers and all, especially when the song isn't a dance-y song...

Now, I shall retreat into my humble abode (figuratively speaking - since I'm typing from it) and resume studying real hard for my A Levels! (hopefully)

P.P.S. For those who don't know, A Levels are kind of like SAT, with the difficulty of the SAT subject tests. If you still don't know what's a SAT, just think of my exams as a slightly more generalized form of a university entrance test.

See y'all in a month! (or until my procrastination skills get the better of me, ehehe)
aaronsine

Beat Of The Week: oath sign

October 23, 2012
Posted by FayeA

Oh!

I seem to have gone very mainstream!! Hahaha.

So today I thought I'd introduce you all to a song that was used in the anime "Fate/Zero". (No, I didn;t watch it.) I might watch it in the future. :)

Cover

So yes, I thought oath sign was a very nicely made song because LiSA is able to fully express her vocals on this one song. The other were, well nicely composed, but this one is really well done!

I was also very surprised when I watched her perform live. She managed to sing it exactly like the recorded version!

To those who listen to J-Pop like myself, I also want to stress that this song is very beautifully made, in terms of the words she used to compose this song. Sure it had to do with the anime, but generally, it can be applied almost everywhere.

http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/fatezero/oathsign.htm

I like LiSA very much because of her voice, but among many other things, she has a warm personality is cool! Haha.

LiSA is very well-known in the Japan, as she made countless masterpieces for OPs and EDs for many animes. She also performs awesomely well on stage and sang the Opening for "Sword Art Online", which I think Tr3xus did a few weeks back.



See ya!
FayeA

Beat of the Week: Extra terrestrial Biological Entities

October 12, 2012
Posted by Tr3xus


Hey guys!

I'm back with this week's beat! Today, rather than reviewing a song, I will be reviewing EGOIST's new album: Extra terrestrial Biological Entities.

For those who watched Guilty Crown, you would definitely know the band EGOIST. EGOIST is a fictional band from the anime, Guilty Crown. The songs are produced by ryo, from the famous j-pop band, supercell. The vocalist is portrayed by Yuzuriha Inori, her vocals are provided by Chelly.

There are 12 tracks in the album. Two of which, are tracks from EGOIST's previously released singles (The Everlasting Guilty Crown, Departures ~Anata ni Okuru Ai no Uta~). Planetes was used for the theme song of Guilty Crown - Lost Christmas OVA. The genres of the songs range from electronic, to pop, to slightly jazzy style pop. You can get a feel of EGOIST's unique music style in this album.

This album truly shows the diversity of Chelly's vocals. She can do a cute voice for track 8 (Ce que j’aime ~ inori no kyuuzitu~), and do a soulful voice in track 11 (Planetes). Indeed, a very talented singer. 

My favourite track in this album is The Everlasting Guilty Crown, however, that song has been released before as a single in March 2012. Excluding The Everlasting Guilty Crown, my next favourite track in this album would be LoveStruck.

I highly recommend this album for fans of supercell and EGOIST. For people who have never listened to any of supercell's or EGOIST's songs but enjoy j-pop in general, I recommend you to check out this album.

Album Information

Album name: Extra terrestrial Biological Entities

Album artist: EGOIST

Release date: September 19, 2012 [Released]

Track List
1. Genzai no Akari
2. The Everlasting Guilty Crown
3. Extra terrestrial Biological Entities
4. Ame, Kimi o Tsurette
5. Lovely Icecream Princess Sweetie
6. Teokure
7. LoveStruck
8. Ce que j’aime ~ inori no kyuuzitu~
9. Omoi o Megurasu 100 no Jishō
10. Kono Sekai de Mitsuketa Mono
11. Planetes
12. Departures ~Anata ni Okuru Ai no Uta~

There is also a limited edition version which includes a DVD with the music video for The Everlasting Guilty Crown, Departures ~Anata ni Okuru Ai no Uta~ & Planetes and Guilty Crown Lost Christmas Movie. It also includes a small booklet talking about EGOIST in Japanese language, pretty cool!

Booklet with Yuzuriha Inori <3

You can listen to the sample audio or purchase the album at cdjapan<< Click the link to check it out!

Tr3xus

Beat Of The Week: A Whole New World God Only Knows

Posted by DarrenW
October 2, 2012

And its me once again, featuring a 2011 song, A Whole New World God Only Knows!

So this song, sung by "Oratorio The World God Only Knows", was used in the Japanese Television Animation "The World God Only Knows II", otherwise known as "神のみぞ知るセカイ II / Kami Nomi Zo Shiru Sekai II" as the theme song for the opening video, the second time if you are counting the first season.

Lia

And who is Oratorio The World God Only Knows? Well duh, its ELISA, the wonderful Japanese Singer who specialises in singing songs with that classical-modern twist, and Lia, another awesome new age singer, who sang one of my personal favourites "My Soul, Your Beats!", the opening

ELISA is one of many singers for opening and ending insert songs for television animes nowadays. Her other works include openings and endings for "To Aru Kagaku no Railgun", "Hayate no Gotoku, and many others. She also works in a modelling agency.

Lia also sang one of my favourite songs, "My Soul, Your Beats!" for the Angel Beats! Opening

ELISA

The song introduces the two of them singing a song completely in English, the only one noticeable thing about this song. Seriously, the lyrics are ALL ENGLISH.

A Whole New World God Only Knows had a very pleasant tune and unique tune to it, which mostly emphasises on violins, my favourite instruments. (I don't know why, whenever I hear violins it just wins me over).

The lyrics are really well thought over, and I really like how it was made. Quite funny though, was the fact you can't make out what they're singing, EVEN IF you listen to it a hundred times. Trust me, you will have certain gaps here and there. I laughed hard when I saw the subs for Chihiro Subs when they were subbing the OP, trying to get some idea of what she was singing. Seriously just go here:

---> http://kaminomi.wikia.com/wiki/A_Whole_New_World_God_Only_Knows <---

All and all, the use of old fashioned instruments along with the new age equipments breathes new life into both genres. They are very wonderful artists (sure there are others!) that still focus on classical instruments in their songs.

Enjoy listening!


The world god only knowsⅡ op A whole new world... by dm_4ff6c8c283fea

DarrenW

Beat Of The Week: How to go

September 21, 2012
Posted by MedusaS

Yes! It's me again!

So this week, what did I choose? Oh wait, its in the title up there isn't it.

Well its "How to go" by School Food Punishment!

So the song was used in the anime "Un-Go", a fantastic anime which portrayed mystery at its best.

I chose this song this week because the song How to go was one of my favourite songs at the time, because of the use of unique music effects by the band School Food Punishment.

The unique boom and tune at the first 15 seconds of the video is something that I will always remember the song by.

Yumi Uchimura, as always, never fails to deliver with her awesome voice in the song. The climax of the song (TV Version) has an awesome tune at 50 seconds in.

Though, I think what made the impression was the opening credits, which were very well done, in terms of the timing of the transitions, how beautifully it matched with the song.

School Food Punishment also produced other wonderful songs, like "Eden Of The East's" Ending Song, futuristic imagination, which also utilised unique sounds to get the song rolling.

The sad thing though, for those who just heard of this band, is that it's no longer around. School Food Punishment officially ended in June this year, when the vocalist decided to leave. So from now on, no more of such unique sounds would be produced. They will be missed!




Opening 1 ~ UN-GO by okwanz

MedusaS

Beat Of The Week: 手紙 ～拝啓 十五の君へ～ (Tegami ~Haikei juugo no kimi e~)

Hello folks, it's me again! Today I'm here with Beat Of The Week! Okay, my song doesn't really have a "beat" as in drum beat...well, that was rather punny, no?

I find myself quite a weirdo when it comes to music. True, there are a few singers/bands that I'm kinda nuts over, but other than them, my music choices are really random. I go for the song, you see, and not really the singer/band/lyrics/etc, which also explains why I listen to songs in many different languages.

Today's pick by me is a rather...relaxed song as compared to other songs shared so far. But, as many would agree, the quality of a song is definitely not determined by it's speed and/or pace. This song, by Angela Aki, roughly translates to "a letter to the 15 year old you". (credits for translation to Google Translate and my inferring skills used to arrive at a grammatically correct title after Google Translate was done with it)

After listening to this song a few times, I (finally) went to check out the lyrics and I realized how deep the lyrics were. A letter from your older self to your younger self, asking about life, complaining about life's tribulations, and yet reassuring yourself. Personally, the lyrics got me reflecting...

In all honesty, despite the beautiful melody, I must admit that the song does get a tad (musically, not lyrically) boring after a while because the melody repeats itself quite a few times. Nonetheless, a quick online search with my decent google-fu showed me that this song was rather popular in Japan when it was released, exceeding sales numbers of 200,000, and placing as high as 3rd on the Oricon charts. It's also increasingly being used as a graduation song in Japan, not unlike Graduation by Vitamin C.

So give this song a listen, read up on the lyrics (if you need translation), and hopefully, what you're doing now isn't something you'll regret when you're older. (gosh, that escalated quite quickly from an initially light hearted post)




aaronsine

Beat Of The Week: Errand

Posted by FayeA
September 9, 2012

Hey guys! Yes, today I'll be doing the Beat Of The Week! I hope you guys are psyched!

So what does FayeA mean? Well its short for "Faylan Addicted!" Hahaha, so yes, I am a Faylan fan!


So today I will share with you one of Faylan's songs, Errand, which to me has one of the nicest sounds!

Right from the start of the song, epic drum beats and the sounds of the electric guitar flood into your ears. At 6 seconds, I don't know what's what anymore.

Under Lantis, Faylan sings a variety of songs, mainly under J-Pop, and some of them get featured in anime and video games in Japan, like Katanagatari and Gundam, I THINK. The song Errand was used for the opening for a show called... "Seikon no Qwaser" which I highly doubt anybody here will do a review about because... of its questionable content.

Anyway, I don't watch anime, so I can't be the judge of that.

Faylan has a super captivating voice, and the use of her instruments are unique and hardcore! There are so many other songs she made, under the albums "Polaris" and "Alive" but today I'm just going to share one with you guys!

Make sure you try it out!



In case you don't like the live version!


Seikon no Qwaser - Opening by Lyserg06

FayeA
Edited by MYSELF >:

Beat Of The Week: crossing field

September 2, 2012
Posted by Tr3xus

crossing field [Limited Edition] cover

 Hey readers! It's me, Tr3xus, delivering you this week's beat.

This week's selection is crossing field, by LiSA. crossing field is LiSA's second single. The song is written and composed by Sho Watanabe and is featured in the first opening of the anime, "Sword Art Online / ソードアート・オンライン".

There are some songs that hook you up the moment you listen to it. To me, crossing field is one of them.

Turn up the volume for some eargasm because the song's intro is EPIC. The verses and chorus sounds really awesome too. There is something about j-pop that is truly unique from other genres. I feel that this song reflects the uniqueness of j-pop very clearly. Perhaps it's the combination of beautiful violin and energetic guitar melodies. I love how they manage to make the clashing melodies in (1:17-1:22 & 3:40-4:00) sound right.

The album was released on August 8, 2012 and includes 2 other songs + crossing field (instrumental).

It is available for purchase on iTunes and cdjapan.

Note: The music in the video has been pitch altered


Enjoy the brand new month of September guys!
Tr3xus

Beat Of The Week: Βασιλευζ (Basileus)

August 26, 2012
Posted by DarrenW

So, this week, its my turn! (Though I'm not supposed to be here XD)

And no, no K-Pop, or J-Pop or Vocaloid for that matter.

I will be doing one of my personal favourite tracks from one of my favourite OSTs. Yes, Basileus.

And it is an orchestral piece.

A lot of you might not heard of this song before, but it comes from a very controversial anime, "Guilty Crown / ギルティクラウン"

Although not famed for a very captivating or proper plot structure, having loopholes, filled with setting problems and a sad ending, the anime did have ONE AWESOME fact to it. THE MUSIC.

Hiroyuki Sawano

Well, the OP & EDs were made by Supercell (Another time), but the OST was mainly composed by Hiroyuki Sawano / 澤野弘之, who also composed many other masterpieces for this anime, like Krone, ge19, omega and Genesis.

Basileus was not used a lot in the anime, but was used for the parts in the anime right before the climax, of which, I have to contend, was skillfully executed. This piece really was well made for its purpose.

The orchestral piece, consists of two parts, Starting at 0:00 and around 2:07. The first part has a slow relaxing pace to it, which then comes in with the chorus, which is just eargasmic. Then at 2:07 the beat comes in. I like to call them "war-drums", where the beat really gets you going, then the wind instruments come in and really make it sound so good.

The problem I found was, not many people know about this piece. Is it that bad? Okay maybe the target audience for orchestra pieces are small, but, this is real nice! And so I chose this for today.

And come on, who did not just feel the impact at 3:20?



Will be back on thursday. Hold ON till then!
DarrenW

Beat Of The Week: GANGNAM STYLE

August 17, 2012
Posted by MedusaS

Okay so recently I was told to be the FIRST ONE to start off this new posting type, so I said, why not?

It was a hard decision, since I have A LOT of different music genres i could choose from, but I HAD TO DO IT, this popular one that's been almost EVERYWHERE I GO RECENTLY.

So Gangnam Style is a song which has been created by this South-Korean rapper called PSY, who has created many singles, but I strongly believe this is his masterpiece.

The name for the song? It depicts the Gangnam District in his country, the affluent and trendiest place to be in S.Korea.

Why is it so? Well for starters, the beat is awesome. (For dancing that is).
Secondly, for some UNKNOWN REASON, its HIGHLY ADDICTIVE. I can't even stop pressing the repeat button until the song has been replayed for 3 or 4 times. OMG.
Third, the chorus is well crafted and catchy.

I don't normally tend to listen to Korean Rap, but when I do, it becomes like THIS.

The music video, which depicts PSY and many many beautiful girls dancing with him, is very unforgettable due to the moves he makes. They are quite awesome and difficult, since he's on the plump side, and also, erm... 1:56 of the video. If you know what I mean.

Released on July 15 this year, it has over 34 MILLION VIEWS ON YOUTUBE (another million by the time I finish typing this), and has literally flooded radio networks around the world (mine included).

Go watch it! I'm sure you'd like it! Just try not to get hooked. Hahaha.



For now, I'll see you guys for the next review!
MedusaS