Music Album: First Thoughts

It’s CD show-off time again.

I bought quite a lot this time, and it’s been a while.

No more rambling — let’s go through them one by one with listening impressions.

Natsuzora Orchestra

An album I honestly don’t know why I bought. I think I found on Twitter that I was somehow following this singer named nayuta, who kept promoting her new album, and then yuiko retweeted it, so I added it to my cart — and at some point it just got bought.

How to put the whole album… it’s the kind of very traditional Japanese doujin album: no highlights, no real flaws. The style sticks close to the title, full of “summer sky,” “summer night,” and all sorts of green feelings.

About the singer nayuta — frankly, her singing on this album is bad. Tons of off-key notes. I get that these songs aren’t easy to sing, but you’re releasing an album, could you not do a few more takes? Putting out notes that off-key really kills the mood. And her wiki says she’s supposedly known for sounding close to Aya Hirano…

I don’t know if that counts as high-level sarcasm.

Sample link:

http://music.163.com/#/album?id=35909756

Kage no Umi no Apeiria Memorial CD

Kage no Umi no Apeiria’s OST. Honestly I bought this for Yakushi Ruri’s OP and ED. The rest of the game’s music is really low-grade — electronic music everywhere, plus that really lazy synth stuff. But I have to say the game’s OP is genuinely high quality. Yakushi Ruri composed and wrote the lyrics herself and supposedly read the game script; I don’t know if being a pharmacist means she can understand quantum mechanics…

Sample link: http://music.163.com/#/album?id=36192283

9-nine- Kokonotsu Kokonoka Kokonoiro original soundtrack

OST of Palette’s cash-grab — bought it as a way of paying my dues, I guess.

The game itself is a cash-grab, but some of the slice-of-life tracks in the OST are actually decent — though only above average.

The game’s OP has a novel style, but Chihiro Yonekura’s singing is pretty ordinary. Still worth a listen.

Sample link: http://music.163.com/#/album?id=36192088

Norio Tsukudani - 17 Sai

The singer is Norio Tsukudani, a female manga artist…

Yes, the female manga artist who draws Himegoto — she’s come to sing.

And buying the album comes with a signed photo!

You want to ask how the album is?

I can only say it’s at the level of a generic ACG-style doujin album. The songwriting is fairly orthodox, and for a singer doing this for fun it’s already not bad — besides, her main job is drawing manga, right?

And honestly, judging by singing ability, she’s about the same as nayuta, really…

Sample link: http://music.163.com/#/album?id=35934204

Hana - colorful bouquet

This one’s worth discussing. The singer is Hana. If you say Hana, most people think of songs like “Kuuki Rikigaku Shoujo to Shounen no Uta” and “Sakura no Uta”, but don’t forget — behind those albums and famous songs there’s always one name: Fumiki Matsumoto.

And Matsumoto’s style is way too obvious. When he collaborates with other female singers, it’s still that familiar style. You could say without Hana, Matsumoto is still Matsumoto, but without Matsumoto, who would Hana be?

This album gives us the answer — it puts Hana, freed from Matsumoto, right next to our ears.

The album comes from Hana’s personal circle Forest. Apart from one song called Tree, there’s no trace of Matsumoto.

How to describe this album’s style — I can only say regretfully that without Matsumoto, Hana’s singing style is limited to that… “electronica,” “slow jam,” “Vocaloid-ish” feeling. In other words, a level down.

Still, there are some damn good tracks. Personally I recommend “Lorelei”, and the electronic “Fake Star”. The others are listenable too, just so-so quality.

By the way, this album is actually a Hana best-of, mostly old songs. Old fans probably won’t mind, but if you’re someone who likes Matsumoto-style Hana and check this out because of the name, the gap will probably be huge.

Sample link: http://music.163.com/#/album?id=36186031

Sakura Hitohira Koi Moyou Character Song & Sound Album

If I ever buy another Solfa game OST, I’ll eat shit.

Every time they say it’s a pre-order exclusive or a separate release, but as soon as the game sells, it gets bundled and shipped out. In other words, they say they’re selling the OST, but once the game hits the market it starts getting stuffed into the game package for free. Every purchase feels like a total loss.

Of course, this game’s OST follows Solfa’s usual pattern: the BGM is unlistenable, but each character’s ED and the OP are good quality.

I recommend “Love you” — it’s just too good.

The other songs are good too, though:

http://music.163.com/#/album?id=36412758

KOBASOLO

Kobasolo is a composer and arranger active on YouTube, often doing female-vocal covers, and has his own work too. Overall it’s pretty high quality, though the style is fairly uniform — mostly themes of girls in love. Nice as light listening.

This time he finally released his own album, so I bought it. When it arrived I found it was all songs previously posted on YouTube, so not too unfamiliar. The songs are easy on the ears, the style is consistent, worth a listen.

Of course… what I wanted was that “Koi” by Asako…

Kobasolo’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Hujikoman

Asako - Koi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoYU3HKbR84

See other CD pickup reviews: https://plumz.me/tag/%E8%B4%AD%E7%A2%9F%E7%AE%80%E8%AF%84/

My NetEase Galgame playlist: http://music.163.com/#/playlist?id=34172180