It's been a long time since I wrote anything. I originally intended to write something outside of music, but coincidentally, the "Nostalgic Lotus" compilation of Eastern retro Hard Dance by Art of Heart has been released, and I contributed an old-school Hardstyle track under the alias ちよもも.
"Begins Now."
I also have some thoughts to share about the track, and in the future, I will post my reflections on the music I create and listen to in this column.
I first encountered a particularly beautiful song when I was about 12 years old while watching someone else's gameplay (if you're interested, it was a Minecraft let's play; if you know what Minecraft was back then, you can probably guess).
Foxtail-Grass Studio - 雲流れハム - 雲流れ
After that, I couldn't stop; I started playing games, watching fan-made videos, reading doujinshi, and so on. Of course, what I love most about Touhou is its music, which led me to discover various kinds of doujin music, effectively opening the door to doujin music for me. That's a story for another time.
"Writing a Touhou doujin music track and participating in a Touhou doujin album" has been a dream of mine since childhood. Ever since I started creating doujin music, I've been hoping for such an opportunity, and this time, the appearance of the AOH Touhou project can be considered one of the goals I've achieved in life.
Back to this album, the theme is "Touhou doujin music based on old Touhou works, styled as Hard Dance Music from 14 years ago." I initially planned to write an old Japanese-style Hardcore track, like Freeform, but the organizer EuphoriA wanted a more Western style, so we ultimately decided to produce a Classic Hardstyle track leaning towards that direction.
I was introduced to mainstream Hardstyle from Europe after encountering Japanese Hardstyle artists like Anubasu and Massive New Krew. The first track I encountered, which left a deep impression on me, was this one.
What amazed me was that Hardstyle could have such grand narratives and atmospheres, which led me to start listening to Hardstyle for a while. This track can be considered the one that first introduced me to European HDM.
Regarding Classic Hardstyle, there are already many recommendations for playlists and such, so just listen in your preferred way. As for Live Sets, I want to recommend DJ Zany's set from last year's Qlimax; it's very old school.
Although it's sudden, if I had to choose five of my favorite Classic Hardstyle tracks, they would probably be these five:
JDX ft. Sarah Maria - Live The Moment
A-Lusion - Veritas
Headhunterz - Scrap Attack
D-Block & S-te-Fan - Music Made Addict
Showtek - FTS
When the album is released, you can hear the shadows of these tracks in the songs.
Back to this song, there are a few points I'd like to mention.
The first is the so-called triplet Hardstyle. When chatting with Supa and others, we concluded that many early Hardstyle tracks featured triplet melodies. Thinking about it, triplet Hardstyle has become increasingly rare over the years.
From my impression, the period from 2000 to 2006 was roughly when Nu-style Gabber began to rise, and triplet melodies were particularly common in Hardcore tracks at that time. This trend continued a bit longer in Hardstyle, leading to the idea that "to embody Classic, it should indeed be triplet." I altered the original melody a bit, and I was quite satisfied with the final result.
Although the lead sound is very modern, it still has a Classic flavor.
Another point is the three drops in this song, each featuring a different kick:
The first is the Classic Reversed Bass, where the kick is reversed and processed into a bass, which took quite a bit of effort to achieve the desired effect.
The second is the Classic Hardstyle Kick. The Classic Kick I had made before didn't feel very Old Skool, so I layered several samples from Noisecontrollers' sample pack from 2005-2007 to get the right feel.
The third is the Classic Gated Kick. After tinkering with reverb and adding various distortion effects, it ended up sounding more like a Schranz kick, but overall, it still felt right.
Within three minutes, I packed in these three kicks that I believe represent Classic Sound Hardstyle. Once the album is released, I'll share these three kicks for everyone to download and use.
"Begins Now" marks both the beginning of my journey into European HDM and the start of my current production of Touhou doujin music. In the future, I will continue to write Touhou doujin music, and not only that, I want to try more different things.
The album will be released on the 11th, so please support it when the time comes. That's all I have to write.
and the adventure begins... now