音時雨 ～Regentropfen～

The god of horror music, Kenji Kawai, made me into horror film mode during this holiday!
A few days ago, I was attracted by his "Rabbit Horror" OST, and finally, this afternoon, I watched this movie. Then, my brain began to create delusions.

Before I know anything about the music (including reading the album title but except Kenji Kawai's name), I imagined this could be another horror film OST.

In a weird aspect, the two big black eyes stick by the top corners. Gray, black, white, plus blood red -- what a strong contrast! Things are making the album jacket even creppy. Ok, then, Rabbit Horror. See, the word "horror" is there, stating I was right. I smelt Kenji's horror aura again!!

Rabbit Horror jacket. I know I'm not supposed to leave such images around Xmas time so I deleted the image...

Kenji Kawai, God of Horror Music
The whole album does a good flow. Starts from "Kiriko's main theme [tr1]", the whole album lines up by the depressing and of a little bit of tension motif. The main theme is so impressive that it lingers in my mind for days! Following tracks are mostly in the same category. For the second time, I got scared by Kenji music, which was "Enticing Voice [tr7]" (the first time was his "ghost haunting" from "AVALON"). Among all tracks, "Amusement Part at Night [tr5]" and "Merry-go-Round [tr11]" could be the brightest track yet they still got quite a lot of eerie ambience integrated. At last, "Spiral Stairs [tr18]", percussion and high-tempo made it into my fav list, and you could feel it's like the final conclusion music without watching the movie.

With a rather "misty" feeling, unpleasant notes shimmer distantly, plus the creepy haunting human voice... the entire album is so charming, especially to horror music lovers. Kenji is just good at making scary music! I STRONGLY RECOMMEND this album!!

Story Delusion Deduction
There is no reason not to mention the movie itself since I've watched it. To be frank, I'm not a real movie person, so for most of times, I just search online for its plot, and maybe plus people's reviews, comments or spoilers. I did the same for this one at first. However, after being spoiled, I got a strong desire to watch it for real.

Got spoiled... maybe that's why I didn't miss too much this afternoon, for watching this movie, without subtitle. lol
Well, even saying i got spoiled, that was just the main plot but didn't include the end and any details. The end of it is really interesting. I've been thinking about it since I finished watching but still haven't got a good answer. So using the rest of this post, I plan to do my own analysis.

Contains spoiler, read as you want.
Let's start from the end of movie: Kiriko accepted Daigo's request, kill him and let everything end. She stabbed him, meanwhile, herself, then was pushed down from the top of a spiral stair in the discarded hospital near the amusement park. She regained her voice right before she died. The rabbit toy that Daigo dropped immediately after her falling brake into two from neck. Struggling in Kiriko's blood, the rabbit stood up, disappeared with its separate head. Outside, Kiriko's father sat in calm, seemed to be waiting for something (Kiriko's death?). Then he revealed the carpet covering himself and there was Daigo. Holding Daigo's hand, the father and the son left in golden sunset.

People also call this movie "Alice in Fearland". Kiriko was trapped by a rabbit (Kyouko, her new mother) into the world of her memory. Another theme was "The Little Mermaid". Kiriko lost her words, but in return, what she gained?

Rabbit, the real one, the stuffed toy, and the animal-costume were appearing all the way. Kiriko did caused Kyouko's death (the animal-costume). The real pregnant rabbit that was killed was a sign to Kiriko, her time is up. As for the stuffed toy, which should be Kiriko's birthday present from Kyouko, was... Kiriko's own existence?!

Only one side is true: Kiriko is real, or Daigo/Kouhei are real.
I voted for Daigo/Kouhei's side. Since that's how I believe surreal experience happens -- only at the fake side!

My primary guess: After the merry-go-round accident, Kyouko died but successfully gave birth to Daigo. Something happened to Kiriko, she died in the hospital too (suicide? perhaps jumping from the top of spiral stairs?). After that, the family had only the father and the little brother. However, the world in the movie wasn't the true reality. Kiriko regained life. Past things were altered: Only Kyouko died. Kyouko's child (Daigo) wasn't born. Instead, Kiriko lost her voice, and Daigo became her illusion. Yet no dead person could really revive. The "contract" has its limit. Kiriko had to decide, either return to the real self (death), or continue suffering from the messed-up-self-world and hurting others.
Kiriko chose death, like what the little mermaid did. Her beloved family returned to normal, she disappeared.
Good enough? this explanation. XD

But what kind of hint the last words after the ending song give? The hospital where Kiriko's spirit was confined was sold and was then used as an entertainment place.
Solely a connection?

Pretty much of delusion I've made fom the movie, and Kenji's scary music...
Damn, what am I doing at 2:30 AM... GET MY SIGHT AWAY FROM THE SCARY JACKET NOW!!! =__=

I could make this post yesterday, memento at the end of the world, but I was having neck- plus shoulder-ache back to last night so I didn't.
Which means everything is still normal, the world won't end.

I'm still looking forward my pre-ordered Ito Masumi album "Wonder Wonderful", plus KOKIA's 15th annv. special album in 2013, and Ar Tonelico's collection box "Kurt" in next February.
It just won't. :reg76:

Right, "Wonder Wonderful", since the world didn't end, time to introduce some soft and cute elements into my world.

Wonder Wonderful@900px@Pixiv
OMG, My past 12 hours and my neck-ache!!! XDD;;

As the title says, it's based on Masumi's to-be-released new song "Wonder Wonderful" (trial PV version). That song attacted me since the introduction. What a delightful and charming aura! I then downloaded the youtube video and looped it for hours. Really couldn't wait for full version this time.

Started in this June, I began to accumulate more PS/AI skills while making new drawings. June: rain effect; August: AI symmetrical vectors; October: glass effect (not good yet); early in this month: noise-gradient... and now, I just learned how to scatter your brush trail. All should sound very familiar to most PS users. Don't laugh at me!! Thanks to that, now I could get some magic effect. <3

For colour scheme, this time, to match the aura of that song, I chose the primary colours: red, blue, and yellow (or maybe not?). Simple and easy to match pairwise. Same for the background makeup. Random noise-gradient ftw!!
I do have big confidence with my skill in colour matching, so I never worry about how the ambience of the final work may be -- as long as you don't ask for grotesque! But... though I never ever gave a try, since the grotesque just doesn't pop up in my head, if you give me a black-and-white draft, I may do it! Who knows. :3

Last thing, I was overwhelmed by doing three in one work, and I still need to improve the skill when it comes to multiple characters in the same work with some perspective technique. :tea2:

Now maybe I should do something for X'mas. I did a scribble a few days ago, but haven't got it finalized. I will see if I can get it done by Dec-24. However, since the world didn't end, I always have time to do it before the New Year, which is my self-claimed deadline for such themes~

P.S. The G+ profile image I linked on my sidebar auto-updated! I at first thought it's just a perm-link to each individual pictures you uploaded.
And that's another wonderful thing just occured! :P

Wonder Wonderful. December's only expectation. It's really wonderful! I love it so much already.

Even so far, there is only the trail PV available, one can assume this album will be hyper sweet and gentle and happy and ... whatever in this category.
and you'll just feel blessed by this voice.

↓ Trial PV

Ito Masumi is a such wonderful magician~~<3

That PV was so adorable! The flow of animation and melody was perfect too!
The very impression from the video was "JinTai (jinrui wa suitai shimashita)" and fairytale picture books I used to read during my loli-period when I was little.
Since they were just trail versions, I'm looking forward to watch the full animations when it gets released on Dec. 26th! (already pre-ordered this one!)

↑ CD jacket. Adorable too~

and I enjoy talking (hmm, that's via twitter, so I'd say write-talking) with Masumi too! I'm happy that my Japanese does make sense to native speakers! XDD

I finished reading "Bungaku Shoujo" novel vol.2 on this Friday. God, this work is so great! Vol.1 was already interesting, and Vol.2 was even more interesting that I spent the whole Friday evening reading it. I was feeling being still in the story even on Saturday morning.

Now I understood why people all said if you read the original novel, you'll know how crappy the anime version is. Not talking about the art design and style, the plot in anime version is hugely shortened due to the limited duration. A lot of details thus were lost in the anime.

So to me, since I already loved the original novel, the only good things from the anime would be the cast voices and the music! <3 However, I don't think I can listen to the music while reading the story, the music was specifically written for the last volume!

Then, thanks to Bungaku Shoujo, I gotta read Osamu Dazai's "Ningen Shikkaku" and re-read "Wuthering Heights". Not sure about the first one, but I liked "Wuthering Heights" a few years ago when I first read it. This time, I'll be excited (I guess) to read again since it will be in its initial written language~ and I'll see (when I have time! XD).

But why I feel like "Bungaku Shoujo" is a sorta detective fiction?!

At last, a little piece of memo for myself: to catch up Tooko-sempai, I need to grow my hair for at least another 30 centimeters!!!
Can I do it?

↓ The outcome of my 7-hour working, thanks to Annabel and myu and their abysmal noise!

900px@Pixiv
(even larger? ask me...)

And I was turned into L5 eventually when I was about to finish.
Therefore, The basic image arrangement floated out very quickly in last night. For the background, I played around with Photoshop random noisy gradients. Then, raindrops and sparkles... darkish enough, what else?!
This song is so impressive to me. The arrangement is fantastic; I love its rhythm, its tempo, its ambience. I also love Annabel's tone, which fits such sounds perfectly. They had just made a huge miracle!!
Since I first listened to this song, my brainwave didn't even stopped surging. Those "inharmonic" noises are stimulating me to visualise my brain signals.

→ Conclusion: dark Annabel + myu = sexy.
I really hardly use "sexy" to describe music. But I did have two sexy songs so far. This one plus "blind hunger".

Did I ever say that my most anti-fav music instrument is erhu?
If not, then you know it just now.
The thing is, I just did a wipe-out re-organization of my music collection. Rule was simple, no fondness, no stay.
Thus I deleted this one eventually:

霜月はるか - 蝶ノ在リ処

Because I'm really suffering so much from the abuse of erhu in this album!! NO WAY, I WANNA KEEP MYSELF SANE!! Σ(ﾟДﾟ；
Even though I like Haruka, even though I like Haruka, even though I like Haruka, even though.....

Yet I do admit the booklet is pretty, so I kept only the art works. Illustrations don't hurt! lol

Alright, here that's about Haruka again (I DID say I like her!).

In previous post, I said I haven't got time to try her new releases:

Then I tried them on Friday, and my conclusion is, they are really, really great!

I didn't like her past best collections at all. Most songs are average and they couldn't flow smoothly. This time, however, from the very first track to the last track, unlike other best collections, I could feel that's an uniformity. Also, the style are rather like most of her doujin works, which satisfied me very much!

About the M3-30, "Imitation", from the introduction, it's a doujin album for a (horror?) game. Well, whatever that game is, the aura of this album is incredibly fantastic! Like what you see in an old film: that's a patch of dark and depressing mixture of colors in a sepia-tone. One of my favorite type!

I named my temporary music holders using "Hifumi-Norito"!! At least, it's much better than using "untitle" as default. And it's also easier to locate a certain one~ Actually I don't really need 10, but I just want to keep on reading the whole set them. It's cute! (´・ω・｀)

↓ And that's how they look like:

Since I'm playing these two album, I also did some markups of this window. Hope you get what I'm doing! :P
Also, you probably will notice that I deleted one track, and I forget its title, from "MIYA Side" due to the destructive power of ruining your hearing. (Another example showing how I delete music.)

Microblogging is rubbish, no matter what! Though I enjoy talking with Masumi or Annabel! XD
← So I launched my nano-diary on my sidebar. I call it "nano", so I'm safe! LOL

As a music blog, I have no reason to not mention recent releases, you know.
IMPORTANT: More text doesn't mean more love! :P

やなぎなぎ - ラテラリティ

I do love Nagi's voice, but somehow like Haruka, if I like her songs depending on who are the composers. This time, however, the single isn't my type apparently.
The first track, "ラテラリティ". There are too many electric elements used. I felt nothing but noise. The second song, "真実の羽根", which was collaborated with bermei.inazawa, is okay -- at least better than the first song. But unlike "Ambivalentidea", the second song isn't that impressive to me and to get me in looping mode. Just average, personally. Then, the last song, "link", is finally getting things more interesting in this release. This song was written by herself (if I remember right), and you really can recognise her style. The tune is cute, a brighter version if comparing with binaria songs. I like this one. Yet again, I'm not in quite a looping mood for the entire release.

みとせのりこ - Mille-feuille

I already knew that this best-album won't be very interesting. First, the tracklist was out long time ago and I didn't think (some of) the songs are that pop. I do know the word "pop" here actually means "catchy", but don't you think there are quite a lot of songs from "Centifolia" are also catchy? Also, if you throw some songs here into "Centifolia", you won't even feel weird, I mean the ambience would probably match well. XD
As for the new song, it's definitely not as impressive as her previous release "vierge automatique". To me, GUST-styled arrangement just made this whole album more dispersed in terms of uniformity. Both are best albums, but this one is definitely less worth trying than "Centifolia" (nooo, I do love leaves as well!! °A°). "Mille-feuille" is sorta like one casually-arranged-favorite-song-collection-that-fits-into-one-CD-length.

binaria - 双子のダイアログ

Now, binaria my love! <333
However, I've mentioned this maxi-single so many times before. I'll keep things simple here.
Relaxing, fantastic, abstract and unique. I've tried so many times to pull out some images from their music and I just found it's totally hard! Their music is free and formless. You can catch the melody, but the core of the tune is always one step ahead of you. This is a mysterious realm. You do stay, see, and feel, but you can't touch. (Ummm, I'm writing nothing here, huh?)

霜月はるか - 想いのコンチェルト

I'm NOT a huge Haruka fan. Like what I said with nagi's case, if I like her works depends on the composers. I love her doujin works very, very much, but her non-original works are always less tasty. -------- Anyway, I haven't even got a try of this album!!! orz

岡崎律子、ほか - 岡崎律子トリビュート -The 1st Star-

Okazaki Ritsuko Tribute. It consists of her unreleased works and a few covers by other artists. I'm a first-coming-first-love person, but this time, I looped this album a little bit.
In memory of Ritsuko.
Then, about the music here, "Agapé" is my favorite.
(Then this album dragged me into a Ritsuko looping mode.)

Polo Rockers X 霜月はるか - イミテーション

I didn't know anything about the other artist -- which is the main artist. I only got this for the sake of Haruka. Anyhow, this is a doujin work! I haven't tried the whole album, but I like the first Haruka song very much. The arrangement of using orgel is so great.

Annabel - miniascape

Not released yet, but I'll still include it here. It's finally about Annabel. I just said in previous post, this album could be the slowest one with its information coming so late! I almost kept refreshing the amazon page link and I got excited on Tuesday evening when I saw there was a cover image appearing! However, the tracklist isn't that satisfying to me. It doesn't include A LOT of my favorite Annabel songs. ---- Yes, I know that's a best-collection of her anime songs, even though, my ani-song favs are missing.
According to lantis, there are only one new song for the album. To me, there are three. Therefore, technically, I have owned 11/14 songs of this album. I tried to arrange the ones I have into the order of the coming best album, but they go so weirdly. Something is wrong, again, this album lacks a feeling of uniformity!
First, lots of my favs are missing, second, the songs are sorted weirdly, third, I prefer her doujin works much more, fourth... there is no fourth. The conclusion, it's not an album for me... u_u
So the truth is, never buy best-albums, it's burning your money!

Bonus:
The DECCA Sound - 50CD Box Set

I'm recently struggling to get this. 50CDs!!! That reminds me my music collection list. For the classical section, don't look down to that there are only a few lines for each composer, one line could be the master collection that contains 50 or 100 or even more CDs! xD
To today, I've done 10 CDs. I was hoping I could to love some "19-20 century classical music" via this set. Yet, no matter how I try, the door to "the other side" is always shut tightly.
So I gave up.
I finally realised (I shouldn't say "realised", basically I just didn't know the exact term to describe) that the basic thing for me to accept a melody is its tonality. Tonality, which most 19-20 classical or modern music do not have, so I have no way to love them. This is merely the key to my affection.
And I feel so good to know another term!

#1

Let's begin with some science:
The structure of human ear and brain actually defined what is harmony and how it sounds like.

Things related to nerve and reaction are always cool. This time, it's a combination between this field and my greatest fondness for music. So, when a sound arrives, your ears sense it in terms of wave and pass the signal to the brain. Multiple sounds form overlapped waves. If they are regular and organized, the brain turns on the switch of "comfortable" mode, and thus you are happy. If the waves are terribly layered, the brain tells you that you are "unpleasant" toward the waves.

--Therefore, human defined those pleasant wave overlaps as "harmony", and the unpleasant ones became "dissonance".

But we do need dissonance! There are different sound samples including beating, where close waves touch the same set of nerve, thus our brain lost its core and is about to snap. According to the research, even people who can't distinguish musical sounds dislike beating.

The thing is, I like it, beating! (Of course, that's a story about music and the resulting aura! My head is totally normal. xD)

#2
I suddenly noticed this new feature of Chrome yesterday--As an Opera user, you won't expect I catching up all chrome updates, will you?

The user switch~~

↑You can change the icons for different users; I wonder if it will support custom icons in future.

An awesome feature for people like me who own multiple google accounts, isn't it: personal+work+domain special... however, not applicable to non google users at all.

Speaking of computer related topic, windows photo viewer died for no reason since last night! Alright, I go using picasa photo viewer. -__-

Seems it's true that MS has only one thing can use, which is Windows. I already switched to use html for writing: easier to deal with formatting. Even not perfect for annotation and reference, it's pretty enough for everday casual notes.