Just some meta discussion on what’s going on with this blog lately.
I’ve kicked it up over at hpt.moe with some of the banal news content. The blog and the social media presence is nice but it’s the swan on the surface. Underneath we’re peddling a hundred miles an hour, running on hype between Scamco’s marketing, 10th, and Asapon North. A lot of stuff is happening, folks.
On this site, I really don’t have the time to blow things up. It’s more like ideas do come but I can’t put in the time to build them up with any degree of rigor that I like. I am also really behind on some Shirobako write-ups so I’m working those out first.
The Idolm@ster ideas tend to get first dibs, just because it’s front and center in my mind and the ideas gel fast and furiously. Well, maybe some more later.
Prepping for my Japan trip otherwise. Eventernote.com is a helpful tool that organizes my event list, so linking it makes sense here. Some of my HPT fellows are building their own version of the thing, and it’s pretty neat. We’ve also built something that allows couriering and proxy purchasing of goods at events. The website is, again, just a nexus that hides all the stuff underneath.
As noted by the event blog post, I am going to Aisute. We’re bringing some flowers courtesy of @hananoki_flower. The shop takes cash and bank transfers, so it’s nigh impossible to pay them as a gaijin unless you got proxies who can pay for you (and those do exist in a commercial capacity). The hardest part remains working with them to figure out how the design goes. I await eagerly on what comes next.
Lastly, I just want to close out with some fhana. First, please read this translated interview. So while breaking in a pair of Massdropped AKGs I decided to put on a mix of Mono and fhana’s new album. Fhana’s new stuff is on iTunes US, so it was handy that I can play on a bunch of different devices. What struck me was how several of the band members wanted to talk about the climatic track on the album, white light. It’s the one that exhibited the most subtle arrangement layering and the one that actually stands out the most from the other tracks in terms of the repetitive bridge that flies underneath Towana’s large sound. It’s particularly egregious when the second chorus brings in the reverb from the guitar, and there’s this dueling duet going on in the background as the melody goes into the bridge and sheds the covering. I’m not sure how to feel about it, besides to admire that there’s this funny interplay between the sampler and the guitarist. But a string ensemble? I don’t know. As the song eventually makes it to the outro, the piano brings a sense of balance and conclusion, and I think it kind of represents the nature of this band, complete with the vocal just dressing the rain of sounds from a strange mix of sources.
It’s just like a vocaloid piece. Musically it doesn’t matter how much the lyrics meant, or if it’s Rin or Luka or Gumi, but that the notes are notes and the right ones hit the amp and pumps out the headphones. That ebb and flow. The signals. The sound following the form. And it’s within that space or framework that fhana expresses their message.
Mono, on the other hand, just paints. If you ever hear them live, it’s like there’s aural space-time where they pour their notes into the space with an almost-metaphorical air compressor. It’s pretty cool. I assume fhana is not like that but when bands try to recreate the same motifs live, it can vary drastically from the recording.
