LogFAQs > #937228165

IDOLA The Strange Fruits
Hinagiku
steelchambers2

IDOLA The Strange Fruits is my 28th favorite in the contest! Hideaki Kobayashi and really the pso series in general even the stuff the other composers bring (Hidekuni Horita is my new favorite thanks to vol7-8) is one of the most consistent sources of music that touches all the compositional areas I want music to touch. Crazy transposy chord changes with unexpected modulations here. As a bonus i tend to like pso instrumentation-wise too! In this case the instrumentation appeal is COOL SYNTHS and they fit well with the strings and overtly fake choir pads. 3:30 is SEX parallel harmony transposing those intervals around that sound like "some weird super mario galaxy song that no one talks about but is one of my favorite ones in the game" or something. pso music honestly sounds like "if super mario galaxy music was more 'prog' " now that i think about it lol. lots of moments with the triplet grid layered over the 16th grid having fun intersecting times. Always passes my observation how cool the change to 3/4 at 2:00 is, it's so subtle about it. So many of the chord change loops in this evoke this feeling of uncertainty, and I guess that makes sense because the changes themselves are literally not predictable, they're swirling all over the place. Strangely the thing that's always stood out to me the most about this one is the distorted guitar-like synth layer kicking it all off at :19, the 5+4+7 pattern excites me. I love stuff involving "5 16ths" as a length of a thing starkly separated waaay too much it feels SO COOL and the low piano hits accompany that feeling well. PSO MUSIC HAS COOL SOUNDS IN IT AND I LIKE THEM. Very inspirational music and I need to listen to every single thing in the pso series eventually. probably starting with going through vol1-6 of pso2 thoroughly because if i do i might be able to actually say pso2 is my 5th favorite ost without it being a fake description of a ost i haven't even listened to all of yet

RE:UNION -Duo Blade Against- is my 164th favorite in the contest! wow i ranked this uhhh, kind of low for "sounds like a rhythm game song"-style but I guess i can see why. the chord progression here is just really not my thing, too much emphasis put on 'predictable' things so then i find it really cheesy how highlighted those moments are as if they're significant with how expected they are I guess, ie :18 i don't like, lots of stuff like that. I like the breakbeat elements though oh wait those are only there for like 2 seconds. INTENSE ELECTRONIC RHYTHM GAME SONG WITH CRAZY XYLOPHONE AND COOL EFFECTs is a good genre for me but i have to actually like it compositionally and this i don't, basically. Still a 6 (the 6.x zone goes up to 165th!)

wow I love pso music !!!!!!!!!!!

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Beyond the Darkness is my 162nd favorite in the contest! This is pretty straightforward ANIME sounding thing. Sometimes I like that but this isn't a case where I do. I love the moments with the upright bass though those are cool, lightly jazzy elements in general are nice. cool piano comping in the chords. the predictability of the chord progression at the dramatic parts bothers me though like in the solo at 2:04, i know exactly what it's going to do before it even happens so i do not like it so that drops it from the potential higher slots in the ranking it could have for sure. whoa the chords right before 5:02 are cool

Hinagiku is my 16th favorite in the contest! I love LOVE this type of hypnotic repetitive minimalist looping stuff. Some of my favorite music in the world. Very steve reich-y. This hits a bunch of unrelated categories of my taste at once and I value it for that deeply. 9/16 time is cool, love how this explores a bunch of different groupings within 9 too, sometimes it's 3+3+3 (Which almost feels BOUNCY, and more like "3/4 with triplets at a different tempo" than the more mechanical 9/16 feel the rest presents), sometimes it's more like 2+2+3+2. The 5+4 layered on top of the 3+3+3 at 1:30 is GOLDEN. It's really trippy how the very first note you hear at least to my mind gets registered as the start of the bar, and it's gradual that as more layers come in I realize that was never beat 1 at all, it's actually the 2nd 16th note beat of each bar! but i can go through like half the song feeling it the first way, even after having listened to this like 90 times, it still toys with my perception and that's one of my favorite things music can do. Sometimes that sort of "false downbeat" "ambiguous barline" etc stuff wears off after a ton of listens have solidified a perception a certain way. I can't say this has fallen victim to that, and that's powerful if something can do that for me. I wish I could listen to Tin Soldiers from Neotokyo for the first time again for all of that rhythmic ambiguity to take its full effect, but I can't. but this, it's like every time I'm listening to it it's the first time I've heard it, it's very hard to find music I can react that powerfully to every time. I like the instrumentation, low quality vaguely dissonant sorta mechanical jagged chopped wonky tape loop full of winds, beneath contrasting more organic pretty singing, the slow introduction of bell-like mallet percussion and strings as it progresses fills the space gradually. AHHHHHHHH I LOVE THIS SONG

Hi

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Metal Beat (Metal Masters) is my 52nd favorite ToC entrant! I didn't used to be like this but these days I really have a hard time getting into every single fake demoscene european vgm song that sounds this condescendingly straightforward like i'm 3 years old and need to listen to the simplest possible shit with some stupid melody that sounds like it's stupid. Alberto Gonzales has music i like but this is not it. It's "technically impressive" and that's why it is not last place because I do care about cool soundchip use it's one of my favorite topics, but this has no semblance of music I'd ever want to listen to composition-wise. Only part I don't hate is the first 35 seconds. I can appreciate modal total-transposition chord changes I always talk about how much that's what I love most, but this is using that in a way that feels lazy, none of the melodic layers string together the total transposing chord changes at all and it's just the previous chunk of the song copypasted and then duplicated up by x# of semitones in a way that feels actively patronizing in its simplicity. This does like everything possible to make sure you're never lost and understand exactly what is going on in the music and that's the antithesis of what i want

steelchambers2 is my 33rd favorite ToC entrant! ok this is more my speed in a similar category. one of the more surprising retirees but I welcome it even if it isn't my favorite exampl