Overview
Now, I know what I said before in my opening post: I like to
avoid compilation albums. There’s a good reason for this; with each album I
review, I like to use it as a chance to get to know a particular producer’s
style and gauge how it is explored throughout an album. One-producer albums
tend to have a sense of coherence and theme to them – look at Vibgyor, which I
reviewed last – unless they’re greatest hits compilations.
However, Reddit user raposarealm requested this review about
a month ago, and I decided to oblige. The main reason for this is because it’s
electronic music. I’ve had very little engagement with the genre before,
particularly as it pertains to Vocaloid, so I decided to give it a shot.
Incidentally, I was actually going to make this post about a week ago, but I
made the error of trying to compose it in the Tumblr field instead of Word, and
when I accidentally backed out of the Tumblr page, my whole post went up in
smoke. That demoralized me a bit, but now I’m redoing it.
Without further adieu, here’s Dual Sight. By the way, this
album is available in the West on iTunes/Amazon, so if you’re interested I
recommend buying it.
Music
1) Dual Sight (feat. Hatsune Miku) by G.K: The
titular track of this album starts us off. It’s rather mellow, as expected of
house music (I think? I’m very poor at distinguishing between electronic
genres. I tend to classify chill electronic music as “house,” but please
correct me if I’m wrong). The beat is rather slow, and you can easily tap your feet
and bob your head to it. The synthesizers in the background have a sort of
ethereal quality that puts you in a calm mood; I could easily see myself
relaxing with this song in the background while reading a book. Then Miku’s
vocals come in. Truthfully, they’re not bad. Miku’s voice is very gentle, and
matches the tempo and flavor of the song well. However, her voice is tuned very
thinly, and it comes out rather shrill despite not being very loud. Because of
this, I feel that the best sections of the song are the instrumentals. Some
people like the sound of that thin, tinny Miku, but I am not among them. The
song as a whole is certainly decent enough, but I wish Miku had a bit more
richness to her voice.
2) Offshore (feat. IA) by Nhato: This song has a bit
more of a partying sort of vibe than the previous track. By no means is it a
crazy 350bpm techno ecstasy-fest, but it has a lot more energy. The bass
kicking in the background is louder and more aggressive, which causes your
heart rate to speed up a tad while listening closely. The song’s rhythm as a
general whole is also slightly faster, and this makes a very nice dance track.
IA’s voice is also perfectly executed in this song – it’s energetic and
songlike, and her gentle vocals match the background music nicely. The elements
in the song are also mixed well, with neither the vocals nor the instrumentals
trying to override each other – everything has its own little place. There’s
variety in the backing tracks, with the bass pulsing and dragging around to mix
up the rhythm. There’s also a nice keyboard sound that comes in once in a
while, along with some other synth patches and loops that are well utilized. If
this were played at a Vocaloid dance party, you can bet that there would be a
lot of dancing weebs with spaghetti flinging all over the dancefloor – and
rightfully so, given the nice quality of the track.
3) Rebirth (feat. Hatsune Miku) by Haloweak: We’re
picking up the pace now! I’m starting to think that there’s a theme here;
perhaps the tracks are arranged in such a climaxing way that it’s supposed to
be like going to an entire night at a club if you listen to the tracks in
order. The bass is aggressive, and there’s a purring in the background that
keeps you on your toes. When Miku comes in, she has much less of her cuteness
than usual, and instead has a more serious singing voice on. The GEN factor is
kept low, so she sound bubbly, saturated, and feminine, but not to an extreme
where it’s annoying. Things do get a little dubsteppy sometimes, and the
backing track behind Miku skips and stutters about during some sections. I
really don’t mind it, as it never goes full Skrillex-tier breakdown and instead
serves to spice up the rhythm section nicely. Miku herself even takes a step
back once in a while to assist the instrumentals utilizing “ah” noises to fall
in line with the synthesizers. The only gripe I have with this song is that
sometimes Miku’s singing is overshadowed by the backing synths and instruments,
and her lyrics also lack a great degree of emotion. Other than that, though,
it’s a pretty nice track, and it keeps the album flowing nicely.
4) Liberator (feat. IA) by Taishi: I’m really excited
to see Taishi working on this album, as Taishi is one of my favorite producers
with IA. His work with her beta bank in “Falling Apart” was splendid; I
recommend you give it a listen if you haven’t already. “Liberator” was the most
hyped song on this album from what I read, and it’s with good reason. Taishi
has an electronic magic that he channels well in this song, and IA is part of
that charm. The rhythm starts off at a slow and ethereal pace, with airy
instrumentals in the background creating a sort of dreamy state. IA’s vocals
are there, but they’re far in the background, just singing vowel sounds to add to
that air of mystery and dislocation. Around the 1-minute mark a more concrete
bass rolls in and anchors us down, and shortly after, IA begins singing. Her
singing is cute and yet mature, as IA’s voice often is when used well. She
blends right in with the vocals, and everything is mixed together very well.
Taishi also does this really cool thing using a high-pitched synthesizer that
he plays like a keyboard for a while (you’ll know it when you hear it), and
it’s awesome. Taishi is known for structuring his songs in a manner where there
are longer sections of instrumentals and short intermittent sections of
singing. He does this in “Liberator,” as IA’s singing appears in less than a
third of the song. The parts she does appear in, however, are well appreciated,
and the song is well done. I feel like Taishi is an underappreciated producer
in the Vocaloid community, and I hope “Liberator” earns him a more prominent
spot, which he deserves.
5) Confession (feat. Aoki Lapiz) by Haloweak & G.K:
A combined effort! And with a much more rarely used Vocaloid to boot! We have
an interesting proposition here. Aoki Lapiz is not a Vocaloid I hear very
often, and I’m glad to hear some skilled producers work with her. The song
starts off with her singing, which is very bubbly and saturated; it sounds like
a young Japanese idol I’d hear in an anime somewhere. The instrumentals creep
in with her voice and climax nicely, leading us into the rest of the song. The
tone and speed of the song don’t fluctuate very much throughout; the song tends
to trot along at the same pace throughout. The bass is very prominent with this
one, and there’s plenty of wub wubbing occurring for those who like that.
There’s an 8-bit sound to some of the synthesizers in the background, which is
also pretty cool. Aoki Lapiz’s vocals are decent, but I feel like they’re a
little dry; there’s no climax or strong emotion in her vocals to keep me
hooked, nor is there that gentle strength like with IA’s vocals that keeps me
listening anyway. The vocals feel more like a background instrument rather than
the focal point of the song. Everything is well mixed, however, and it’s
certainly not a bad effort. The instrumentals in the background are well put
together, and there’s a good amount of variety in them that keeps things
interesting. I like the track overall, but I wish there was a stronger hook in
there that made me want to listen to the whole thing more.
6) Desperate Parade (feat. IA) by rest or stay?: The
track starts off with a huge bass boom that draws a clear separation from the
rest of the songs before. It boldly proclaims, “I am going to be different from
the rest!” After a short introduction, IA comes in. IA’s singing here is much
more sonorous than the rest; whereas the other songs felt like the vocals were
there to accompany and bring together the instruments, this track has more of a
rock/pop feeling where the vocals are clearly the center of the song and the
instruments are there to support IA’s singing. The instrumentals are well done,
and they do a good job of keeping a lot of variety involved while not
overshadowing IA most of the time. That being said, there are a few parts,
especially during the outro, where the instrumentals do overwhelm IA, and it can be irksome. One very interesting part
comes in around 1:50; the song has a dubstep-style breakdown, wub wub and all.
And then, it follows up with piano and violin playing! It’s a very strange
juxtaposition, but it works well, leading to a lot of intrigue and variety in
the song. The lyrics feel like a bittersweet ballad the way they’re sung, and
it’s interesting to hear such a singing style in a place like this. I rather
like it, and I think it’s a very solid track. The proclamation in the beginning
is very correct, for this one is not like the others, in both style and
content.
7) Gentle Saturation (feat. Hatsune Miku) by Cnsouka:
“Gentle Saturation,” like many electronic tracks, takes its time to get
started, with an intro that extends beyond the 2-minute mark without Miku
singing at all. Then, Miku comes in with her “ah’s,” filling up the empty
soundscape with her voice. Truthfully, I’m not a big fan of how this is
handled; it’s too loud and overbearing compared to the instrumentals in the
background, and her voice is tuned a bit too shrill and nasally to capture that
pleasant feeling that vowel singing gives in other songs. Then the instrumental
sections kick back in, which are quite nice. The background instruments are
simple, but they’re catchy enough to keep you interested. Miku’s vowel singing
drifts in and out, and with proper mixing rearing up here it sounds good.
However, the song is over quite quickly, and I feel like it never really had a
chance to build to its full potential.
8) Mysterious (feat. 洛天依)
by Hachiouji-P: This track is a special track as a promotional piece for
the “China Project” which hopes to spread Vocaloid into China more. It’s only
found on the Chinese version of the album, as well as some other international
releases (I don’t have it on my version, which is from Amazon mp3). The song is
pretty cool; it’s Hachiouji-P’s standard fare of catchy vocals combined with an
energetic and upbeat set of background instrumentals. The drums are cool, and
there’s even a guitar thrown in there a little bit among the electronic
instruments in the song. It’s a short piece, clocking in at 1:44, so don’t
expect it do rise and fall slowly like the other songs on this album do. The
vocals are in Chinese, so I can’t comment on their pronunciation, but I think
they sound pretty cool. The tuning is nicely done, and there’s a decent
semblance of emotion in her singing. The PV is also pretty
nicely done for what it is; all in all, it’s a nice little bonus track.
Final Remarks
This album was a fun challenge to review since I’m not at
all used to reviewing electronic music. Whereas in rock/pop/jazz it’s very easy
to distinguish between instruments and analyze how each one performed relative
to the others, it’s not so easy to do that with synthesizers in electronic
music. The genre operates by very different conventions, and I tried to abide
by them as well as possible.
That being said, I think there’s a lot to be discussed with
an album regardless of finer point of genre-specific ideas, and I hope that
comes through in this review. The songs were as a whole pretty good; while
there were some ups and downs in the album, it’s a fun listen as a whole, and I
could see it being a nice 45-minute set list for a Vocaloid-themed party. IA’s
vocals command the high point of the album, but Miku and Aoki Lapiz aren’t that
bad themselves. All in all, it’s a good album, but at the end of the day I wish
more stuck out about each song; they all felt a little similar to me, but
perhaps that’s simply my experience (or lack thereof) with the genre.
7/10
