Well hey all, the name is Tythanin and I’ll be kind of maybe working as a guest author for this extremely fabulous Hen Da Ne blog that my friend Regris is working on. That’ll teach me to offer a suggestion about having guest authors. Anyway, it’ll be my pleasure to talk about the world of doujin music (at least for this post) and namely Touhou doujin music. Without a doubt, Touhou’s pretty much one of the largest things during Comiket so it’s not surprising to find hundreds of different music circles releasing a Touhou album of some sort through the years. I’ve enjoyed plenty of the remixes that the creative doujin artists have put out and I can count quite a few groups that I’ve enjoyed, such as dBu, Alstroemeria Records, ALiCE’S EMOTiON, TAMUSIC, etc. However, the circle I’ll be talking about is one that’s rather old and didn’t actually release anything for C81 as far as I know (Note: Apparently this circle hasn’t made anything since 2009). Why would you care, then? Because this circle, =NeutraL=, makes some damn good remixes of Touhou music. That’s why. For just a hint of what I’m talking about, please refer to their remix of Satori’s theme below:
If hard rock remixes aren’t your thing, don’t worry, =NeutraL= has some other stuff in their discography to sate your appetites. Their Acoustic Shooter is a low more laid back guitar strumming album and while most of their tracks don’t have vocals, there are a few exceptions such as their remix of Mokou’s theme on their Perfect Cherry Blossom album (no, I don’t get it either). But in the end, =NeutraL= is really a hard metal/rock remix group that I love because I really enjoy loud, fast-paced music. Which, coincidentally enough, is a very nice backdrop when you’re dodging millions of bullets that are flying towards you. Never can go wrong with that.
The group has twenty-six different albums to their name, covering Touhou music from Perfect Cherry Blossom to Subterranean Animism, including the fighting games. Obviously that means you’re going to get repeats of themes, but don’t worry, they vary up their style and remixes enough that they won’t get stale.
Because they’re an old group, it might be harder for you to get your hands on a copy of their music. Thankfully, that’s what YouTube is for and someone kind has made a one-hundred track long playlist of most, if not all, of =NeutraL=’s music. So if you’re interested, just go a quick search of =NeutraL=, click on the playlist, and let the delicious metal remixes of Touhou music enter your ears. And if you can somehow locate it, grab a copy of their CDs for yourself and make sure you keep them. Trust me, you can’t go wrong with listening to =NeutraL=.
Oh, and while I sign off, have some Okuu.
(Regris’ Note: You can find more information on the circle Neutral here, however it seems this circle has either disbanded or relocated their main website.)