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Saturday, November 26, 2011

Song of the Week! 26 November 2011


Last month, a particular song taught us that even the most popular composers move out of their comfort zone for some musical experimentation (like LindaAI-Cue making Doom Noiz). Another singer who was brought to popularity thanks to the 2000 songs followed the same path with this melody, many years ago...

Konya wa Hōmī (今夜はホーミー)
Version
Allx3 (124)x2 (167) x3 (231)x6 (329)
Taiko PS2 5, Taiko PSP 2, CD Anime
106
none
 hold


Debuting in the PS2 era as an unlockable, Konya wa Homi is one of the two Taiko songs performed by Hase Yurina (長谷優里奈), the current name of the actress Yurika Ochiai; you might remember either name as the voice behind Koibumi 2000, which also made its first appearance on the same game as this song (PS2 5). The song's composer is - once again - Yano Yoshito (矢野義人), maker of other Namco Originals like Lovely-X.

The title means 'Tonight with Khomeii', where 'Khomeii' is a mode of Tuvan throat singing, which uses the breath from deep in the throat and the chest to exert energy and sing. You can hear a few sounds of these in the song. The Cyrillic word is pronounced like the Romaji equivalent 'homi', with a silent 'k'. Hase Yurina's soft voice adds a soft touch to Konya wa Homi's throat singing, with a harmonious melody as a final result.

Both of Yurina's songs were well-accepted by fans, but only Koibumi 2000 was lucky enough to be featured in many other arcade and console games (the reason is pretty obvious), while Konya wa Homi's proliferation was stopped after its debut in the 2nd PSP game as a downloadable song. A recent TV commercial for the HD arcade (featured on the 3rd Taiko Team UStream session) plays an instrumental piece of this old Namco Original.

Konya wa Homi's Oni notechart features 1/12 note spacing with a peacefully slow speed, but the 6* difficulty layer is well justified by one of the first 1/24 streams in Taiko games, adding an energetic boost to the last Go-Go Time zone's beginning.