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Saturday, August 12, 2017

Song of the Week! 12 August 2017


This closing week, a new official Touhou Project title was released, it was the birthday of one of the Taiko Discord group's users sporting a Touhou avatar and I can get to talk about Eurobeat music some more...

...really, do I need more reasons to get to talk about Touhou stuff once more?

 Scream out! -Tatsujin Edit.- (Scream out! -達人Edit.-) Touhou Project Arrange - A-One
Version
Allx3 (181)x5 (297)x6 (595)x8 (792)
 Taiko 0 M (promo only), 0 W, Taiko +
 165
 none
 thscre


The last element that constitutes what (at the moment) can be dubbed as the "Modern Arcade Eurobeat Trilogy" is being supplied once again by the doujin unit A-One. Much like with Endless Seeker, their other Taiko contribution, Scream out! is an arrangement that makes use of both tracks coming from a specific stage: the Stage BGM Ashita Harenohi, Ke no Kinō (明日ハレの日、ケの昨日, translatable as 'Tomorrow Will be Special, Yesterday Was Not') and the Stage Boss track Native Faith (ネイティブフェイス), both coming from the Extra stage of the 10th title in the series, Mountain of Faith. The two original songs are associated to said Extra stage's boss, Suwako Moriya (洩矢諏訪子), and seeing that we didn't go that deep in the character introduction aspect in our previous song feature of an arrangement based on her music theme (Kero⑨destiny), we might as well pick up the pace from there.

In the games's lore, she's one of the Yaoyorozu no Kami (八百万の神, 'Miriad Gods') in the Shinto religion, as well as the original goddess of the eponymous Moriya shrine, which was once located on Earth away from Gensokyo, in what's often referred to as the 'Outside World'. The controller of lake Suwa's curse gods known as Mishaguji (ミシャグジ), she once was the ruler of a small kingdom in the Outside World, until gods from ancient Japan came around to claim her kingdom as part of the country's unification plans; more specifically, the Yamato-rooted divine spirit Kanako Yasaka (八坂神奈子) managed to defeat her in battle and claim Suwako's shrine as her own, while still letting the defeated goddess to live in it. In modern times, a progressing lack of faith in gods and divine spirits of the Outside World has led Kanako to the decision of moving the entire Moriya Shrine and its natural surroundings in Gensokyo to gather faith from its inhabitants at the top of Youkai Mountain, which was the event that started the incident scenario of Mountain of Faith.

The original Scream out! made its debut in the TOHO EUROBEAT VOL.7 album, which premiered at the 83rd edition of Comiket, on December 30th, 2012. This is another arrangement from the unit that features dual vocals by Koshida Rute Takairo (越田Rute隆人) and Aki (あき); unlike the Endless Seeker scenario, however, the male vocals lead the lyrics direction for this track. One year later, Scream out! was re-arranged as part of the THE BEST OF NON-STOP TOHO EUROBEAT 2012-2013 collection album that was released at the 85th Comiket on December 2013; this particular version has been used as the base of the song's first foray into the rhythm games games scenario, as Scream Out! -SDVX EDIT- for the very first SOUND VOLTEX title, which was also ported in the jubeat series later on (link).

Other notable remixes of the song include the so-dubbed 'Tatsh FEOE13 Remix' -made by Tatsuya Shimizu (清水達也) for his 13th album in his Touhou-related FAR EAST OF EAST album series- and the faster 'maimai SONIC WASHER Edit' from A-One, which is the song's playable version in Sega's maimai series. For those who want to scream it all out, however, there's an 8-track album by A-One that is made of nothing but Scream Out remixes! The 15th Reitasai's Scream out! ~Tribute Party~ features 8 more brand new remixes of the popular Touhou arrangements starring many renowned artist/circles in the Touhou arrange scene, from Cranky to Butaotome and t+pazolite!

Drawing another parallel with Endless Seeker, this song made its debut in Taiko gaming as a Reitasai-exclusive event song under Murasaki Version's life span (for 2015's Autumn Reitasai), with the song itself getting public ports the next year in both the arcade front (as one of White Version's new launch additions) and the console scenario through the Taiko Plus apps. Marimo Institute (まりも研究所) is the Taiko Team member that was put in charge of Scream out's Taiko notecharts, with the regular Oni sporting a really generous amount of notes with both repeating-pattern sections and several odd-note cluster segments, all within the boundaries of 1/16 time signature charting.

  Scream out! -Tatsujin Edit.- (Scream out! -達人Edit.-) Touhou Project Arrange - A-One
Version
All


x9 (999)
 Taiko 0 W, Taiko +
 165
 none
 ???


One advantage that once-limited songs may have in recent times over older exclusive tracks is the addition of an Ura Oni for their public launch, and Scream out is surely part of that jolly fray! Difficulty-wise, this mode is comparable to a slower rendition of Taiko Time's Ura Oni, only with more notes and mono-color, 1/24 cluster spikes to take care of along the way. Rest assured that there aren't any fast-scrolling killer big notes at the end, but be sure not to be disoriented by the x4-scrolling-speed big drumrolls that are preceding both of the song's chorus sections, though!