Musical Discoveries in Touhou Fandom

[Ken Hisuag]

I've very much enjoyed contributing to the Other Game Music thread, and I'd like to start doing something similar with Touhou related music. This thread will be for the sharing of musical discoveries made in the Touhou fandom, whether they be remixes or original works in the style of Touhou. There's been a few threads like this already, but my hope is the more open-ended style of this will make it more accessible. If anyone hasn't checked the Remix Tournament and Monthly Music Sharing threads, there's some great music to be found there!

To start off, a comment on a LENK64 video led me to this circle. Apparently they do remixes in the styles of the games. For example, Bad Apple!!, but in the style of Touhou 11 ~ Subterranean Animism:

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I've appreciated quite a few of their covers.

If there's a Touhou related piece of music anyone would like to share, please do! I'll commit to contributing once a week.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Ken Hisuag
Realized I could link the other two threads.

[jssf1992]

Hmm, not really sure what you would count as a "discovery", but something interesting is a fanmade piece for a character supposedly never actually was in the series (it's difficult to tell if they written or is just an urban legend), which kind of goes to show how far the Touhou fanbase goes with this kind of thing.

 

Funny you mention the Remix Tournament, I should really get around to finally making another one while people are all stuck inside . . .

[Ken Hisuag]

YES! This is the original version of one of my favorite fan-made Touhou tracks!

The original artist wasn't happy with the piece (as seen by their comment on the original video), and decided to remake it. I get the impression Precision wanted a more boss-theme type track, but you can judge for yourself.

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Sometime after that, someone else asked to remix the theme again. Having been granted permission, the Nenekonesha presented onto Precision a piece entitled, "Isolated Musical Phrases about a Girl that was Cut from Production by its Creator but Whose Resource References were not Commented Out from the Source Code either due to Development Oversight or Just Plain Trolling and was Picked up By Fans Because She looked Moe ~ Descending Pink."

...

Thankfully, the title was shortened before release.

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The looping version is better, but the only one available is a ten minute plus extended. Still worth a listen, though.

I'd love another remix tournament (especially since I missed the first one).

Edited March 29, 2020 by Ken Hisuag

[Drunken_Flower]

nice stuff

been runnin to some "unique" *cough* mostly just weird *cough* stuff on my search, found some Touhou styled music at it, though im not that fond of em i found some remarkable stuff.

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Frédéric Chopin - Fantaisie Impromptu Op. 66

https://sp.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm30246907

really ain't expect this, but what can i say?

"if it exist, there's gotta be a touhou version of it"

one day i will continue the monthly music sharing but idk what to add or it just too low quantity or yeah idk

[Ken Hisuag]

That's amazing! For some reason, the idea of classical into Touhou has never occurred to me before, and I love the idea. For anyone who might need context:

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This reminds me of a couple other instances where a Touhou-style piece is produced from an unrelated source. These may be either more or less impressive; the foundational motifs are very short, which means more work but more freedom (I'm inclined to think the Chopin adaptation was more difficult). Regardless, they're pretty spectacular.

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Is this a thing, now? Don't worry, DF, I'll be patient.

[buskerdog]

This feels like the sort of thread for me to share what got me into Touhou. Specifically, it was remixes I found by this guy, "DJtheS". The interesting thing I like about this channel is that he makes a lot of crossover remixes, for many, many game franchises, although he has done standalone stuff as well. This channel, along with Smash Bros 4, are largely what introduced me to a wider awareness of game franchises in the first place (and in fact, the reason I found his channel in the first place was because one of his remixes was used in a Smash montage. Now that I think about it, I guess if Reimu got added to Smash it would be like things coming full circle for me). The synths he uses can be a bit hit or miss sometimes, some of them took me a while to get used to, but he certainly has a style that stuck out to me, and I've grown very fond of it. Still a fan of his stuff to this day, Touhou and otherwise, but I'm digressing a bit now, I'll get to the point and share some of the remixes that really stuck with me, before I even understood what Touhou was.

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First off, this gigantic crossover medley, featuring UN Owen as the main motif. There are some other Touhou songs mixed in here as well, but I didn't know that at the time, however those main parts with UN Owen, they really hit me, and along with that mysterious, crystal-winged girl in the background, I certainly was curious to play the games myself to find out more. To give a bit of context to this remix, this is effectively a medley of medleys, the culmination of his "Disciple month" remixes, where he creates four remixes based on different elemental themes, and packs them with anything and everything relating to that theme, pulling from all kinds of different video games. Oh, and Fighting of the Spirit. They all have Fighting of the Spirit as a common motif among them. This remix is a medley of both disciple month one and two, so there are 8 elements being represented in total.

Next, is actually a collection of three songs, which parodies the Mario and Luigi RPGs with Touhou characters. Now, I've only played the third and fourth game in the M&L series, so when I first listened to this I couldn't actually tell which parts of the song game from M&L and which came from Touhou, except in the last song because that one is based on the third game. I still really enjoyed the whole thing, but I don't think it piqued my interest in Touhou as much compared to the previous song, perhaps because I couldn't tell which parts came from where. Although, I did quite like the sprites on screen (so when I finally played IaMP, there was a massive "Oooooohhhh!" moment for me). Of course, now when I listen to this I recognise all the parts, I even pick up on that little bit of Alice's theme snuck into the first song. There's also another Reimu and Sanae remix on a separate video to parody the fourth game, which crosses over Antasma's theme with Remilia's theme. Also, it never occurred to me before writing this, but maybe the reason Reimu became my favourite character so quickly was because I recognised her from these videos?...

I wanna make this an actual game someday...

Finally, a Kaguya VS Mokou Remix of both of their themes, part of the "Arch Rivals" series where DJtheS remixes the themes of two characters who are rivals or nemesis. This is the song that pushed me over the edge into finally looking to try Touhou for myself, if not because of the music then because of the character designs, and a desire to know the backstory behind these faces. One of my all time favourites, I'll let the music speak for itself.

And now, to conclude this story of how I got into Touhou. As I just said, this is the song that finally pushed me into trying to enter the world of Touhou, so I did a bit of Google searching to see where I could get the game, and after discovering there was no simple way to get the games (this was before they started appearing on Steam), I just... forgot about it. Yeah... it actually wouldn't be until quite a few years later when revisiting this stuff that I thought to myself "Oh yeah, didn't I want to get into this stuff at one point? I'm still curious...". I Downloaded Touhou 6 and I'm so glad that I did. Never looked back since.

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by buskerdog

[buskerdog]

I'd also like to share these ambient Touhou arranges I discovered recently. Excellent for doing work to.

 

 

[Ken Hisuag]

I've yet to find someone who can do mashup remixes as high quality as DJtheS. My personal favorite from him is Broken Champ. He also did a Touhou remix album; I'd recommend listening to Native Festival - Suwako.

This week, a remix from Touhou 14. I struggle with the stage 1-4 boss themes, which seem more intense and chaotic than Touhou normal is elsewhere. So I appreciate finding a remix that preserves that intensity while lessening the sinister feel.

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[Ken Hisuag]

I realize I've been listening to a lot of folk lately, so here's something to balance it out.

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Happy Resurrection Day, y'all!

[Tangentg]

Thought of this when I heard "discovery" since it took me a LOT of searching in both Japanese and English before I came across this. A vocal surf touhou arrangement that seems to have influences from the tracks Pipeline and Surfin' USA.

 

 

[Drunken_Flower]

39 minutes ago, Tangentg said:

Thought of this when I heard "discovery" since it took me a LOT of searching in both Japanese and English before I came across this. A vocal surf touhou arrangement that seems to have influences from the tracks Pipeline and Surfin' USA.

 

 

HOLY FUK IT REAL

HOLY SUPERULTRAGREATSPECIALLYEXTRADELICIOUS RARE STUFF

*cough* also i dunno why quite a number of people didn't like surf rock. but eh... 

also hey Tangentg, i likin yer stuff

[Ken Hisuag]

Actually, this is rather fun! I believe that everyone has at least one song they'll like in any genre, and Stack's signature style working with the surf rock is a blend I can appreciate. Thank you for sharing!

[buskerdog]

Can't tell if this is an intuitive remix or just god tier shitposting

 

[Drunken_Flower]

for some reason i just love Chinese mix

thanks to Ken Hisuag (i guess it's him) for submitting this Rigid Parade from dbu in the Remix Tournament, i rembered this remix exist 

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Edited April 16, 2020 by Drunken_Flower
yyes

[Drunken_Flower]

16 hours ago, buskerdog said:

Can't tell if this is an intuitive remix or just god tier shitposting

 

damn that MAD is mad, i still dunno how someone make MAD videos but that looks like hella lotta of work

like that is insane

[buskerdog]

50 minutes ago, Drunken_Flower said:

thanks to Buskerdog (i guess it's him) for submitting this Rigid Parade from dbu in the Remix Tournament

lmao that isn't my submission

Edited April 16, 2020 by buskerdog

[Drunken_Flower]

DAMNIT i was gonna say it's Ken but idk why i change

 

[Ken Hisuag]

1 hour ago, Drunken_Flower said:

thanks to Ken Hisuag (i guess it's him) for submitting this Rigid Parade from dbu in the Remix Tournament,

It's either Amamyia or J, cause it wasn't me. I'll try to make up for it, though:

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That should do, I think.

Also forgot to say I love sfx remixes, so I very much appreciated that.

Edited April 16, 2020 by Ken Hisuag

[Drunken_Flower]

wut yhe fucc

2 hours ago, Ken Hisuag said:

It's either Amamyia or J, cause it wasn't me. I'll try to make up for it, though

my reading ability is useless in forums...

i rarely miss in other places

[Shionne Imeris]

Ha! Not me either (no my submission in latest round)

[Drunken_Flower]

... it Jssf then

imma just put this here

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[Shionne Imeris]

Damn this one is really good lmao

[Drunken_Flower]

actually i haven't listened to Sound Sepher much, hafta get it goin i guess

 

[buskerdog]

1 hour ago, Drunken_Flower said:

... it Jssf then

imma just put this here

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Patchouli, Patchouli, make Patchouli appear more please

[Ken Hisuag]

On 4/16/2020 at 12:05 PM, Drunken_Flower said:

imma just put this here

So . . . this exists. It's well done. I don't know how I feel about it, but it's well done.

Anyway . . .

Since there was a comment about Jun.A, I suggest this soundtrack as a good place to start.

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