Welcome to the seventeenth Music Highlights posts, where I talk about music I found.

This post is a bit of an assortment of new music releases, from various artists names, all of which are some of my favorites. "Order in chaos", stylish songs, emotional pop, you name it.

Without further ado, let's highlight the music!

#1: Sukuinote

First, we're starting with a song from Hakushi Hasegawa, this time joined by Yukichikasaku/men,  with "Sukuinote", where the vocals from both artists complement each other really well with the signature Hakushi Hasegawa style.

The song is full of unconventional stuff layered on top of a conventional structure, like the various time signatures put alongside the conventional 4/4 structure. The music video is also straight up scary, with its black-and-white color and it featuring a literal cut-off hand.

#2: Reincarnation

Two KOTONOHOUSE songs in a row, because both are that good. While the previous song is made for the mobile game Alchemy Stars, this song is part of the compilation album "Fortune" from the MOTTO MUSIC label founded by Kakeru.

The compilation album itself is a really interesting listen, gathering artists and singers from the scene, like TEMPLIME and Mameyudoufu. As for the song itself, this song is my favorite from the album. Nanahira's vocals are cute as usual, but KOTONOHOUSE delivers quite the emotional drop, which is probably one of my favorite drops in 2021. I like it.

#3: Vagabond

First of all, welcome back, ARForest! This is probably the first new track release since they returned from mandatory military service, and yeah, it's really nice. Delivering their signature instrumental rhythm-game-artcore, the song brings you to quite a journey (get it?). I'm looking forward to new songs from them.

#4: Twilight

After a series of re-releases of songs from the albums, Denonbu revealed a new song, "twilight". Produced by Tomggg, you would think that they will make a song for the Harajuku unit, but the fact that the song they wrote ended up being for the Azabu unit shows the branching that Tomggg's musical direction has been going.

This song definitely fits Azabu's stylish image, even though it is slightly out of the ordinary. The three Azabu casts sing quite well, and Tomggg's production is unique (did I hear samples of cars?).

#5: Shadows

As part of the run-up to Neko Hacker's second album "Stray", they uploaded a new MV for one of the songs that will be in the album: Shadows. This song is originally from their EP "Reincarnation", released in 2020.

I've been a fan of their "kawaii future rock" signature style for quite some time now, but now there a time signature change in the middle, which adds to the emotional impact the song has.

That's it for this Music Highlights post, please wait for the next one in mid-July~