Welcome to the nineteenth post of Music Highlights, where I talk about music I like!

This iteration of Music Highlights are quite varied, and drawing from both my interest towards rhythm game music and electronic music multimedia series. However, last month might be one of the darkest months of rhythm game music history, due to the passing of SHIKI, a very influential musician in that area.

Now, let's continue to the song list.

#1: Pure Ruby

First of all, this section is dedicated to SHIKI themselves, who had sadly passed away last month. They shaped the rhythm game scene and influenced a lot of other artists. May their soul rest in peace.

In this occassion, I would like to post one of SHIKI's songs, and that song is Pure Ruby. SHIKI's combination of electronic music and instruments like the piano and the violin is arguably one of the predecessors to what is now known as the Artcore genre. This sound also defined the rhythm game scene, even until now, and even Porter Robinson was inspired by them, influencing a lot on Porter's Virtual Self works.

#2: 雷火

After that, let's talk about the new song from Nanawoakari, "Raika" (雷火), which is the first original song where TAKU INOUE is involved in its production. TAKU INOUE himself has been involved with Nanawoakari for quite sometime, remixing two of Nanawoakari's songs, Turing Love and Higher's High.

For Raika, TAKU INOUE combined electronic music and band instruments, the way he did for Tsukino Mito's "Antigravity Girl", the two songs' structures drawing a lot of parallels to each other. Well, except for the part after the second verse.

#3: Never Give Up

We are now back at rhythm game territory, and this is one of the more surprising occurences from July, and that is the fact that nanobii now has a song in the maimai rhythm game!

Even more surprisingly, this particular song is a happy hardcore song! nanobii's recent releases are markedly different from the genre that they are famous for. so the fact that the old sound is back again of course is bound to be very interesting at the very least. All of that is aside from the fact that a lot of people thought that this is an advanced rickroll. Why, internet.

#4: Never Let Go

This ordering is completely intentional. Last month, I have been made aware of the AKROGLAM multimedia series, partially due to Denonbu putting their songs in the character playlists, and also the fact that the two are collaborating.

AKROGLAM, like Denonbu, is leaning towards electronic songs, with ASTRAM's latest release, Never Let Go, being electronic in nature. AKROGLAM seems to tie story and music more closely, however, as they teased both the story and the music each iteration.

#5: アイドル Break All (feat. IOSYS)

Finally, I have to cover this particular Denonbu release. With the very packed release schedule (Denonbu currently releases songs every week), and with me actively preventing myself from adding too many Denonbu songs in Music Highlights), Idol Break All stands out well enough from the other releases that I have to put it here.

First of all, let me set expectations. This song is sung by Futaba Kayano, whose first solo song is chaotic as it is. This song takes that up to eleven, with denpa and Touhou arranger circle IOSYS involved in the creation of this song, and by IOSYS, I mean, all the main creators! This song's lyrics are written by three people, and arranged by four. Thank God, one composer at least made the song not more chaotic.

Reflecting it's four-arranger nature, there are distinct sounds that are very recognizable here. Let's line up the arrangers here:

• D.watt is the composer, and is also involved in arranging parts of the song.
• ARM, one of the most recognizable artists for making famous Touhou arranges, is in charge of arranging the chorus.
• void / Kobayashi Yuuya is in charge of arranging the ballad section.
• uno is in charge of arangging the drop, which results in very interesting results, considering that one of his alias... is RoughSketch. Mad lad put hardcore kicks in the song and turns the song into speedcore at the end.

This is one of the rare times the entirety of IOSYS is involved, and it is glorious.

That concludes today's Music Highlights, see you on the next post!