Welcome to the twenty-third post of Music Highlights, where I post music that I found and liked!

Starting with this post, I'm moving Music Highlights to a monthly post, because currently my real life situation is a bit hectic. Nevertheless, there are some good stuff for today, mostly from my favorite artists, each with their own unique sounds.

Now, let's talk about the songs in this post!

#1: Inverted Pyramid

Okay, this is going to be quite something. This new Denonbu release for the Shibuya area is unique in the song lineup. This is legitimately one of the best Denonbu releases I've ever heard in a while.

Inverted Pyramid is produced by KOTONOHOUSE, the same producer who made another Shibuya area song, In my world. Adopting the rising Hardwave genre for this song, the song is positioned well for the very club-oriented Shibuya. Furthermore, I can't help but admire the song's production, despite the Shibuya casts generally having the weakest voices of all the casts (they're VTubers, remember).

#2: Uminari

I picked this particular song for this highlight, but I highly recommend to listen to the whole See-Voice album by Pasocom Ongaku Club. As the name implies, the entire album heavily features vocalists singing in the songs. Sound-wise, I will probably describe it as "ambient" and "dreamy", which, given their 2020 EP "Ambience", I'm not surprised.

The reason why I chose Uminari specifically on this post is because of its Drum'n'Bass beat. I'm quite the enjoyer of DnB songs, but hearing it in a Pasocom Ongaku Club song is surprising.

#3: Losing Control

The second single from Masayoshi Iimori in the Monstercat label, Losing Control is a Halftime song that very much makes me lose control. The drop is awesome, and Iimori's sound design is enjoyable.

#4: Lightning

This is an old song, but I posted it here again because AJURIKA uploaded it in his own channel, complete with DAW display! Lightning is one of my favorite tracks from Lanota, one of my favorite AJURIKA tracks, and a very solid DnB track. I am starting to notice a pattern...

AJURIKA is also well-known as one of the composers in the Tekken series of games, and you can certainly notice the stylistic similarities between this song and some of AJURIKA's DnB tracks in Tekken.

#5: After the Rain

Finally, the culmination of Neko Hacker's effort for 3 months. They took a hiatus to improve their production game, and this song is the result of all that effort, and they weren't kidding. The intro is absolutely mind-blowing. The sounds are fuller, including Neko Hacker's signature guitar. Overall, awesome, and the effort paid off nicely.

That's all for this month, see you on 2022!