Welcome to the twenty-fourth post of Music Highlights, where I just talk about music I find interesting.

First of all, happy belated new year! I've been resting for a while after some pretty intense IRL stuff, so I'm glad I'm able to return back to writing on this blog. As I said in a previous post, I'll be posting those Music Highlights posts monthly.

In terms of music, I'm posting songs from all the usual updates. From music franchises like Denonbu and IDOLY PRIDE, virtual talents, to a recent remaster of old albums.

Now, let's talk about music!

#1: NEW FRONTIER!

First of all, lets start the post with the obligatory Denonbu release. NEW FRONTIER! is the first song release from Denonbu in 2022, and is composed by MONACA resident Kakeru Ishihama. It's a song sung by the Akiba unit, but focused on Kazune. It has one of the most beautiful melodies I've heard in a Denonbu song, and it's all packaged up nicely in a future bass-pop framework.

#2: dawn (2015 rework) (2022 Remaster)

Around the new year, kamome sano blessed us by releasing all of the her "archive" series of albums, originally released around 2015-2016, on streaming platforms, remastered for 2022. archive001 and 003 contains reworks of her older songs, while 002 features vocals from the UTAU voicebank Kasane Teto.

The track I chose to preview for this post is her 2015 rework of "dawn", While the original song resembles a song that could come out of an indie band, the rework is drum and bass.

#3: intention

The latest published song in Hanabasami Kyo's repertoire, A lot of her songs are composed by Police Piccadilly, so when other composers are involved, it stands out. "intention" is even more interesting, because its composed by a name I've been quite following closely: NUU$HI.

In a way, I got introduced to NUU$HI songs because of Denonbu. I remember Masayoshi Iimori, a participating artist in Denonbu, tweeted about the label ARANCK Collective,  of which NUU$HI is a member of, and then I discovered that Masayoshi Iimori made an edit of NUU$HI's Sakura VIP. NUU$HI is now in my regular listening playlist, but hearing them in a virtual singer's song is quite a curiosity.

#4: lumiere

The third TRINITYAiLE refernce I've made in this entire post series! Who knows that the combination of TrySail members and kz (livetune) would become one of my favorites. Part of the Collection Album "Yakusoku", it is yet again quite different from the other TRINITYAiLE songs I've heard, being Christmas-themed and all, and kz's song production is very enjoyable as always.

#5: See You in Nowhere

Finally, let's talk about a VTuber album release! Like so many releases that I come to like, Amatsuka Uto's album UTOPIA has composers that I followed actively, and this album has lots of them, especially in the original songs. The title track is KOTONOHOUSE, and there are tracks by Crusher and nyankobrq, but the song I wanted to highlight today is the one made by none other Camellia.

Camellia is a very versatile composer, and See You in Nowhere combines oriental elements, seen in songs like yamabiko, garage, and future bass, making for a very stylish track. Furthermore, Amatsuka Uto's voice actually fits really well with Camellia's music here, and I may or may not have become a Tenshimp by the time I finish this article.

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