Musical Discovery - Alstroemeria Records

So the new year has begun.  For my first non-update post of the year, we're going back to Music Discovery.  The topic of this post is the group Alstroemeria Records.  With this post, I will retroactively also be adding genre tags to all my previous Musical Discovery and Top Tracks posts.

Alstroemeria Records is a Japanese group headed by Masayoshi Minoshima.  Genre wise, it falls into the trance category with more recent tracks starting to feel more on the dubstep side of the electronica spectrum.  Historically, Alstroemeria Records has only released during Comiket which occurs twice a year, once in August and once in December, and Reiteisai (博麗神社例大祭) which occurs in October.  The reason for this is because as a group Alstroemeria Records does covers of tracks from a game called The Touhou Project.  These are largely unimportant things, besides the fact that a lot of the music I listen to is related to these events.

Back to Alstroemeria Records though.  The sound of Alstroemeria Records has changed from when they started releasing back in 2003.  At the beginning the sound was more instrumental and less electronic.  Throughout the years, more vocal tracks have been added and the sound has become decidedly more electronic mainly in the veins of trance and dubstep.

In the category of Japanese Touhou cover groups, Alstroemeria Records is likely the most famous due to a viral video released in 2009 that has since seen many copies in various form like this.  I'm personally a fan of the video I linked because it uses carved apples instead of just shadow art.  They're known because they're responsible for the song that goes with the accompanying video.

While far from mainstream, I do think that Alstroemeria Records has a sound that is appealing to many different kinds of people.  While some of the newer material can be jarring for those not into dubstep or harder hitting electronic music, compositionally the material is still very good.  In my opinion, I feel that by expanding and experimenting in different genres, Masayoshi Minoshima has gotten better at composing and arranging and allowing new material into what began as rather general covers.

At this point, I'm just going to end with a mix of some of the tracks Alstroemeria Records has released in the past.  I hope you enjoy and until next time.

**Sorry for all the pops on the p's and b's I really need to get a pop screen.  If/when I do, I'll redo all the recordings.

**Also, if I ever get any notices saying I should take down any cross fades or mixes, I will.



--CsMiREK

Double Feature - Pretty Lights - Finally Moving

As I was compiling my lists of musical discoveries and top tracks, it just so happened that the next musical discovery is Pretty Lights and the next top track is his track, 'Finally Moving'.  Whether by accident or on purpose, it doesn't seem right that I should separate the two from each other.  For that reason we have our first double feature.

Pretty Lights is the stage name of Derek Vincent Smith.  As an artist he produces electronic music with an emphasis on sampled sounds and really chill beats.  As for how I got into Pretty Lights, I actually was introduced to his music through a friend of mine.  He's a big fan of electronic music and at the time I was still kinda warming up to electronic music and the sounds of the entire genre.  To be honest I don't particularly follow artists so I guess there isn't too much more I can say about him as a person.  However, what is really cool is that all of his albums and tracks are freely downloadable and distributable from his site.  There's also an option to donate so if you really enjoy his music, be proactive and support his music and his decision to freely distribute his music.