Music Choreography Analysis + Brief Intro :
Kikuo is a Freelance Music Producer that has produced numerous tracks with 14 Album releases since 2010. His music mainly revolves around the DTM genre, also known as Dekstop Music, is a genre that revolves around the usage of electronic and computed sounds to compose other more conventional genres of music.
Some of Kikuo’s most prominent examples of music are the tracks which are featured on YouTube, most of which have a distinct and dark backdrop with an assortment of instruments that are fit for the purpose of creating an eerie atmosphere for the music. Most of the tracks Kikuo had created featured vocals that are mostly from Hatsune Miku, and occasionally, YuRiCa, otherwise known as Hanatan, with tracks that are created in collaboration with both dubbed KukuoMiku and KikuoHana respectively.
Several tracks that are posted on Youtube also feature eerie music videos that are crafted by various artists such as hanamushi and si_ku, which all the more enhances the already eerie music and lyrics to another level.
Kikuo had also produced Albums which solely feature instruments, with “at first” being the first, followed by Kikuoworld 1 to Kikuoworld 3, all of which features the distinct eeriness often found in many of Kikuo’s Indie titles.
The distinct Kikuo-Specialty atmosphere is only further amplified by the assortment of instruments that are used by Kikuo, which should not be understated. His tracks would feature sounds from Synths to Classical Instruments alike, with the aggressively vibrating and jumping of synths and bass featured in - A Happy Death "Koufuku na shi wo", to a dreamscape-tango-esque assortment of mallets, woodwind and strings to bring together “Hole-dwelling”.
Aside the variety of instruments that are used in tandem of each other, Kikuo also features many quirks that can be unique to a lot of the tracks, examples such as the distinct, ear-teasing sounds of YuRiCa’s voice constantly jumping around the left and right (Which is often used in many other tracks to spice up the music) featured in “Hole-Dwelling”, to the immediate broken dreamyard atmosphere of “ヒトガワリ” , which sets the stage to tell a story of sicken-romance.
As often mentioned by Kikuo himself, his curious personality and tendency to be absorbed into things is one of the big factors that plays into Kikuo’s ever-loved attention to detail in his tracks. Aside from the thoughtfully crafted melodies, there’s an assortment of sounds and instruments that are also playing at the background to harmonize with the driving force, which creates an even richer atmosphere and musical progression for the tracks Kikuo would, and had produced, giving his audience new things to discover in his tracks that is sured to surprise many. With Kikuo’s music featuring a calm start that slowly descends into an absolute breakdown of emotions and musical grandeur, certain visitors will definitely find pleasure in the cacophony of sounds, feelings, and obscurity presented by Kikuo.
Song review- Nobore! Susume! Takai tou!
Nobore! Susume! Takai Tou! (Keep Climbing! Keep going forward! Tall Tower! In English). In the first viewing of the music video, you can already notice that there is already a clear link between it and the biblical myth “Tower of Babel”, where us humans tried to build a tower to reach the heavens to live in a paradise, which eventually got smitten down by god. In Nobore!...’s case there is no higher being that punishes them for intruding the divine realm or to defy nature.
It was humankind’s foolishness and naivety that caused its own downfall. There wasn’t a need for a higher being to intervene, as humans are the crux of their own existence. Besides that, in this song, it was made extremely clear from the get go that humanities’ desire to live a hedonistic life is the main reason for the construction of the tower. Which makes this a telling of humans kicking themselves in the legs because of greed, it does however stand out above others thanks to the clever usage of vocals, lyrics and visuals which makes up the music video.
Continuing from the last paragraph, the vocals are what made this stand out from the others, the vocalist for this song Hanatan did an excellent job changing between a more deep and calm voice and a childlike ecstatic voice. At the start of the music video where the lyrics are about the people at the bottom, this part was sung in a deeper calmer voice showing how people firmly believe that climbing and expanding this tower is the correct path to happiness. But as the video goes on, the calmness of the voice slowly starts to crack and break apart around the lower middle part of the tower, where people climbing and working on the tower realizes something is not right about the tower, but at that point is already too late for them to backtrack, so their only option is to climb even higher in hopes of finding salvation, and as it gets closer and closer to the top of the tower, the people on it are getting more and more unstable knowing to the fact that they just committed something that can’t be undo, going insane to cope with it. During this part, the calm and deep voice starts to disappear completely, leaving a childlike voice that is filled with ecstasy, reinforcing the idea of the descendant into madness.
Besides the harmony between the lyrics and vocal works, the background visuals are also something that deserve immense praise. The whole video is a pan and zoom shot of the illustration of people climbing the tower. With this kind of technique, it perfectly illustrates the mystic of what lies above as we the audience goes higher up as the camera pans upwards, letting us immerse ourselves into the song, as we too, like the humans in the drawing, have no idea what is above and beyond what we can perceive. And the way the video ends is also interesting to say the least, with the camera falling off the top of the tower alongside the people who reached the top, and the lyrics pointing out that those at the top are oblivious to the fact that their desires are what caused this whole conundrum. And at the bottom of the fall, lies a new generation finding out what their predecessor has left for them, seeing that some of them lived a happy life, they too give in to their desire for a hedonistic paradise and repeat the cycle of building the tower again.
To draw lines from the music video to real life is an easy task, as the symbolisms are made very apparent, from the raindrops part about how something simple can be rewarding and how easily we are to get addicted to something. Making false assumptions based on one fossil which seems content and happy when it was still alive, like how we’re bad at looking at the bigger picture, the list goes on. But does it mean it is shallow? No, far from it, as something that is obvious doesn’t necessarily mean people will pay any heed to it. So works like this that are done well that also tells this message should be welcomed.
To conclude, this is what I think after watching the music video, but in the end, this still remains as my opinion, which you (whoever that is reading) do not need to take it to heart, as everyone has their own outlook in everything.
References we used:
Kikuo’s Website : kikuo.jp/
Japan’s Chunithm Arcade Machine: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunithm
Hanamushi’s youtube link: www.youtube.com/user/enu330
Songs mentioned in this article:
Koufuku na shi wo : www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaWZlXPwyKE
Hole Dwelling : www.youtube.com/watch?v=I15sK7dNMOM
ヒトガワリ : www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx9hwaOGAFo
Nobore! Susume! Takai tou! : www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wlp-G-6M14
Kikuo is a Freelance Music Producer that has produced numerous tracks with 14 Album releases since 2010. His music mainly revolves around the DTM genre, also known as Dekstop Music, is a genre that revolves around the usage of electronic and computed sounds to compose other more conventional genres of music.
Some of Kikuo’s most prominent examples of music are the tracks which are featured on YouTube, most of which have a distinct and dark backdrop with an assortment of instruments that are fit for the purpose of creating an eerie atmosphere for the music. Most of the tracks Kikuo had created featured vocals that are mostly from Hatsune Miku, and occasionally, YuRiCa, otherwise known as Hanatan, with tracks that are created in collaboration with both dubbed KukuoMiku and KikuoHana respectively.
Several tracks that are posted on Youtube also feature eerie music videos that are crafted by various artists such as hanamushi and si_ku, which all the more enhances the already eerie music and lyrics to another level.
Kikuo had also produced Albums which solely feature instruments, with “at first” being the first, followed by Kikuoworld 1 to Kikuoworld 3, all of which features the distinct eeriness often found in many of Kikuo’s Indie titles.
The distinct Kikuo-Specialty atmosphere is only further amplified by the assortment of instruments that are used by Kikuo, which should not be understated. His tracks would feature sounds from Synths to Classical Instruments alike, with the aggressively vibrating and jumping of synths and bass featured in - A Happy Death "Koufuku na shi wo", to a dreamscape-tango-esque assortment of mallets, woodwind and strings to bring together “Hole-dwelling”.
Aside the variety of instruments that are used in tandem of each other, Kikuo also features many quirks that can be unique to a lot of the tracks, examples such as the distinct, ear-teasing sounds of YuRiCa’s voice constantly jumping around the left and right (Which is often used in many other tracks to spice up the music) featured in “Hole-Dwelling”, to the immediate broken dreamyard atmosphere of “ヒトガワリ” , which sets the stage to tell a story of sicken-romance.
As often mentioned by Kikuo himself, his curious personality and tendency to be absorbed into things is one of the big factors that plays into Kikuo’s ever-loved attention to detail in his tracks. Aside from the thoughtfully crafted melodies, there’s an assortment of sounds and instruments that are also playing at the background to harmonize with the driving force, which creates an even richer atmosphere and musical progression for the tracks Kikuo would, and had produced, giving his audience new things to discover in his tracks that is sured to surprise many. With Kikuo’s music featuring a calm start that slowly descends into an absolute breakdown of emotions and musical grandeur, certain visitors will definitely find pleasure in the cacophony of sounds, feelings, and obscurity presented by Kikuo.
Song review- Nobore! Susume! Takai tou!
Nobore! Susume! Takai Tou! (Keep Climbing! Keep going forward! Tall Tower! In English). In the first viewing of the music video, you can already notice that there is already a clear link between it and the biblical myth “Tower of Babel”, where us humans tried to build a tower to reach the heavens to live in a paradise, which eventually got smitten down by god. In Nobore!...’s case there is no higher being that punishes them for intruding the divine realm or to defy nature.
It was humankind’s foolishness and naivety that caused its own downfall. There wasn’t a need for a higher being to intervene, as humans are the crux of their own existence. Besides that, in this song, it was made extremely clear from the get go that humanities’ desire to live a hedonistic life is the main reason for the construction of the tower. Which makes this a telling of humans kicking themselves in the legs because of greed, it does however stand out above others thanks to the clever usage of vocals, lyrics and visuals which makes up the music video.
Continuing from the last paragraph, the vocals are what made this stand out from the others, the vocalist for this song Hanatan did an excellent job changing between a more deep and calm voice and a childlike ecstatic voice. At the start of the music video where the lyrics are about the people at the bottom, this part was sung in a deeper calmer voice showing how people firmly believe that climbing and expanding this tower is the correct path to happiness. But as the video goes on, the calmness of the voice slowly starts to crack and break apart around the lower middle part of the tower, where people climbing and working on the tower realizes something is not right about the tower, but at that point is already too late for them to backtrack, so their only option is to climb even higher in hopes of finding salvation, and as it gets closer and closer to the top of the tower, the people on it are getting more and more unstable knowing to the fact that they just committed something that can’t be undo, going insane to cope with it. During this part, the calm and deep voice starts to disappear completely, leaving a childlike voice that is filled with ecstasy, reinforcing the idea of the descendant into madness.
Besides the harmony between the lyrics and vocal works, the background visuals are also something that deserve immense praise. The whole video is a pan and zoom shot of the illustration of people climbing the tower. With this kind of technique, it perfectly illustrates the mystic of what lies above as we the audience goes higher up as the camera pans upwards, letting us immerse ourselves into the song, as we too, like the humans in the drawing, have no idea what is above and beyond what we can perceive. And the way the video ends is also interesting to say the least, with the camera falling off the top of the tower alongside the people who reached the top, and the lyrics pointing out that those at the top are oblivious to the fact that their desires are what caused this whole conundrum. And at the bottom of the fall, lies a new generation finding out what their predecessor has left for them, seeing that some of them lived a happy life, they too give in to their desire for a hedonistic paradise and repeat the cycle of building the tower again.
To draw lines from the music video to real life is an easy task, as the symbolisms are made very apparent, from the raindrops part about how something simple can be rewarding and how easily we are to get addicted to something. Making false assumptions based on one fossil which seems content and happy when it was still alive, like how we’re bad at looking at the bigger picture, the list goes on. But does it mean it is shallow? No, far from it, as something that is obvious doesn’t necessarily mean people will pay any heed to it. So works like this that are done well that also tells this message should be welcomed.
To conclude, this is what I think after watching the music video, but in the end, this still remains as my opinion, which you (whoever that is reading) do not need to take it to heart, as everyone has their own outlook in everything.
References we used:
Kikuo’s Website : kikuo.jp/
Japan’s Chunithm Arcade Machine: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunithm
Hanamushi’s youtube link: www.youtube.com/user/enu330
Songs mentioned in this article:
Koufuku na shi wo : www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaWZlXPwyKE
Hole Dwelling : www.youtube.com/watch?v=I15sK7dNMOM
ヒトガワリ : www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx9hwaOGAFo
Nobore! Susume! Takai tou! : www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wlp-G-6M14