mozaikmage

 

Cutlery is one of my favorites of Kamiyama's Miku songs. His Miku sounds high but not squeaky, not realistic or human but kind of.. like a robot. What's really interesting about Cutlery specifically is he did a self cover of it and you can hear he tweaked the instrumentals a bit to complement his lower voice better, something a lot of cover and self-cover artists don't bother to do.

 

When he wasn't working with Miku, Kamiyama used vflower. Vflower is a very difficult vocaloid to work with. I personally think she sounds like a ten year old boy being strangled in most producer's hands: shrill, piercing, whiny. Vflower in lili is singing on the lower end of her range, and probably the clearest she goes. I prefer lower pitched vflower, so this works great for me, but might not be to everyone's taste. The instrumentation is sparing and complementary to the melody without overshadowing it, letting her unique voice shine as the focus. 

 

So how did these vocaloid tuning styles carry over to this own singing? Sugar Highway is a very computery song for a person to sing: chiptuney instrumentals, pixelated video, and obvious auto tune used to create a robotic effect. It's far more upbeat than either of the other songs I've mentioned so far, but the emphasis and focus remains the same: interesting sounds, offbeat lyrics and a weird hook to capture the listener's attention.

 

Not all his original songs have conspicuous autotune or digital instruments: his most recent MV, Kamen, is amazing and I'm obsessed with it, but it's influenced by jazz and big band music and has TRUMPETS. His more recent music has sounded a bit more...normie? I guess? since he did the opening theme for the romance anime Horimiya which brought him some new attention. But it's still catchy, still enjoyable, and still creative: I already mentioned the trumpets, but something that stands out to me about Kamiyama as opposed to the other musicians I've discussed on here before is none of his songs sound the same. Pinocchio-p's songs can be recognized from a 2 second soundbyte, but Kamiyama has like. Two songs that sound like each other at most. Bunny kinda sounds like Sugar Highway, but Laundry doesn't sound like either of those. Aoitoge kinda sounds like Yellow, but Iro Kousui doesn't sound like any of what I just listed. Actually wait maybe Iro Kousui sounds a little Laundry I'm not sure. My best friend hated Yellow and refuses to listen to other songs by him, but most of his songs don't sound like Yellow!

I wrote this post last night and started putting in links this morning and Kamiyama conveniently posted a video for the Hatsune Miku song he created for the video game Project Sekai two hours ago. This Miku sounds raspier than the Miku in his earlier vocaloid works, but the instrumentation and melody reminds me of his more recent music. I like it.

 

The overall impression from his discography is that Kamiyama is a guy who likes sounds, and playing with sound, while still making music that is pleasant and fun to listen to for casual fans. And I'm into that.

 

Yoh Kamiyama is a good musician, a good producer, and a creative artist, and I enjoy his work!