Ah, Spiritual Spellers. One of the first Touhou music albums I collected, and one of the oldest, with a May 2007 release date. We are far enough back in time that the U.N. Owen version of the McRoll meme hadn't been uploaded yet (it'd appear on Nico Nico Douga in December 2007, and on YouTube in January 2008).
This came out all the way back during the fourth Reitaisai, at the same time as MUCH more important pieces of Touhou Music history, including the all-important Lovelight by Alstroemeria Records, which featured the most famous arrange of Bad Apple in probably the whole world. But we're not talking about Alstro or Bad Apple today, we're going into the back-alley of my old favorites instead.
But first, some Backstory™
Like many albums from back in the day, my main method of discovery was to follow whatever Touhou-related things I had access to at the time and find out what albums it came from.
In this specific case, what led me to Spiritual Spellers was the combined arrange of U.N. Owen Was Her? and Love-Colored Master Spark from the same album, unimaginatively but helpfully named U.N.オーエンは彼女なのか？＋恋色マスタースパーク -Trance Mix-
This track was included in a Stepmania pad pack, Gpop's Touhou Pad Pack. You can find it at the bottom of this Stepmania forum post. (I'm surprised it's still up...)
In fact, this very pad pack is how I discovered the Touhou Project at all, all the way back in the difficult period of my life that was the entire year of 2008.
I was into Stepmania a lot at the time, and a friend recommended I try it out just to discover the music. When I asked what most of these songs were from, I was shown the Touhou Wiki, I was shown footage, and I was handed some of the games. Subterranean Animism was the latest game at the time.
Although I am bad at danmaku games and will probably never touch one again, I was hooked. The start of what's arguably a lifelong obsession into Touhou. And it all started with music from this album. You could say ION has been with me since the very beginning.
And now, the song proper
So why am I showing a different song than the one I mentioned above? This particular track is a long remix of Flight of the Bamboo Cutter ~ Lunatic Princess from Imperishable Night.
It's almost ten minutes long, and it's... very much a by-the-book, almost nothing-fancy progressive trance version of Kaguya's theme song with a very standard progression: intro from the start until 0:54, buildup and introduction of the main melody until 2:18, followed by a brief drop and another buildup until 3:02.
After that, the song enters a second progressive stage with one of Lunatic Princess's background leitmotifs, and then begins full-sending it at 3:43 with a clap. Then it's three minutes of pure Kaguya trancey goodness with no let-up in intensity until 6:32.
The leitmotif returns and the track builds itself back up until a second clap at 6:59. And we're right back to trancey business until 7:55, after which the song progressively begins its unwinding phase, steadily dropping in intensity and instrumentation all the way until the end at 9:55.
Old doujin Trance music is the best
Eientei should host rave parties, I'd bet Kaguya would make for a supremely good DJ.
Yeah, sure, sure. Musically, the Touhou music scene has done much better since, but for the time, and especially to the teenager I was? That was the shiiiit! Best track on an album full of bangers! (we didn't really say bangers back in the late 2000s but bear with me)
It's also the final track of the album, and, in my opinion, the best thing Spiritual Spellers has to offer, because it caps off a musical exploration in the form of eight tracks, one hour, and about five different flavors of electronic music. It shows that Beta, or べた, or Ion, however they prefer to be called, simply Went For It™ and had fun making this, something that will always be infinitely more important than technical prowess or inspiredness.
Most importantly, it means a ton to me to this day. I am a sentimental old fool of a snake, the best way to my heart is to make me feel things.
Well, ION has become what I like to call the musical equivalent of comfort food. I'm always happy when it comes up on shuffle. Music that once made you feel good things when you first discovered them truly becomes the best when they still make you smile, months, years, decades later.
In the end, the only sad thing about ION is that Beta has only ever produced two albums; an even earlier one in 2005 called 東郷 -TOU KYOU- and this one. After Spiritual Spellers, as far as any wiki or resource database I could find knows, that person went away from the scene.
Song details
Song title: 竹取飛翔 -Trance Mix-
Artist: Beta
Album: Spiritual Spellers (Track 8)
Circle: ION
Release date: 2007/05/20 (Reitaisai 4)
Genre: Trance
Type: Instrumental
Touhou originals remixed:
- 竹取飛翔 ～ Lunatic Princess ; Flight of the Bamboo Cutter ~ Lunatic Princess (Imperishable Night, Kaguya Houraisan's theme)
