This one's an example of what happens when I'm not feeling as though there were ideas, and then finding at arrangement/mixdown that there are musical ideas here.

I'd started late Friday night by tracking some bass, which...didn't work. Saturday night, I tracked three different tracks of baritone guitar parts (bridge pickup, neck pickup, both pickups) and wasn't sure how they were working--the 6/4 meter seemed good, but there's a pause at the end of some phrases, and some parts played with that start/stop quality, coming in at different beats, rather than regularly.

Listening back to it all just now...it kind of works. So I'm going with it. It's kind of an unexpected gift from the process of sitting there and tracking.

The title comes from the Ōmiya district of Saitama, where Hikawa Shrine was founded in 473 BCE.

While I gather ideas and techniques for more electro-orchestral piece I like to just chill and play some guitar. Here a software called Wotja does the background while I freely improvise on top.

I love brass and horns and have always wanted to recapture the magic of 70s motown. There are also some fantastic Japanese music featuring outstanding horns like Tank! from the Cowboy bebop soundtrack. But I have always struggled making horns sound good when using VSTs. This track is an exercise trying things out, layering horns one octave apart, having a track of staccato horn on top of a vibrato horn, etc.

There are things I like about this track but it's still a bit rough. It is missing something. Some transitions are very abrupt, and the rhythm in some sections is a bit approximative. But I feel I learnt a couple of things with horns, so missing accomplished!

Happy year of the Rabbit everyone!

Although this track is pretty basic by my own standards, I like the balance it has. In the past I would over complicate compositions and have too much going on the mix. I had sort of an emotional week and weekend last week as well.. so I'm glad that emotion shows in the track a bit.

In the end I was mostly focused on making sure the track was loud enough because I think my previous submission was probably too low. You live and learn.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for listening!