New song "wonderland" composed by Y. Kajiura, included in AIMER's 6th album Walpurgis

I couldn't decide which one i hate more, aimer or lisa but i would actually take lisa because she's listenable when she doesn't scream. aimer in general just annoys me to no end lol there was a time when i regularly listened to i beg you but then i realized i always sang it out loud because i disliked (and still dislike) listening to aimer singing that song. This is my semi annual “please no more aimer rant“.
 
Why would Kajiura break the collab just for you though ? I have no issue with her voice. Fripside and nanoripe sound much worse 🙉
 
lol george. It's no different than some of us saying "no mo strings".

Kajiura doesn't have to do anything for us or listen to anyone (but maybe her employers).
 
From the booklet (as is, they weren't in Japanese):

7. wonderland
Produced by YUKI KAJIURA
All Keyboards & Programming: YUKI KAJIURA
Guitars: KOICHI KORENAGA
Drums: KYOICHI SATO
Bass: TOMOHARU"Jr."TAKAHASHI
Violin: HITOSHI KONNO
Viola: MASAKI SHONO
Cello: MASATERU NISHIKATA
Recording, Mixing Engineer & Protools Operator: TAKASHI KOIWA (SIGN SOUND)
Recorded at Sound City, SIGN SOUND
Mixed at SIGN SOUND
Directed by YASUNORI MORI

13. 春はゆく
Produced by YUKI KAJIURA
All Keyboards & Programming: YUKI KAJIURA
Guitars: KOICHI KORENAGA
Drums: KYOICHI SATO
Bass: TOMOHARU"Jr."TAKAHASHI
Harp: TOMOYUKI ASAKAWA
Strings: HITOSHI KONNO STRINGS
Recording, Mixing Engineer & Protools Operator: TAKASHI KOIWA (SIGN SOUND)
Recorded at Sound City, Bunkamura Studio, FREEDOM STUDIO
Mixed at SIGN SOUND
Directed by YASUNORI MORI

(...)

Mastered by YUJI CHINONE (Sony Music Studios Tokyo)

Code:
wonderland
LYRICS/MUSIC/ARRANGEMENT:梶浦由記

迷いの森にあるほんとう
探しに行く月のひかり
羊歯を踏んで足を濡らして
ひたりほとり夏の小道

よく笑って泣いて見つめあって
おそるおそる恋に堕ちた
ふたり歩き出した違う方へ
呼び合う声だけもどかしく
find me in the wonderland

そろそろ手を汚して
自分の欲しいものを
追いかけてみる
みつあみをほどいて
同じ星を齧る
ふたりになる

寂しがって夜になって
まだ明るい夢のほとり
食べかけで残した心だって
ここから始まるうたになる

世界は君のものさ、どこへ行こうか、貴方は笑う
踏み外してみようか、後ろめたさが私を誘う
find me in the wonderland

どうしたって
生まれ変わるほどの
強い意志が必要だわ
慎重ないのちだった
私だけじゃ道は見つからない

星を数え繋ぎ合わせ
まだ知らない夏の星座
見つめあって泣いて朝になって
ここから始まる物語

もう一人じゃないのよ、夢のようでしょ、私は歌う
寂しさはひるがえり旗の元へと二人は集う
何も思い通りにならないことが始まったから
踏み外してみようか、目隠し鬼の手の鳴る方へ
in your wonderland

あなたが迷う場所に
あかりを灯すために
花束一つ抱いて
りりしく笑いましょう

もう一人じゃないのよ、とても怖いね、幸せなんて
寂しさはひるがえり旗の元へと二人は集う
世界は君のものさ、手が届いてあなたがいて
踏み外してみようか、愛するひとが私を誘う
find me in the wonderland
in your wonderland

綺麗な吐息になって
あなたの歌をうたって
 
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Not really a fan of the way the live I beg you was mixed (or arranged/performed by the band - who knows). Not sure which live day it is. (I got limited A so only one performance without encores.) It feels really soft and that piano is like in that piano-only live from Fate event, and I didn't like it there for I beg you.

PVs have lossless 48kHz/24bit audio but at first look the compression on them seems identical to CD.
 
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Not retracting my previous statement because i do feel that aimer sounds even more annoying than usual in wonderland. I managed to listen through hana no uta, was okay with i beg you and haru wa yuku but i cant even get through the first chorus of wonderland. I dont particularly like the song enough to push myself through it but that's me. You all who liked the song, good for you.
 
Didn't know which thread to bump but went with Aimer.

I was lamenting the fact I couldn't make a good sounding Haru wa yuku 5.1 channel version from spring song's blu-ray since it starts during the movie (and has a lot of dumb ambiance, effects and dialogue that I couldn't remove in a satisfactory manner) but, as I like to dabble and waste time...

... I did a "thing".

Is anyone interested in Aimer's Heaven's Feel songs in an alternative form with less dynamic range compression?
Visual comparison below for album version vs bluray version (post-replaygain).

haruwayuku_albumver.jpg haruwayuku_bluray_stereo_edit.jpg

Mind you, these are a bit of a cheat.

First of all, they are based on the STEREO mixes from Heaven's Feel blu-rays which AFAICT are not mixed the same way as their album versions.

Secondly, the music in 2nd and 3rd movies' stereo tracks is almost definitely DOWNMIXED from the 5.1 mix rather than being stereo mixes done from scratch. (It wasn't that difficult to figure out the channel balance on those two. I couldn't figure it out on the 1st movie though so maybe that one is a proper stereo mix. Who knows.)

Thirdly, while I beg you and Hana no uta movie ver. were extracted as is, Haru wa yuku started during the movie and the intro was noGud like I said at the start. I resorted to using its PV audio to patch the intro. (The 96kHz hirez seemed to have the same compression so I stuck to PV audio that already was 48kHz like the movie.) Similarly, I also re-constructed the full album version of Hana no uta (except I went with resampled hi-rez opening this time since PV audio was ever so slightly more compressed than the hirez and CD version).

I'm gonna sleep on those two edits and see if I'm still okay with how they sound tomorrow. Hopefully nobody finds the transitions annoying.
 
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The rest of the album is now available on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

Aimer also had an interview with RollingStone about the album. She briefly talked about Wonderland in it. Here’s it translated by Google Translate, edited a little by me because of strange translation nonsense. (e.g. ‘Ms. Kajiura’, Google Translate, not ‘Mr. Kajiura’.)

Aimer: “Ms. Kajiura has a unique style that any musician would find interesting. In this work, I was allowed to combine two songs, "Haru wa Yuku" and "wonderland", but in a sense, if you leave it to Kajiura-san to make it, it happens to resonate with the world view of this work. Did you say that? In the first place, the festival called Walpurgis originated in ancient Celts, so it was interesting to accidentally link to such a place. That's why I think that even if I put in sounds that remind me of Scotland in other songs, the balance improved when I went through the whole album. In that sense, I am grateful to Ms. Kajiura.”
 
^Yeah, I love it when they say Mr. Keiko too and refer to her as his. lol I see it on facebook a lot. But that's cool about the interview!
 
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