Across Dimming Asterisms
Blue Desert Hotel
Portals
I'm a
huge
fan of desert themes of all kinds, so hearing one that plays it straight with the real-life Middle Eastern/Arabic style is so enthralling. Solid percussion, really nice woodwinds and oud - and it even chooses to combine the Chinese-style instrumentation of Genshin in the second half, and it works great! Easily a great recent find for my desert theme playlist.
Enclosure is a fun pick, with some nice Latin guitar and other chill instruments to fill in the mood. It can definitely afford to flesh itself out some more, but I appreciate the simple baseline it provides for the direction it's going for.
Blue Desert Hotel
never
fails to put me in a good mood; I love songs with strong happy/carefree, relaxing vibes like this, and this does REALLY well in helping me forget about my worries until I'm ready to face them again. The oboe here deserves all the spotlight it's getting with its incredibly playful performance, and the backing instruments excel in helping creating the peaceful, joy-filled atmosphere this song is after. Strong favor with this one, I'm really happy this was brought for this year's bracket!
I don't know a lot about Heaven Burns Red, but
man
, this has to be the best song that's been offered to me so far. I'm falling in love with the vocals in this one, especially during the verses where they come across as soft and airy and then lead into stronger energy during the chorus. Easily the best anime-esque VGM I've heard in quite some time.
Even more ambience! I quite enjoy how mysterious but
soothing
Portals is, this is probably the most "dream-like" piece we've had so far this contest. I do wish the volume wasn't as quiet, but that's a minor complaint for this cool piece.
Take's just silly in that Japanese hyper-moe sense, just like Bi. The breakbeat section around the end makes me laugh every time I hear it.