Dancemania EX × Trance Paradise

Exit Trance presents Speed Anime Trance Best 21
Release Date: 4/2/14
Price: 1905 yen

Update (4/1/14): The album is up on iTunes Japan, and despite the fewer tracks it’s still 1800 yen. Also, the track lengths I posted previously were apparently for the iTunes release. The CD version is definitely a non-stop mix, as the edits are a bit shorter than the digital release.

The first SATB release of 2014 is out this week, and the announcement that it’ll only have 15 tracks is like an admission that the series is on its last legs. Cutting the number of tracks is a frequent cost-saving measure when sales slow down. Dancemania went from ~25 down to 18, Super Eurobeat went from 18 to 15, and even the original Exit Trance series went from 48 to 24 to 20 before they stopped completely.

MK gets the most tracks with 4, with Dizzi Mystica not far behind with 3. Icon, plazma, and Hommarju get 2 each, while the remaining tracks are split between Flash back dominant and kinoto. Acid=Stone Valley, who only made his return to the series a couple of albums ago, makes no appearance here. The Exit Tunes website is still advertising the CD as a non-stop mix, though the edits are quite long given the number of tracks.

Bonus items include a strap, bath poster, and postcard. They can’t even afford the clear files anymore ;_;

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Life Is Beautiful
Artist: Touyu
Release Date: 6/4/14
Price: 1852 yen

New album from male utaite, Touyu. Bonus items include a cell phone strap, poster, and clear file. Retailer-exclusive bonuses have yet to be revealed. The official website is up, but there’s not much there yet.

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Let’s Do It Now!!
Artist: kors k
Release Date: 6/4/14
Price: 1852 yen

Oh, this is quite a surprise. Kors k has appeared a couple of times on Exit Trance compilations in the past, but his last appearance was back in 2008. It’s just a little odd that Exit Tunes would give him his own album before someone like Starving Trancer or MK, but I guess the Bemani connection makes him more marketable. No track list yet, but 13 tracks are scheduled, and I’m sort of assuming at least some of them will be from IIDX. Bonus items include a cell phone strap, sticker, poster, and clear file. Retailer-exclusive bonuses have yet to be revealed. The official website has already launched, but is pretty sparse at the moment.

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recognize
Artist: recog
Release Date: 5/21/14
Price: 1852 yen

Second album from utaite, recog. Bonuses include a cell phone strap (1 of 5 designs), poster, and clear file. Retailer-exclusive bonuses have yet to be revealed. The official website has more info and samples.

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Speed Star
Release Date: 4/27/14
Price: 1500 yen

The winners of RTTF’s Speed Star contest have been announced. One of them is Argentina’s Francisco Gaitan, occasional Disko Warp collaborator and all-around Hyper Techno genius. He’s here under his MHX alias, and joins other winners XEN and FIG (apparently all winners were required to have 3-letter aliases). As a reminder, Speed Star is a 2-disc compilation featuring songs that are 170+ BPM. It should be a real treat for Dancemania Speed or Speed Anime Trance Best fans.

A good amount of the tracklist has been revealed, but 4 tracks from “foreign guest producers” are still under wraps. Assuming that the number of questions marks lines up with the actual artist names, one of the guest artists is most assuredly JAKAZiD, given that he’s collaborated with RTTF in the past. Track 1-2 could be “Chris Bucknall feat. ???????? ??? ? ????? ?”, but that’s just speculation/wishful thinking.

Also interesting is that the catalog number is RTTF-0010, meaning that DJ Hyuji intentionally skipped over RTTF-0009 for some reason. It actually annoys me when labels like Quake skip catalog numbers. It makes me dream of the possibilities of what could have been.

The CD will be available at the upcoming M3-2014 event in Japan, which is currently scheduled for April 27. Foreign buyers can buy it by contacting DJ Hyuji: http://rttf.eternalbreeze.net/contact.html. I previously speculated that the album would be made available digitally (and the contest page still mentions it), but I see no mention of that on the current page.

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Mafia’s Blood ~Shitsuji Salvatore no Kurooshiki Houshi~ Vol. 02
Artist: Ken Takeuchi
Release Date: 5/21/14
Price: 1852 yen

Second in a planned trilogy of “Mafia’s Blood” drama CDs. The featured voice actor on this volume will be Ken Takeuchi.

Pre-order at CDJapan.

House Nation Digital Best Gig
Release Date: 3/26/14
Price: 900 yen

The House Nation series lives on with this new digital compilation. Unlike most of Avex’s digital cash grabs, this is actually a pretty good deal. For 900 yen you not only get 21 full versions, but also a 90 minute non-stop mix. Victor Japan recently tried something similar with their Anime EDM release, so I hope this practice of full versions + non-stop mix becomes more common in the future.

Coincidentally, there have been a number of recent articles mentioning that the Japan music industry saw a steep decline in sales last year. Apparently people in Japan have finally stopped buying as many CDs as they used to, and Japanese labels are only now beginning to truly embrace the digital market. Yesterday I mentioned that FARM have slowed their physical output, and Avex have also been releasing just a fraction of the CDs that they used to release. I’m still wondering where Rave Mix 002 is.

Thanks to Arctic for the tip!

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Party Time presents Football Anthem -World Cup Mix- mixed by DJ Akeey
Release Date: 5/7/14
Price: 1800 yen

It’s been a fairly lean year for FARM Records here in 2014. By the end of May 2013 they had 10 CDs released, but this year it’s looking like they’ll only have 5 CDs out in the same time frame. I suppose their digital output has been ramped up lately, but I’m still somewhat concerned.

Anyway, this new release in the Party Time series will be celebrating the World Cup. Whether that means popular football anthems from over the years or just the same old repeats from the last year remains to be seen. Either way, I’m sure “Sambe de Janeiro” will end up on this.

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Vocarock collection Utatte Mita 2
Release Date: 4/16/14
Price: 1905 yen

New release in the Vocarock series, featuring utaite singing popular Vocaloid songs. No songs have been announced yet, but participating utaite include Nodoame, clear, Kogeinu, and kradness. Hmm, it looks like it’ll be all male utaite again.

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EDM Anthem III
Release Date: 3/26/14 ? 4/30/14
Price: 2190 yen

Bad news for EDM fans. It looks like this album has been delayed a month to April 30. Still no track list, either.

Pre-order at CDJapan.

Mafia’s Blood ~Koroshiya Nick no Amayaka na Goumon~ Vol. 01
Artist: Takashi Kondo
Release Date: 4/16/14
Price: 1852 yen

First of a planned trilogy of “Mafia’s Blood” drama CDs. Scheduled to include Takashi Kondo. I guess Exit Tunes is branching out to drama CDs now.

Pre-order at CDJapan.

Exit Tunes presents Ta -Sonna Fuinki de Utatte Mita-
Artist: Glutamine
Release Date: 3/19/14
Price: 1905 yen

Third album from Glutamine. Bonus items include a cell phone strap (1 of 9 designs), smartphone case (1 of 5 designs), poster, and clear file. Retailer-exclusive bonuses range from bromides to a bonus radio CD. Check out Glutamine’s official website for up-to-date news.

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Glutamine “Ta” 2014-3-19 Hatsubai Kinen Yoshuu Ban + Omake Tsuki
Artist: Glutamine
Release Date: 2/19/14
Price: 1905 yen

A special Tsutaya only rental CD released in advance of Glutamine’s 3d album.

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Exit Tunes presents Actors
Release Date: 3/19/14
Price: 1905 yen

An interesting new release from Exit Tunes that pairs popular anime voice actors with Vocaloid producers. Bonus items include a strap (1 of 8 designs), clear file, and poster. Animate has the best retailer-exclusive present, a bonus CD with comments from the cast. Visit the official website for samples and more info.

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Girls EDM ~Party Hits~ mixed DJ Kasumi
Release Date: 4/30/14
Price: 1800 yen

New dance compilation from PREGET Records, best known for their Anime Nitro series. Mixed by DJ Kasumi.

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