Hitori Song

[Kym Wash]

In this solo ballad based around a clear piano sound, a whole new side of Honoka appears that lets us see her vulnerability. Almost shockingly (?) calm, every moment of this song displays Honoka's affirming kindness, like a warm hug to those in trouble.

Please, don't anymore...
Shutting yourself away all alone
Will just make you sad, won't it?
I want you to call out to me

Please, don't anymore, okay?
You pretend you want to be alone
Because you don't want to be hurt, isn't that right?

"Please remember me," I murmured
As the stars shined brightly through the night

There'll be times you want to cry; We can be together then
You may not be able to find any words, but as long as we're together, isn't that fine?

Yes, I know what you mean...
Whenever you bottle up your feelings,
You end up torn up on the inside, don't you?
Why not try talking about how you feel?

Yes, you understand, don't you?
If my heart had wings,
I'd want to send to you an "I love you"

So remember me, okay?
With a sigh, the stars fell throughout the night

There'll be times you want to cry; We can be together then
You may not be able to find any words, but as long as we're together, isn't that fine?
Whenever you want to see me, we can be together
You may not be able to find the right words, but as long as we're together, isn't that fine?

You don't have to be alone anymore

The song was released as a commemoration for the High School Part-timers Band (one of the bands created during the band shuffle) winning the 2nd Girls Band Election. It was released digitally on September 24, 2018.

Understand that Spotify may require users to sign in to hear whole tracks and that the service itself is not available in all countries. You can see which countries Spotify supports on Wikipedia.

In the corner of the cold room, if the sunset came shining in
Even if I got close to it, I feel no emotions, and there is no betrayal.

Today and tomorrow as well, I am alone. I am sure that is normal
As we end the day without exchanging a single word.

No matter how much kindness I receive,
If I don't know warmth,
It's not, it's not that simple to feel.
It's the distance of our hearts.

I am balled up small in the corner of the cold room.

I fear things that will change, and I resign to things that won't.
If I pretend to go with the flow, am I just making a decision?
Is that it?

I can see the bright world,
Spreading outside the window.
With this hand, with this hand, am I able to touch you?
It's the distance of reality.

Kindness
Even warmth
Can I see them
On the other side?

In the corner of the cold room, I pretend not to see
The key to my heart that rolls over, even though it's been here forever.

Tsumetai heya no sumi ni sashikonde kita yūhidattara
Chikadzuite mite mo kanjō wa nakute uragiri mo nai

Kyōmoashitamo hitori de kitto sore ga futsū no koto de
Kawasu kotoba mo naku ichi nichi o oeru toki

Tatoeba yasashi-sa wa dorekurai no
Nukumori kamo shiranaide
Son'nani son'nani kantan janai
Kokoro no kyori

Tsumetai heya no sumi ni chīsaku natta mama

Kawaru koto osorete kawaranai koto akiramete
Nagasareteru furi shite watashi ga kime teru dake?
Sore dake?

Akarui sekai ga mado no mukō
Hirogatteru no mieru yo
Kono-te de kono-te de sawareru no ka na?
Genjitsu no kyori

Yasashi-sa
Nukumori sae mo
Mukō ni
Mie teru?

Tsumetai heya no sumi ni korogatteru kokoro no kagi o
Ima wa mada ne mite minai furi zutto arunoni ne

Thank you Xkan for putting up this translation that actually has the same meaning as the Japanese lyrics, unlike the awful english lyrics that should not even be called a translation because of how drastically different it is

In the white light, a hand reaches through
A double edged blade cuts your heart in two
Waking dreams fade away, embrace the brand new day
Sing with me a song, of birthrights and love
The light scatters to the sky above
Dawn breaks through the gloom, white as a bone,
Lost in thoughts, all alone

The path you walk on belongs to destiny, just let it flow
All of your joy and your pain will fall like the tide, let it flow
The world is not just filled with happiness, nor sorrow,
Even the thorn in your heart, in time it may become, a rose

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Hitori Tori, a.k.a. Canadian Renoise veteran Julian La Brooy has been kicking up a stir lately with his impressive videos of innovative Renoise jamming. See Hitori Tori - Renoise Techniques for some examples. We decided to get in touch for a little interview that should hopefully provide some more insight into his working process.

Well, it's a long story but I'll try and keep it brief. In the late 1990's my friend and I formed a tracker-based electronic band called finch. After producing numerous albums together, which we never released, we abandoned the project and I moved to Japan. I was producing a lot of music alone at the time and really needed an artist name for my solo stuff. Maybe something in Japanese? Maybe another bird reference? So, I chose hitori (which means alone) and tori (which means bird). Hitori Tori. This name just made sense to me at the time.

In my current set-up the grid buttons are assigned to do either of 2 things. 1) To select patterns in the Renoise song sequence (usually containing offset sample elements), or 2) to juggle short vocal samples in the background while Renoise is playing, using a Max MSP application called mlr. In the latter case I typically assign all the samples to the same group; allowing for more random style cut-ups.

Once assigned, the mappings stay locked to the songs. MIDI communicates with all Renoise instances simultaneously and there aren't any issues of conflict that I'm aware of. Incidentally yesterday I had seven instances of the Renoise application open at once and everything was just fine.

Once you've made a new track, how much preparation do you need to do before being able to perform a live set like the ones in your videos? In other words, how big is the step from finished Renoise track to live-performable Renoise track?

Actually, the funny thing is, it feels like less work is needed. I needn't even finish the songs before performing these live sets. I usually play unfinished songs and just blend them into each other. If you're like me, you've got hundreds of these 'almost complete' songs just sitting on your hard-drive that you don't know what the hell to do with. Well, why not mix them into other unfinished songs and give them a better life, you know - instead of just letting them gather dust. Most of the tracks in my videos are incomplete sketches of songs mixed together to make complete songs. I just spend about five minutes before hand mapping out some faders and effect parameters, hit record on a video camera and then try to do everything in one take.

Well, I do like to be quite close to the canvas when I'm working on a track. After I get a basic workflow going, I'll speed the song up drastically. It's sort of like increasing the resolution of the track so that you can fit lots of tight edits into your patterns.

I'm finding myself less and less conscious of the speed I'm working at these days, but one thing's for sure - my tracks keep getting faster. Speed! It's like some weird addiction spiraling out of control. Maybe seeing those little numbers traveling upwards on the screen at that speed stimulates a part of the brain associated with visual processing and pleasure? I don't know. Well, whatever the reason, the dizzying tempo helps me to stay on task and complete songs faster.

For quite a few years I was running a sound tracker called Player Pro 5.9 on my Mac. This tracker was good, but had very limited tech support and eventually died a horrible death in 2002. Then I remembered my friend Dac telling me about a fast tracker type clone that was under development. He said that it would soon to be ported to Mac. I kept my eyes on the Renoise website and when the first version became available I downloaded it. I've been using it ever since.

Using Renoise as a live tool is getting easier by the day. I use it to DJ my tracker files. I like being able to drop out the drums in one track and mix in the drums of another. It's certainly a step up from just mixing one stereo track into another one. Of course I'm personally waiting for the day that a proper XRNS file mixing app or console gets invented. I mean it's not exactly practical having 10 instances of Renoise open simultaneously for your live set, but it's definitely manageable.

While some creative thinking is involved, creative tweaking in Renoise is usually implemented pretty easily. The developers have made everything so intuitive and simple. I've never felt frustrated with mapping anything. I just push command 'm' and assign. By comparison, I was using the latest version of a popular DJ mixing program the other day and was totally put off by how outrageously annoying the MIDI configuration set-up screen was. I felt totally restricted. I couldn't even use some features of this DJ program because only 'sponsored' controllers were allowed to use those MIDI assignments. Sponsored controllers only?! Ha. Ridiculous. Makes me proud to support companies like Renoise that are not exclusive to particular brands.

The song is about a girl who tries to be brave (thus the title) by hiding her tears and being strong amidst the problems. As the song progresses, the girl is to travel along the way, enduring hardships and in the end, she finds her friends waiting for her. Ironically, as the song draws its end, she broods over the thoughts of pessimism, the possibility of losing her friends and returning to the lonely girl she's trying to keep herself from being.

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