Never before has a song sounded so much like its title. Well maybe it has but anyway… This is 'Slow Snow' by mus.hiba and yes, it basically sounds like slow snow. It is a delicate and gentle song, artfully spanning the four minutes of its existence with a snowscape of sound, a soundscape of snow; it falls from the evening sky in slo-mo spirals, highlighted in streetlights that grace the already fallen layer of snow on the ground – no one is around in the frozen streets. It sure does paint a picture.
The track is all set to a slow and carefully considered beat that summons the laid-back style of southern hip hop and trap, giving substance to the hugely expansive synths that satisfyingly dip in volume with each heartbeat kick. Dancing with these synth chords are piano melodies and clusters of gravity-defying glockenspiel, chiming evermore towards the end of the track.
On vocals it features not an actual person but one of the voices or even personalities taken from voicebank freeware UTAU, called Yufu Sekka, the gentle sounds of whom whisper like breezes in the synthetic snow-swirls of mus.hiba's production. Using this hyperreal technique, mus.hiba has created an entire album of music centred around themes of snow and winter, "to express the fragility of a two-dimensional character singing." I very much like this idea. Top marks.
- The album is called White Girl, it is scheduled for release 10th December (suitably wintry) on the Japanese Noble Label and it will be very, very beautiful if 'Slow Snow' is anything to go by. Go buy it here.
- Also check out the fragmented prettiness and gradual intensity of the other song released from the album so far, 'Moonlight' ♥
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Fun fact: Yufu Sekka = Yufu, ユフ, inverse of fuyu (winter); Sekka, 雪歌 ("Snow Song") – so there you go.
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