BLU-SWING – クラゲ

Title: クラゲ / Jellyfish
Artist: BLU-SWING
Album: クラゲ (2021 Single)

Translated on a whim mostly :p
I’ve been a huge fan of BLU-SWING’s works for a while, though it’s a bit of a pain being able to listen to their whole discography in one place;; this song is a single they released a few years ago. I haven’t found any English TL for the lyrics so I’d like to provide my interpretation :]

I really like the jellyfish being used as a metaphor for love–its beauty from a distance, its pain up close, the often short-lived and fleeting nature of it.

piana – Something is Lost

Title: なくしたもの / Something is Lost
Artist: piana
Album: ephemeral (2005)

I’ve heard this song sampled a bunch on certain breakcore / dnb tracks I’ve been listening to lately, so this is a self-indulgent translation of the original song!

stargaze shelter – エミュレーション

Title: エミュレーション (emulation)
Artist: stargaze shelter
Arrangement: gaze // he’s me
Vocal: 星宮とと (hoshimiya toto) / totonee
Album: emulation e.p. (2020)

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A beautiful song I happened to find on Spotify.
When you emulate something (like a game) you’re recreating something. Getting something back from the past and bringing it to the here and now. And so… the narrator of the song wishes to a certain time, and a certain someone…

There’s no concrete story here. Just a general feeling of wanting to see someone again, but only being able to in dreams.

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ichika – I

Title: I
Arrange: ichika
Album: I (2019)
Vocal, Lyric: 川谷絵音 (Enon Kawatani)

[Listen]

I, a song about 愛. Might come back to fix the translation at another time >.<
Very vague-but-beautiful song. The lyrics have this sense that they are describing a sort of transient, but deeply felt emotion, and perhaps it’s about something beyond my understanding… but I guess being in love is kind of confusing too, yeah?

Syrufit / Poplica* – Forget me not.

Title: Forget me not.
Circle: Syrufit / Poplica*
Album: Love Buzz!
Arrange: hiro.na (Syrufit) / TAK-sk (Poplica*)
Lyric + Vocal: 綾倉盟 (Mei Ayakura)

Once more, with feeling.

@x0o0x_ – 「 」

Title:「　」
Artist: @x0o0x_
Vocal: Vflower, 初音ミク (Hatsune Miku)
illust: 游@afternooners
[Alternate vocals]

There is a secret kind of (vocaloid) music on Youtube with null artists, and null titles. No comment about that. The lyrics of this kind of evoke a story of an incident where the person died, ended up somewhere mysterious, etc… alternatively it might?? be about a person who doesn’t want to be seen by people and struggles with it.

Regardless, invisibility is an important theme here, so much that the title is literally a blank space.

lyrics + notes etc. below.

Wind Ark / やなぎなぎ – 懐中道標

Title: 懐中道標 (The Guidepost in My Pocket)
Album: だれもしらない
Circle: Wind Ark
Vocal: やなぎなぎ (Yanagi Nagi)

This song is a little mysterious. I wrote the subject as first person to keep the meaning of the song consistent and readable, but the narrator themself is more ambiguous. The lyrics read like little snapshots of time, different colors; and so I think this is one of those songs meant to just inspire a feeling or a personal meaning unique to the listener.

Meine Meinung – ララルトゥタ

 

Title: ララルトゥタ / LalarUtutA
Circle: Meine Meinung / sweez
Album: 2012 / 2018

Meine Meinung (moonbowmusicmovie) is a group of music-lovers from Japan that creates original music and game covers, among other things. Originally a collab track in 2012 with sweez, ララルトゥタ (LalarUtutA) is a catchy jazz/samba house song with wonderfully sweet lyrics to match.

Lyrics below!

toya – 眠れる森

I don’t have any album art for this, so I’ll link a listen instead. Decided to redo a translation from quite a few years ago. Surprise! It’s an original song featuring Vocaloid vocals!

Title: 眠れる森 (The Forest That May Sleep)

Producer: toya

Voice: 鏡音リン・レン // Kagamine Rin / Len

中山うり – ホタル

[Youtube Music Video here]

Artist: 中山うり / Uri Nakayama
Song Title: ホタル (Fireflies)
Album: ホロホロ

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I came across a song called Lullaby by Shogonodo today on Spotify, and I found that it sampled this song. It’s very sweet-sounding and pleasant… but somewhat wistful? Went a bit loose with speaker/tense here in order to make the English lyrics a bit more consistent, and to keep the somewhat dreamy tone of the song.