Music CD for Comiket 90: 「旧約酒場 ～ Dateless Bar "Old Adam".」

[N-Forza]

In an interesting move, ZUN is releasing what he calls the "flip side" of Dr. Latency's Freak Report: Dateless Bar "Old Adam". http://kourindou.exblog.jp/24544858/

Main title: 旧約酒場 kyūyaku Sakaba
Meaning: Old Testament Tavern
Subtitle: Dateless Bar "Old Adam".

Tracklist:
1. Old Adam Bar
2. The Darkness Brought by the Naturalis Historia of Swallowstone
3. Reverse Ideology
4. Outsider Cocktail
5. Omiwa Legend
6. Pandemonic Planet
7. Adventurer's Tavern of the Old World
8. Provincial Makai City Esoteria
9. Lost Emotion
10. Hangover of Strange Bedfellows

Releases on August 13th for 500 yen at the event.

EDIT by cuc: slight changes.
EDIT by N-Forza: more slight changes.

Translation of blog post here.

[Quwanti]

Quite a surprise waking up with this news. The English subtitle is a bit strange.

[Plubio]

I'm looking forward this.

[_dk]

Pretty funny that he talked only about Pokemon Go when he's not talking about the release.

"I can now travel around and catch Pokemon! I was quite into Ingress so this is going to be easy...I actually have never played Pokemon before."

[Spotty Len]

Interesting. I look forward to hear it, as always.

[cuc]

Translation:

Information on New Album for Summer Comiket

Wow, it's finally coming out. I mean Pok?mon GO.
At last we can begin our journey to collect our favorite Pok?mons.
Luckily I have direct access to a Pok?Stop from my workshop, which is extremely helpful for my job!

While we are at this moment when Pok?mon GO has taken over all discussion, it is also time for me to deliver work to printers of my CD jacket. Here is information on the new Summer Comiket album of Shanghai Alice Fantasy Ensemble.

Shanghai Alice Fantasy Ensemble presents: the ninth music CD album.
Titled:
「Old Testament Tavern　～ Dateless Bar "Old Adam".」

The tracklist:
1. Old Adam Bar
2. The Darkness Brought by Swallowstone Natural History
3. Reverse Ideology
4. Outsider Cocktail
5. Omiwa Legend
6. Pandemonic Planet
7. Adventurers' Tavern of the Old World
8. Provincial Makai City Esoteria
9. Lost Emotion
10. Strange Bedfellows' Hangover

The price will be 500 yen at the event.

This is a continuation of the previous album "Natural History of Swallow Stone", but it will be the back side to the latter's front side.
It is a collection of songs with different articulations from the previous one, and in overall has a higher difficulty level by comparison.
It is deeply idiosyncratic, and should be appreciated together with the previous album.

This year's Summer Comiket will be held in the West 3 and 4 halls, which had historically been used for corporate booths.
I'm quite excited for this new experience!

Now that I'm done with delivering the print stuff, I'm going to play some Pok?mon GO.
Um, let me see, since I've played Ingress, this game's systems are pretty easy to learn.
Quick, there is a Pok?mon?catch it!
Speaking of that, my favorite Pok?mon... Was it Zubat? Rattata? ...Who was that?

Ahh, I forgot to tell you. I have actually never, ever played Pok?mon until now. (The End)

[cuc]

The new heavyweight Chinese idiom in this tracklist is 同床異夢 dōshō-imu "sleeping in the same bed, yet dreaming different dreams," i.e. parties in an alliance of convenience have different goals, with the implication they will ultimately turn on each other.

In today's usage, it is often used more literally, to describe the estrangement between married couples or lovers.

"Strange bedfellows" is the closest English idiom in form, but obviously emphasizes the opposite: that circumstances have brought very different parties into alliance.

Again, we'll see what this is all about when Summer Comiket comes.

Also, the use of "Old Testament" in the title is reminiscent of Shin Megami Tensei game titles. More specifically, Atlus's remake of the original two Megami Tensei games on Famicom is called 旧約・女神転生 Kyūyaku Megami Tensei.

[cuc]

2. The Darkness Brought by the Naturalis Historia of Swallowstone

Indeed, Renko and Merry's "Swallowstone" was a mock academic journal, and one of the styles their titles can use is latin. For Western readers, using latin would also have the benefit of mirroring the use of Chinese as a language of the educated class in old Japan. Although that could be in full latin, e.g. Naturalis Historia Lapis Apus (NOTE: may not be grammatically correct.)

[N-Forza]

I used the Latin title to emphasize the reference to a book that gets lost when rendered as just generic "Natural History" which can also refer to the subject itself (Museum of Natural History, etc.). I know that italicizing can fix this, but you can't italicize everywhere. That is a good idea to have the full title in Latin though. If I have time, I'll try to do some research and produce something half-way legitimate, although going from Chinese to Latin is a tall order...

[Helepolis]

ZUN addicted to Pokemon GO as well like any other human being. Awesome.

[ZM]

>Provincial/Rural Makai City Esoteria
>Pandemonic Planet

I'm set.

[Kilgamayan]

8. Provincial Makai City Esoteria

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Maple]

Maribel's artwork reminds me of LoLK Marisa. Marisa (both in ZUNart and dialogue) was in a constant state of "okay, wth is going on?". Merry could be feeling in the same way.

[Suspicious person]

New Hifuu material is always cool with me.

Also, going with the "old testament", "old adam" and the apples (these red dots are apples, right ?) in the picture, looks like there's a pretty interesting thematic this thime around.  I wonder if these choices are of some relevance ? As always, looking forward for this  :3

[Howard Akeley]

10. Strange Bedfellows' Hangover

Haha ! Curious to ear this one.

[Prime32]

Indeed, Renko and Merry's "Swallowstone" was a mock academic journal, and one of the styles their titles can use is latin. For Western readers, using latin would also have the benefit of mirroring the use of Chinese as a language of the educated class in old Japan. Although that could be in full latin, e.g. Naturalis Historia Lapis Apus (NOTE: may not be grammatically correct.)

In that case wouldn't it make more sense to use the Latin for "Fool's Gold" rather than "Swallowstone"? (Aurum Stultum? Pyriten?)

[cuc]

In that case wouldn't it make more sense to use the Latin for "Fool's Gold" rather than "Swallowstone"? (Aurum Stultum? Pyriten?)

Glad you still remember that discussion!

First, the reference to the treatise "The Origin of the Swallow-Stone Myth" still stands, even if it's a superficial one that doesn't have much to do with the story.

Second, while the "stone from Swallow Mountain" story is similar to "fool's good", it is used in the title to mean "trivial things of no importance", which is a meaning "fool's gold" does not have, so changing the translation to "fool's gold" will not substantially help convey the title's meaning to the reader.

[Prime32]

Heh. I tried looking around for another idiom that would work, and I came across "chasing rabbits". :3

In both the East and the West it's a literary reference meaning "wasting your time on something pointless or tangential". In the East it's derived from the Confucian saying "He who chases two rabbits catches neither". In the West it's derived from

Spoiler:

Alice in Wonderland, as in "looking for holes that lead to another world filled with magical creatures"

.
Dunno if that would quite work here, but it seems amusingly fitting.

[shockdude]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!! indeed. Provincial Makai City Esoteria is already excellent, and I'm definitely curious to hear what ZUN did with it for the CD.

[DeityDiz93]

I do quite like the looks of this: six original tracks with four known track arranges of enjoyable songs. I have heard what Dr. Latency's Freak Report was like, and the whole album I felt was excellently composed so my hopes are really high as are my expectations.

I'm especially happy ZUN is making music CDs again because heavens knows the gap between Neo-traditionalism of Japan and the latest music collection volume was extremely lengthy. I longed for another CD in that time, so you can imagine hearing that we are getting another continuation of the last album had me rather excited.

Thank you folks here for translating, and like all of you here, I'm eager to listen to this album! ZUN's musical marvels are always great listens!

[PapilLionesskort]

I hope this album will help boost arranges and remixes for these tracks. Pandemonic Planet is rather under-appreciated yet.  :ohdear:

[Lightmaster]

I do quite like the looks of this: six original tracks with four known track arranges of enjoyable songs.

Just to clarify, but the new music collection has five original tracks. The arranged tracks are:

- Reverse Ideology (Seija's theme)
- Omiwa Legend (Futo's theme)
- Pandemonic Planet (Hecatia's theme)
- Provincial Makai City Esoteria (UFO Stage 5 theme)
- Lost Emotion (Kokoro's theme)

Again, just to clarify, BTW.

[Kafuu]

幻視する者達が集う場所があるという。 そこは、？？？ 特有の眠くなるような甘い匂いのする酒場だった。
上海アリス幻樂団が奏でる、奇妙で癖の強い音楽集第九弾

[Tiamat]

Wonder if there's any chance it'd be the Twilight Bar Room

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Uwabami_Breakers

[DX5536]

After reading the translation on wiki: So apparently Maribel, Sumireko and Sanae ,who are from the Outside World, isn't the only one with that a "superhuman" ability. Kinda make sense imo.

But please help me with this: from what i can understand "Dr. Latency" is Merry's pen name. But at the beginning the bartender greet a man with the name "Dr. Latency" as well?

Also: which (original and/ or non-original) tracks are your favourite? Mine are Hangover of Bedfellows Dreaming Differently and Omiwa Legend. Omiwa Legend suddenly sounds so majestic.

[TresserT]

I think the implication was that the old man was just a phony. Someone pretending to be Dr. Latency. Part of the thing was that half the stories were fake, and that guy was just another faker. Probably.

My favorite original and arranged songs Outsider Cocktail and Reverse Ideology. Lost Emotion is still my favorite song in general, but I feel this arrange didn't add anything to it.

[not ZUNs wife]

Very nice to see a part 2 to Dr. Latency. I think the theme for this double album is something like "science vs. mysticism", where CD 1 was more science and CD 2 more mysticism.

Edit: having read the story translation and its afterword specifically, perhaps "rationalism vs. imagination" is better nuanced. It speaks to me because I'm a somewhat playful person working in research, and this divide is very relevant to me at this point in life. I think these two are the most useful when they balance each other out, so even if rationalism is the dominating philosophy in the world right now, sometimes you've just got to enjoy a good story. Hopefully I can eventually thank ZUN somehow for reminding me of this.

I can see why the story takes place in a bar, this is definitely the more "drunk"-sounding CD of the two. Sharp articulations and strange modulations.

Favorite new track on the first listen would probably be Adventurer's Tavern of the Old World. I still don't like Pandemonic Planet at all even with this arrange... but I'm happy to see Reverse Ideology and Rural Makai City Esoteria got the love they deserve!

PS: I greatly enjoy the meta aspect of the story - Maribel telling about the stories on the previous CDs with this Dr. Latency character questioning them. It feels like the whole canon of the Sealing Club is heavily coming together. Much like what's been happening with the whole Touhou series lore since 14.5.

[Komeiji11]

Could someone help me understand what exactly Merry did with the mirror? I understand she showed them visions of the world she's seen, but then they mention something about taking the others' stories and making them their own. Does that mean that while they each looked in the mirror Merry "took" the other people's stories through something like mind reading to verify if they were true or not?

[DX5536]

From what I understood: Merry shows them her vision in the mirror. Her vision is written in the Swallowstone Naturalis Historia by herself (and maybe Renko too), Swallowstone Naturalis Historia is also a popular fanzine in that bar so many people read it. I guess that they didn't know that Maribel and Renko are the authors of this fanzine so they think Maribel copy the story from the fanzine.

Please correct me if i'm wrong.

[Sedrife]

Could someone help me understand what exactly Merry did with the mirror? I understand she showed them visions of the world she's seen, but then they mention something about taking the others' stories and making them their own. Does that mean that while they each looked in the mirror Merry "took" the other people's stories through something like mind reading to verify if they were true or not?

It seems that Merry's ability improved even more. 

As you said, by contacting other people, she can tell whether that person was telling the truth or making up the story as they go. As Merry showed them the mirror to each person, it is assumable that the people got closer to check the fantasy shown in the mirror and touched Merry in the process.

The mechanism of how Merry can distinguish the person is lying or not is not thoroughly explained, but Renko knew about it at this point, and used it to their advantage.

It is perhaps tied to "Merry said that she'd recently started to see multiple worlds at the same time. According to her, all people are seeing slightly different worlds." in the previous album, meaning that she can tell what the other people are seeing.  If the person did indeed see this bizarre world, she would be able to peek into their world and distinguish between "complete bullshit" and "actual fantasy".

...by the way, it was hilarious that someone was pretending to be Dr. Latency in this story.  It's like ZUN is almost making fun of the people who wanted to be like ZUN, dresses up like ZUN and respond when someone calls out ZUN in the public.  This guy is like Dr. Latency's Number One Idiot Fanboy.