HARDCORE TANO*C is an independent Japanese music label that is known for releasing music compilations and albums focused on various forms of hardcore techno such as UK hardcore, happy hardcore, and gabber. The label was founded in 2003 by Yoshikazu Nagai (who at the time used the Akai Hito alias), originally under the name of Hardcore Tanoshii, but changed to its current name of HARDCORE TANO*C in 2007 after the release of the album HARDCORE SYNDROME. The label features a store which sells the most notable doujin (同人)music releases, and is well known for their frequent live events that are regularly organized throughout the years, including the annual TANO*C TOUR series of events and the S2TBTANO*C events done in collaboration with kors k’s S2TB Recording label.

From 2011 to 2018, HARDCORE TANO*C were very closely linked with BEMANI, most notably in beat mania IIDX and SOUND VOLTEX. Many of HARDCORE TANO*C’s members were frequent contributors to BEMANI,and KONAMI even collaborated with the label for a few of their own album releases. Their presence also expanded to various other music game titles.

Many guest artists have appeared in HARDCORE TANO*C compilations, including Ryu☆, kors k, DJ Shimamura, m1dy, M-Project, JAKAZiD (as Joshka), Hommarju, Camellia, lapix, C-Show, Maozon, Nhato, Dustvoxx, and Akira Complex.

By the end of 2017, HARDCORE TANO*C has started to produce major artist album releases, containing licensed works done for music games by the circle’s artists. From September 2018, a sub-label directed by DJ Myosuke named HARDCORE TANO*C HARD has been established, which focuses on harsher music. HARDCORE TANO*C is also heavily involved in the 2019 rhythm game WACCA, which is published by MARVELOUS!, with nearly its entire staff contributing to the game.

A song composed by various members of HARDCORE TANO*C, BATTLE NO.1, was planned to be in SOUND VOLTEX IV HEAVENLY HAVEN for the The 8th KONAMI Arcade Championship, under the artist name of TANO*C SOUND TEAM. KONAMI rejected the song (likely due to their poking fun (打趣) of the BEMANI Sound Team moniker, which was at its most extreme in the time of that event), and it later appeared instead in the HARDCORE TANO*C-produced game WACCA on August 1st, 2019. It also appeared in lowiro’s Arcaea as part of the Arcaea× HARDCORE TANO*C Collaboration (联动) and SEGA’s maimai でらっくす Splash. It was added to Muse Dash on February 5, 2021.

High school was a hard time for me, as it is for many kids. Recently I was reminded (使想起) of a huge reason why I made it through that time of my life. The reason was music.

I was reminded of this because my old high school is about to be pulled down over the Christmas break and the kids will be moving into a bigger newly built school in January. The high school band and chorus(合唱队) recently gave a concert on the 80-year-old stage, and all chorus alumni (校友) were invited to take part in this event. The alumni have been invited back to sing with the chorus in other concerts before, but this one was special. This was our last chance to sing on this stage.

We all arrived early for rehearsal (排练). Many of us did not even need music during rehearsal because we remembered the song so well. It became a tradition to invite alumni back on stage and sing “Honor and Glory” every year. After one rehearsal of it, it was like we never left.

As we waited for the beginning of the concert, we began taking ourselves on one last tour of the high school. We looked at the same artwork that has been on the same walls for years, but the only good memories (记忆) I actually remembered were the time I spent singing in the chorus. When nothing else felt like it was going right, music was there. Music has helped me and saved me.

Soon, everyone will get to experience a much bigger school with a much bigger stage for more amazing concerts, but I will always remember that stage that I sang on with my former classmates. I remember the songs that we sang together, countless memories, and just how thankful I am for my amazing music teachers who helped make music have such a strong influence on my life.

Recently, Google researchers published a paper describing results from an artificial intelligence(AI) tool, called MusicLM, built to create music. It is not the first AI music tool to launch. But the examples Google provides demonstrate musical creative ability based on a limited set of descriptive words. AI shows how complex computer systems have been trained to behave in human-like ways. Google engineers explain the MusicLM system this way.

First, a user comes up with a word or words that describe the kind of music they want the tool to create. For example, a user could enter this short phrase into the system: “a continuous calming violin backed by a soft guitar sound.”The descriptions entered can include different music styles, instruments or other existing sounds. Several different music examples produced by MusicLM were published online. Some of the generated music came from just one-or-two-word descriptions,such as “jazz”, or “techno”. The system created other examples from more detailed descriptions containing whole sentences. In the resulting recording, the music seems to keep very close to the description. The team said that the more detailed the description is, the better the system can attempt to produce it.

In addition to generating new music from written descriptions, the team said the system can also create examples based on a person’s own singing, whistling or playing an instrument. The researchers said the tool “produces high-quality music...over several minutes, while being faithful to the text conditioning signal”.

Although MusicLM hasn’t been released for public use, Google announced it was releasing a “high-quality dataset” of more than 5,500 music-writing pairs prepared by professional musicians called MusicCaps. The researchers took that step to assist in the development of other AI music generators.

The MusicLM researchers said they believe they have designed a new tool to help anyone quickly and easily create high-quality music selections. However, the team said it also recognizes some risks linked to the machine learning process.