Manmachine plays Jazz ~MIO2~

Manmachine plays Jazz ～MIO2～

Song Information

Artist: Mikio Endo
Composition/Arrangement: Mikio Endo
BPM: 114
Length: 1:48 (beatmania GOTTAMIX), 1:17 (arcade beatmania)
Genre: JAZZ ELECTRO
VJ: KAERU (arcade beatmania), ? (beatmania (2006))
First Music Game Appearance: beatmania APPEND GOTTAMIX
Other Music Game Appearances:

• beatmania (2006)
• beatmania 5thMIX -Time to get down-
• beatmania III

Lyrics

None.

Song Connections / Remixes

• The arcade releases of beatmania (and beatmania III as well) use a shorter version of Manmachine plays Jazz ～MIO2～, simply titled MANMACHINE PLAYS JAZZ and credited to MIKIO ENDO.

Trivia

• Manmachine plays Jazz ～MIO2～ is known for its bad timing windows.
• In beatmania European Edit, Manmachine plays Jazz ～MIO2～'s genre was JAZZ.
• MANMACHINE PLAYS JAZZ's title is capitalized as Manmachine plays jazz in beatmania THE FINAL.
  • Also, Manmachine plays jazz received brand-new NORMAL charts in beatmania THE FINAL.
• MANMACHINE PLAYS JAZZ was in consideration by Ryu☆ to be added to REFLEC BEAT groovin'!! Upper's BEMANI MUSIC FOCUS event as part of his set [1].

Song Production Information

Toshiyuki Kakuta aka L.E.D. Light

Hello to all of you visiting the KCEJ homepage.
Are you enjoying GOTTAMIX?

Recorded for GOTTAMIX, the song 'Manmachine plays Jazz ~MIO2~' was made by Mikio Endo, a member of the world-renowned DJ creator group U.F.O (United Future Organization). I would like to provide a commentary this time, from my own perspective, on 'JAZZ ELECTRO', or 'Manmachine plays Jazz ~MIO2~'.

In recent years, there's been a movement to actively incorporate jazz tastes into club music.
Such forms range from hip-hop artists sampling jazz songs in their own tracks, to DJs and mixers remixing past jazz music with their own interpretations, to drum'n bass musicians incorporating lots of jazz tastes to create "future jazz," among many, many other examples.
But to me (and this is just my own opinion), this song feels like it was composed with an approach from the opposite vector, i.e. fusing jazz with techno.
I can't say for certain whether this was Mikio Endo's intention, as I didn't ask the creator himself about it.
It's merely my own personal impression.

The vocoder voice in the song's background is set to a "robotic song" mode, which is very retrofuturistic and brings tears to my eyes. While the sound quality is definitely that of a synthesizer, am I the only one who feels some kind of warm, fuzzy attachment?
From a sound hardware perspective, vocoders themselves are now in the realm of "vintage" technology, but as of late, there are more artists starting to reuse its peculiar sound qualities.

Speaking of vocoders, I learned the following from reading a book that came out recently. It says that the vocoder was originally developed as a "voiceband compression transmission device" for encoding military secrets when sending them. The sender would use the vocoder to encode (cipher) the messages they wanted to relay, and the receiver would decode (decipher) the encoded messages... And so, entering into the 1970s, people started to use them as musical instruments (effectors?). Apparently, there are many other examples of electrical audio equipment that was originally developed for military use. For those of you whose interest is piqued, there's a book out called 'Electronic Music in Japan'. In that book are detailed explanations of the backgrounds behind musical instruments, among other things. For your reference.

Until next time, have a happy "BEAT PLAY LIFE"!

Video Production Information

Untranslated.

Difficulty & Notecounts

beatmania difficulty rated from 1 to 9.
beatmania (2006) difficulty rated from 1 to 10. (Ratings and notecounts obtained from KANI KANI CRAB.)

GOTTAMIX Charts

Game	SP Difficulty			DP Difficulty
	Normal	Hard	Another	Normal	Hard	Another
Notecounts	377	-	-	492	-	-
beatmania APPEND GOTTAMIX	5	-	-	5	-	-
beatmania BEST HITS	5	-	-	5	-	-
beatmania European Edit (prototype)	7	-	-	7	-	-
beatmania European Edit	6	-	-	6	-	-
beatmania (2006)	6	-	-	6	-	-

5thMIX Charts

Game	SP Difficulty			DP Difficulty
	Normal	Hard	Another	Normal	Hard	Another
Notecounts	309	309	-	424	424	-
beatmania 5thMIX	6	6	-	6	6	-
beatmania completeMIX 2	↓4	6	-	↓4	6	-
beatmania III	5	5	-	5	5	-
beatmania III APPEND CORE REMIX→III THE FINAL	↑6	↑6	-	↑6	↑6	-
beatmania APPEND 5thMIX	6	6	-	6	6	-

THE FINAL Charts

Game	SP Difficulty			DP Difficulty
	Normal	Hard	Another	Normal	Hard	Another
Notecounts	227	309	-	309	424	-
beatmania THE FINAL	5	6	-	6	↑8	-