Kazumi's Music

[Soshi Kazumi]

Bayushi Akasuki

Sensei Shosuro Eiko

MUS_THRY 1213: Introduction to Music Theory

12 Boar 3123

The Phoenix of Oborozuki: The Life and Music of Moonshade

Soshi Kazumi, also known by their pseudonym Moonshade, has been a cornerstone of the underground electronic music scene in Oborozuki for

the better part of a decade. The young Scorpion started putting out music under the username Moonshade around ten years ago. These songs were

heavy bass with dark feelings and an almost brutal beat to them. Shinobi is a great example of this era of their music, the song comes in with an

already strong bass that they use to lay the foundation for the song slowly building, creating a tension until it peaks and the bass drops powerfully

giving the song an energy that it rides until dropping out and leaving the listener stranded in quiet for a moment before soft sounds start the play of

tension again slowly building up to another peak where they bring back the heavy bass as the sort of climax to the song. Many of Moonshade’s early

tracks share this similar feel of heavy dark sounds and strong bass beats besides Shinobi, Oni, and Kraken are good examples of this sound.


After a few years Moonshade began dabbling in other electronic styles as well, making music with lighter beats and adding other sampled

sounds like simple words and instruments. Disclosure shows off a lot these changes in the style of the elusive artist, the song starting off with

highly modulated string notes and quickly follows with female vocals using very simplistic vocals again and again with different levels of electronic

alteration. While the song is using entirely different feel and tone the cycle of musical builds and “drops” is still present tying it into Moonshade’s

earlier works. The song also makes use of dissonant sound periodically that jars the listener but many talk about getting chills hearing it. For the

next several years Moonshade continued to experiment with different sounds from more ethereal tracks like Precious and Rise to remixes of popular

songs like Habits and even a few tracks that heavily featured traditional instruments like the Koto, such as the song Shape. During this time Moonshade’s

popularity began to swell and eventually they began DJing and clubs and raves in the province.


This transition into live music is when we start to really learn anything about Moonshade’s real self. The artist became a fixture in at least one

rave every weekend in the province and eventually nearly every night. There are many reports that Kazumi was a prolific party animal and on more

than one occasion took things too far. They spent more than one night in magisterial holding. Though it seemed to never deter them for long as

Kazumi was never gone from the scene for more than a few days at a time. Their career continued like this for the next several years, playing

shows, releasing new music and growing a following.


This ended rather suddenly as one day people noticed Moonshade had no shows booked and hadn’t done any pop up shows for several days. No

one close to the artist was talking about it and as far as anyone could tell Moonshade had simply dropped off the map. Rumors sprang up as

everything from murder, to drugs, actual jail time, and the death of a loved one but nothing was ever confirmed. Fans rejoiced a few months later

when the old Moonshade account released a new track and continued to do so every few weeks for the next year. These tracks were wildly varied

with some going back to their dark pulse pounding beats to others that were depressingly beautiful and slow and towards the end of that year a

couple of tracks popped up that had what appeared to be original singing and lyrics as the voice couldn’t be attributed to any other performer at the

time the songs lightswitch and Middle of The Night both of which made heavy use of electronic music and other samples also contained what many

fans believed to be Kazumi’s voice though it has never been confirmed.

[The paper continues to expand on the musical style and characteristics of Kazumi but with a level of detail and filler that suggests the paper had a larger minimum page count then the author had thought of material for]
[The full Playlist can be found here