In our latest Ura Oni feature, meet one of the latest BNSI recrutees!
Agent Hustle & Dr. Hassle
Cory Tarrow (BNSI)
| Game | Genre |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AC Nijiiro (Y2) |
 |
★4 (142) |
★5 (229) |
★6 (371) |
★10 (693) |
★9 (518) |
240
???Quite the re-heartening trend from Bandai Namco Studios Inc.'s inhouse musician ensemble is the modern tendency to employ their 'new blood' of sorts into both newly-forged projects as well as long-running franchises. This was also the path walked by saxophonist Cory Tarrow, one talent with no social feeds presence (as of now) who moved his first steps into the company both as one of the composers for the platformer battle-royale title Survival QUIZ City and as a creator of Namco Original songs in Taiko no Tatsujin.
We've already met the man as the lone instrument player of the Donderful/Rhythm Festival theme song Mainichi ga Donderful (and, as pointed out in the game's credits, the game's menu BGM tracks maker, too!), but there are a couple more tracks of his to talk about, released immediately before and after the 2nd Nintendo Switch game's launch. The first of the two, much like UFO Swingin' from the last year, was introduced as a seasonal Rewards Shop unlockable. Despite bearing a full-English title, the Japanese allitteration wordplay is on point as usual for the numberplay-loving company, considering how the words 'hustle' and 'hassle' -despite bearing different meanings- have the exact same wording in the Katakana alphabet (ハッスル).
This tune from the 2nd Winter RS lineup for Nijiiro Version bears the distinctive trait of being the first current-gen song whose Oni notechart is actually rated higher than its Ura Oni "step-up" counterpart, with more notes on its overall tally as well! Courtesy of Yuji Masubuchi (増渕裕二), we've got another 'dual-concept' chart realization in the likes of Saturday Taiko Fever: the regular Oni to closely follow the Charting Notation (ia: following every single beat of the song with a Taiko drum hit) and the Ura Oni to adehere to Musical Notation instead, aka charting the musical lead of an instrument/vocals in particular (the song's percussions, in this case). The major differences from the branching charting approach in Agent Hustle & Dr.Hassle lie on the more-frantic regular Oni with its long note stream and the Ura Oni's heavier tendency on stanza repetitions, in tune with the song's persussion instrumental backing. Both charts, however, are played by halving down its BPM value with its scrolling speed, so that no visual trickery hijinks can ensue!
TAIKO-TONGUE-TWISTER
Cory Tarrow(BNSI) feat. M.Polak, Avigail D., L.Munoz and Bryan D.
| Game | Genre |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NS2 (MP) |
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★5 (189) |
★6 (360) |
★7 (536) |
★8 (765) |
- |
170 tontwi (TAIKO-TONGUE-TWISTER)"Lightning never strikes twice in the same place" is a motto foreign for many contributors in Taiko gaming near their drumming debut, which just so happens to be true to the same Cory Tarrow getting another song of his on the same Nintendo Switch game he got a huge role to play in, too!
As Taiko no Tatsujin has properly become a series for players all over the world in the past few years, some of its early song concepts have become something of an international affair with it, as the tongue-twister idea behind the early Namco Original Dodododo-Donderful! was picked back for a ten-hands tune that explores the world of quickly-spoken-without-messing-up sentences with three more languages. English, French and Spanish wordplay are now on the platter, each coming up with their own 'signature music genre' with a few samples and nods to pre-existing musical bits (of particular note are the nods to Erik Satie's Gymnopédies No.1 during the French-attuned portion, considering the historical Taiko arranges of yore!). This Music Pass-debuting track was also the first one to get introduced via the SOUNDS ON! line of livestreams, featuring Bandai Namco inhouse musician for all the NAMCO SOUNDS-heads out there! The song was revealed for the 5th SOUNDS ON! broadcast, which can be integrally viewed via this link.
Being such an old-school concept retooled for a worldwide audience, its Nam-Combo charting falls on the 2nd-gen standards to match, with scrolling speed changes to 'mask' the same base BPM value permeating the whole song while also having the 1/24 cluster spikes later gens came to know and love in many a way. It's also nice to see how each Go-Go Time zone is placed during each of the multilingual tongue-twisters, but don't let that distract you on those three Don-Don-Kat notes at the very end!
