KodamaNews - June 2026

We're halfway through 2026 already… That's insane. We've had a few releases for now, but the second half of the year is packed with a lot of oncoming releases for both KodamaSounds and COUNTERFEST RECORDS. We don't have much to talk about except some new deadlines for sequel albums planned for 2027.

KodamaSounds 2026 Satisfaction Survey

We have made a survey for our listeners and artists for 2026! I hope that this survey will give us some interesting stats and facts, and it will help us to properly attribute enough time to what our audience wants and needs. This survey is the best way to tell us anonymously what kind of album you want to see next, what kind of merch you want, and get a firmer understanding of our audience. If you could take the time to fill it in anonymously, it would help us a lot!

Take the Survey Over Here!

Display Artist Name Romanisation Changes on Bandcamp

So far, we've been romanizing artist names (mainly Japanese ones) for a better reach of our past audience, mainly being English-speaking. We believe using appropriately romanized names (and confirmed with their respective artists) means a better understanding/reading of artist names which may be impossible to read for non Japanese-speaking readers. However, this might come at the expense of artist names' original intentions, whether due to stylization or/and metadata purposes. Therefore, from now on, we will generally stick to originally input artist names on Bandcamp, similarly to BOOTH. This will not apply for track names, however - just Display Artist names. Detailed track description/credits on the Website and Bandcamp, however, will always display a latin reading of the name, whether it is intentionally left in japanese or not, for referencing/detailed information. What's mainly concerned is the "display" artist field, visible on Websites, stores, and track metadata. As much as I would love to display both similarly to how furigana is used, like we do with video and images - it's not exactly possible on a plaintext system, and we have to compromise in some way. I believe that the reading of non-latin characters is very important, especially in our case so far since they have been taken directly to the source and confirmed, while keeping artist names displayed as they were intended by their respective artists - same as track name transliterations and translations. This change will not be applied retroactively, and we currently have no plans to change albums already published with their current metadata. That goes against my general principles of keeping our releases stuck to their time, the same way we do not change metadata simply because of an artist/alias name change. Being an editor/enthusiast of VGMdb, and not being fluent in japanese, I have so far applied my own reasoning on song metadata to a very strict degree - and have applied it to my own circle. However, with the change of scope and audience KodamaSounds is going through, I believe sticking to the most fundamental standards of the Doujin/Japanese scene and requests from artists, it is for the best to proceed as such from now on. If you liked our previous way of handling our metadata, I invite you to retag our future releases on your own so it fits your needs.

2026 Planning

A Surprise?

We've been working with a longtime supporter of KodamaSounds to bring you an arrange album on a very cult japanese doujin game! Its release is planned on June 27th… Yes, less than a month away! This will NOT be a Tribute Album on COUNTERFEST, but an unofficial arrange album on KodamaSounds in collaboration with a brand new circle. Got you curious? Just wait a little bit for more information!

COUNTERFEST HEROES 01

Our first original tek/bass music + bootleg compilation on COUNTERFEST RECORDS' deadline was pushed to June 1st instead, so that we can prepare for you a release worthy of its name. Its release is currently planned for July 3rd.

Vanilla Parfait -a Vanillaware tribute album-

Been a while, right… It's already hard enough to find fans of Vanillaware games, and specifically composers is proving harder than ever. At this point this is going to end up as an EP, considering we… still do not have any final submission yet. Even if you don't know much about this game universe, if you want to give a try at arranging something from it, please join us on Discord so we can discuss possibilities of arrangements which could fit your mood and taste! Help us make this project come to life!

Check Out the Project Page Over Here!

2025~2026 Royalties Distribution (July)

The yearly distribution of KodamaSounds royalties is right around the corner! The second half of 2025 was our busiest year ever, and I'm happy with the general sales throughout our whole catalogue. Taking care of physical releases was quite the ordeal, and that made accounting a living nightmare… Honestly, I'm shocked I even managed to somehow keep track of everything pretty decently. Next year's spreadsheet will hopefully be far less chaotic and easier for me to fill in. Profits wise, depending on how much I'm left with (probably less than 5% of the total revenues), I hope that it will be enough to accommodate for future commissions and especially CD printing. If you want to help me further on funding KodamaSoft / KodamaSounds' future and print CDs as much as there is demand for those, remember that we have a Ko-fi to which you can donate to to try and help me out!

Gensokyo Party Vol. 7 Moriya Barista 2

As mentioned in the previous blogpost, Moriya Barista 2 has been moved to a Fall Reitaisai release on October 4th to deliver you another Touhou compilation of the highest quality. We already have a few amazing submissions, and we'd love to provide you with at least 10 songs that are as good as one another. As a reminder, the deadline is now set to August 15th.

Check Out the Project Page Over Here!

ECLECTIC RESONANCE TREMOR

This year's gargantuan bass music compilation! Honestly, I'm scared. This will be yet another x2 Disc album, and we have some of the best artists I've ever known doing something for this. Yes, I know, quality over quantity, but… In this case, it's quality AND quantity. Considering I'll be there to sell the album in person yet again for M3-Fall of this year, and the planning/direction is more stable than last year, I'll be looking forward to it with much more confidence than last year's crunch. Deadline is still set to September 1st, with a release on October 26th.

Check Out the Project Page Over Here!

One, two… wait, three in-house artist projects?!

Yes! Although there's no other compilation planned for this Summer/Winter, we do have three albums of in-house artists we're looking forward to releasing between October and December. One EP for M3-Fall, and two 1st Solo Albums, likely for this December's Comiket! All three will hopefully be released as CDs.

2027 Planning (New Projects and Sequels!)

For once, we'll try not to prepare those at the last moment! (and we hope this will help avoid delays in some way…)

COUNTERFEST BOMB DISPOSAL

marklincadet will be organizing a COUNTERFEST special Chiptune/FM album! Deadline is planned to be on January 4th, with a release around February 5th. If you wanted to make some self-defining chiptune, original or arranged, it's definitely the album for you. At this point, Kodama and COUNTERFEST both have their own UPRISING/Memories-like series…

Check Out the Project Page Over Here!

ECLECTIC RESONANCE Sequel Album

I like what we've got going, with sequel albums releasing in the first half of the year, and a new one in the second half. Therefore, we'll be repeating what we're doing for 2026 in 2027. However, I am still pondering which sequel album it will be! As you know, I like keeping a steady rotation so that everyone can find something up their tastebud every year. Which is why I want you to answer the survey I mentioned earlier - you have the power to choose which one will be the chosen one! Depending on the results in a few weeks, I will officially announce which it will be. Although… It's definitely going to be a fight between Legendaria II, hollow horizons 2 and Escapism 2…

Gensokyo Party Vol. 8 DJ Koishi 2

There's never enough Touhou EDM, and after Moriya Barista 2, it'll be time to go back to some more clubby roots! We'd like to release this one for Spring Reitaisai of 2027, so in late April/May. To keep things safe and steady, we've fixed a song submission deadline for February 15th.

Check Out the Project Page Over Here!

Moonstruck Analogy -a TYPE-MOON tribute album- II

It'll be more than 5 years since the release of Moonstruck Analogy… The scope of the circle has evolved so much, it's kind of stupid to think about. With the release of many TYPE-MOON games and projects since 2021, most of those being their first official localizations, and our ongrowing scene, I really hope that this sequel album will shine as bright as I've imagined the original. Not dead set on a Summer 2027 release, it'd be nice to release it on July 2!

Check Out the Project Page Over Here!

And more…

I think projecting us for a year is good. Overdoing it would be problematic for a bunch of reasons, but we do have…

Even more solo album projects
A unique new tribute album which I hope will speak to people like me
A very important original invite only project I've been working on since 2022… It'll be out when it'll be ready, but I really hope I can release it
…as well as the soundtrack for Stellar Sanctuary, which needs to be released some day…
We'll also be preparing a brand new ECLECTIC RESONANCE project, to which you can vote for your favorite concept in the survey above!
Very likely, COUNTERFEST HEROES 02, as I think a yearly dose of bootleg/tek dopamine is important for the soul

That's quite a lot already, isn't it? Every year I keep saying "I need to calm things down next year, there's too much on hand…" but I end up scheduling and organizing around 10 albums compilation every year. My goal is to make sure everyone can find joy throughout the year. I believe not everyone "has" to listen to our complete output - so long as you can discover a new fresh and ambitious album every few months. That's all that matters to me.

That's it for this month's blogpost. I hope that all this yapping is interesting to at least one person out there, because that means I'm not doing this for nothing. As you know, explicit transparency has always been my most defining trait, and I hope that KodamaSounds can be an accommodating cocoon of understanding, warmth, passion and honesty. I can do nothing but thank everyone who's trusted me and my endeavors so far, whether they are artists dedicated to the creative hivemind that KodamaSounds is, and can only pray that this circle is as important to others as it is for me. Thank you so much, and let's do our best for the coming months!!

-Robin