What the Otherside sounds like
Some day of September 2021, I clicked on a video YouTube had been trying to recommend me for a while already. I didn't know what to expect, at all. I remember my attention being caught by the strange thumbnail, and contemplating clicking for a while; and finally doing it one evening, on a bus, going back home after seeing friends, thinking it would be a good thing to listen to idly.
It was a Vocaloid song, probably prompted by me going back to older Vocaloid titles around that time. But it was a particularly strange Vocaloid song. The experience immediately halted everything I was thinking or doing, and completely filled my head with something: the sensation of being suddenly immersed in the Otherside, that uncanny titular otherworld from Otherside Picnic.
This song is Anagura Gurashi (Hole-Dwelling), by Vocaloid producer Kikuo.
Since then, it has been haunting me as one of my favorite Vocaloid songs, period, and with the certainty that this is the sound of the Otherside.
It is, of course, a combination of factors: going into it not knowing what to expect coupled with the unexpectedness of some musical phrases; its sheer, fascinating, incredible uncanniness...
For people who know Otherside Picnic, I suppose that a lot of additional factors come into play: its art, taking a closer look, is definitely reminiscent of File 3's simulacra phenomenon of human faces; the song's beach-sounding instruments have a vibe of File 6; and the song itself makes me feel like I'm listening to some creepy ASMR similar to what happens in File 11. Heck, I regularly think back to that description of Runa getting in contact with the Otherside through some strange video in File 11, because to some extent it feels like I experienced the same thing then.
For people who don't know Otherside Picnic, I'm sharing it here just in case it may get you into the book series, make you discover one Vocaloid producer or two, or simply dwell within your brain just as it has been in mine for the last few years.
Sometimes, I wish I could rediscover it for the first time all over again.
I realize as I'm writing this that for some reason, I have listened to only one or two other songs by Kikuo since then, surprisingly. This post is also a way of inciting myself to finally give their channel more of a proper try, I suppose.
This whole phenomenon happened again in December of the same year, with a stranger video still: one with both the title and the artist purely blank. I clicked out of sheer curiosity of seing a video with not a single information apart from the thumbnail; and what I got was, once again, an Otherside-like experience:
I mean, a slightly creepy and untitled video, almost impossible to find with the regular search function, calling people at random through the algorithm who then make ominous comments about it, and, as the cherry on top, about the netlore ghost story of Kisaragi Station, of which File 3 of Otherside Picnic revoles around?!
This blew my mind when I found it; or well, when it found me. This is some top tier Otherside Picnic stuff.
As it turns out, the channel - known sometimes as x0o0x_ due to their YouTube handle, but also simply as The Nameless Channel - has produced various nameless videos centered on Japanese ghost stories, including the Monkey Train Dream (as in File 3), the Kunekune (as in File 1) and the Kotoribako (as in File 8).
I lack words to express how Otherside Picnic-core this is. It really reaches uncharted levels.
As a nice bonus, I ended up finally diving in March 2022 into the named songs of that channel, which are covers of existing songs made by other people. With that I discovered the concept of utaite - mostly anonymous singers who try to sing covers of songs, with a focus on Japanese and notably Vocaloid songs. This led me to a treasure trove of pure earworms, and to some music artists I now really, really like.
But that is a story for another time.
I will conclude this post by mentioning, in a more obvious way, that the OST from the anime version of Otherside Picnic of course also qualifies as what the Otherside sounds like. I discovered this whole fiction thanks to that version; and I must say that though most of it doesn't hold a candle to the other media of the series (even if it remains a fun watch with its goofy queer undertones), the OST itself really does and deserves a listen.
Anyway - I wish you nice trips to the Otherside.
Stay safe.