Lowercase hatena. Not the Tasmanian future funk HATENA, not the Gundam opening, not the Flipnote app. This one makes dariacore, the mashup microgenre Jane Remover set loose under the Leroy alias in 2021: pop vocals chopped into confetti, drums that refuse to sit under 160, a new sample crashing the party every eight bars. hatena has released exactly three singles since 2023 and this is the newest, out through TFW in February 2024. Two minutes and one second. The SoundCloud upload carries a note that the project file corrupted before the track was finished, which tells you something about the scene: the unfinished version was good enough to ship, so it shipped. On YouTube it exists only on an auto-generated Topic channel with four subscribers, plus a couple of archive reuploads from fans who did not want it to disappear. That is how most dariacore lives, in folders and SoundCloud pages and Discord links, which is why a blog like this has to go out and fetch it. This is the hatena I meant when I started the hyperpop lane. The scout now watches the channel, so if a fourth single ever lands you will see it here. Until then, loop this one.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.