So I still don’t know why this was released under a Higurashi banner (image album?) but I’m glad that’s how it is. If it was just ~Kakera Musubi~ I probably wouldn’t even know about it and I would skip a track with Haruka Shimotsuki (vocalist of kukui). That wouldn’t be good.

So what exactly is this CD? A collection of songs and instrumental tracks produced by Voltage of Imagination camp who were responsible for the ending theme to 「Higurashi no Naku Koro ni」.

Is the CD any good? Why yest it is! I’m really enjoying the two darker tracks, 「hymn」 and 「蝕み」 and I would love to hear them used in the actual show. There are also some rather good happy tracks - 「my home」, which is the Haruka track I mentioned, and 「samsara」. I’m not enjoying every single track though. Those tracks would be 「M･A･T･S･U･R･I - Meet Your Match！」 and 「when they cry」, I just don’t like them. I’d like to say a bit more about 「you - Visionen im Spiegel」 which is a new version of 「you」 from the Higurashi game 「Thanks/You」 CD and I think it is in fact a very good song but this version really needed better mastering - it’s one loud sound, you can’t tell different instruments or vocals from eachother, it’s a loud mess IMHO.

The disc also comes with a Rika-chan card, which I thought would be part of the second OST package…
 

「hymn」, 「蝕み」, 「my home」.
 

Don’t really know what this is, but after listening to few samples I decided it’s worth giving a try. I want to hear the full hymn and samsara.

「 ひぐらしのなく頃に -かけらむすび- 」 Higurashi no Naku Koro ni -Kakera Musubi-   Voltage of Imagination 2006.09.27 : FCCM-156