Hey Jofes, thanks for the comment!
Yeah, when I was experimenting with the scale, I quickly found it was super hard to get harmonic momentum going with it, so I opted to create more of a backing track, compared to the music I've made in previous jams. For the sake of the challenge, I restricted myself to just the notes in the Hirajoshi scale, but for real composing, I would definitely mix the Japanese scales with more Western scales to allow for a wider range of harmonic motion.
Funnily enough, because I was so harmonically restricted, I was able to spend way more time than usual on polishing the sound and phrasing of each instrument, and making my percussion line a lot more detailed. Really glad you liked the sound and mix, the hours I spent polishing it were worth it I guess, hahaha