Karkador

Karkador
Studio album by P-MODEL
Released October 25, 1985 (1985-10-25)
Recorded Tokyo, 1985
Studio
Genre
Length 36:38
Label Alfa, Edge
Producer Akiro "Kamio" Arishima
P-MODEL chronology
Scuba
(1984)		 Karkador
(1985)		 One Pattern
(1986)

Karkador is the sixth album by the Japanese electronic rock band P-Model. It was the first album where front-man Susumu Hirasawa was the sole remaining founding member and the only one to feature Tadahiko Yokogawa. This album was inspired from Hirasawa's dream journals, and follows the New Wave style of their preceding album, Scuba, but with an expanded sound.

Background and composition

Karkador was mainly inspired by the dreams of P-Model's vocalist Susumu Hirasawa. He had been seeing a Jungian counselor at a welfare facility for the mentally ill in Takayama, as he was in a troubled mental state at the time. The counselor suggested that he record his dreams in a notebook to aid his recovery. He developed a narrative based on those notes, and the lyrics were written from there. According to the Hirasawa Lyrics Tumblr and the Music Industrial Wastes book, the album title came from the name of a bird that he drew. "Every song from the album is linked together by a single story, and the job of the audience is to construct that story as they listen to them."[1]

Due to Hirasawa's mental state at the time, the concept behind the album wasn't as neatly apparent as in previous albums.[2] Songs were crafted through demos and rehearsals instead of through live shows; only one song from the album was played live prior to its release (as it had been released in a different form before the album).

Sometime during the Scuba Tour Sadatoshi Tainaka, the band's original drummer, decided to leave after the tour's conclusion and moved to the Galápagos Islands to live as an observer of the archipelago's iguanas and overall ecology. He was replaced by Yasuhiro Araki, a huge fan of P-Model and drummer of then recently disbanded punk band Allergy (both bands appeared on the 1982 Rebel Street compilation and had gigged together on the Scuba Tour), whose precision-focused style brought a new aspect to the band.

The new P-Model lineup played their first live show, a one-off, in April 19, and resumed their "Another Act" project of phonosheet releases in the same month with Shun 2nd; with the creation of the official fan club "Moire Club" in January, P-Model could release their phonosheets by themselves, without resorting to indie labels. The band resumed activities in earnest in May, where they simultaneously released three phonosheets (which marked the end of the "Another Act" series) with songs written by each member and started regularly gigging with the 3-day long "10 Miles High" Shinjuku Loft event, where they played older songs that weren't regularly played by previous lineups. P-Model got signed to Alfa Records's sub-label for underground acts Edge (although it was originally reported that they signed to the Yellow Magic Orchestra-led new wave label ¥EN Records[3]), which allowed them to use Alfa's studios and mixing equipment, which was of a far better quality than what they could use during their independent period.

Recording and production

In addition to Hirasawa's journal, P-Model used songwriting contributions from their keyboardist Shunichi Miura and bassist Tadahiko Yokogawa; on the band's shows performed before the album's release, they had incorporated the "Another Act" songs (except the Shun ones) into their setlists. Hirasawa and Yokogawa had equal creative control over the band, with Yokogawa's style complementing Hirasawa's.[2] Yokogawa has said that his influence on the album was somewhat nuanced, comparing it to Conny Plank's work on Zero Set.[2] Although the album had a New Wave style much like its predecessor, Scuba, it also had a wider array of sounds, mixing live drumming with programmed drumming (which P-Model hadn't done after their first albums), Yokogawa performing groovy basslines, march-styled rhythms, classical instruments played by Yokogawa, and guitars, the last of which was done in Hirasawa's characteristic style. The band tried to keep the album raw, with the MIDI data of the electronics not cleared.[2]

Hirasawa had many ideas in regards to the sound of the album, but faced issues with engineering. He wanted Yoshiaki Kondo, owner and in-house engineer of Gok Sound Studio, to do the album's mixdown. The two met during the recordings of the album Stop Fuckin' Around! by punk band The Loods, Hirasawa wanted Karkador to sound "underground", and felt Kondo could pull it off. Alfa balked at the idea and wanted to use their in-house engineer. Kondo engineered the recordings at Gok Sound and the Toei studio, doing a purposefully messy mix on the drums,[4] but his work was altered by Alfa without Hirasawa's consent.[2] Miura had doubts as to the direction that P-Model was taking and left the band[5] alongside Yokogawa, who felt that the touring in support of the album was rigorous,[2] two months after it was released. Due to their departure, half of the album was never performed live after from 1986 onwards.

Artwork

The album's cover was designed by Kayo Muto, a student of Hirasawa's synthesizer lectures. Muto had occasionally performed as a geisha on some of P-Model's live shows.[6] Hirasawa's brother, Yuichi, built the sculptures (referred to in the credits as "Obje", the center one appears standalone on a photo on the back of the album sleeve) for the album's cover. The sculptures ended up with Shampoo vocalist Masami Orimo, who returned them to Yuichi in 2013 when he opened his cafe bar, Gazio, where they now sit on display.[7] The liner notes feature a group photo of the band, with Hirasawa wearing a large grey coat with large black patches (a plus sign in a circle, a rectangle and a triangle), which he also wore throughout the album's supporting tour (the rest of the band also wore their costumes through the tour).

Promotional video

A four-minute film that uses the album's title track as BGM was developed in 1986 by the Australian video artist Peter Callas. It was commissioned by Pioneer LDC for the "AV Cocktail" project, made to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the LaserDisc in Japan.[8] Callas defines the theme of the PV as a portrayal of Japan's treatment of media as fireworks: "The Japanese media machine is earnestly engaged in the feeding of a vast compressed river of imagery, in which content sinks without a trace like a stone to the bottom".[9] It is described as "a playful tour through colorful computer graphics", and is based on the menko game (the video is the second part of a trilogy of works by Callas based on menko). "Peter Calles [sic] transforms everyday characters and scenes into geometric shapes, which are edited into a whirlwind of zesty animation." The film was featured as an episode segment of American public television station WGBH's program The Workshop for New Television.[10][11] and has been shown on exhibitions of Callas' work around the world.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Susumu Hirasawa, except where noted. 

No. TitleLyricsMusic Length
1. "Karkador"     2:58
2. "On the Organ-Yama" (オルガン山にて Orugan-Yama ni Te)   3:13
3. "Dance Subomp" (ダンス素凡夫（スボンプ） Dansu Subonpu)Hirasawa, Shunichi MiuraMiura, Tadahiko Yokogawa 4:19
4. "Cyborg" (サイボーグ Saibōgu)   3:33
5. "1778-1985"     4:14
6. "Leak"     4:19
7. "Oar" (オール Ōru)YokogawaYokogawa 4:05
8. "Hourglass"   Hirasawa, Yokogawa 3:17
9. "Piper"   Yokogawa 5:53
10. "Kar¢ador"     0:48

Around the time of the album's composition, Yokogawa wrote a solo number called "Birds". A recording of the song, alongside a "Leak" demo, was included in the third volume of the band's Moire Club fan club newsletter in 1986.

Personnel

P-Model - Arrangements
Staff

Release history

Date Label(s) Format Catalog Notes
October 25, 1985 Alfa Records, Edge Records LP ELR-28002
February 21, 1992 CD ALCA-258 Released (alongside One Pattern) five days before the release of P-Model.[12]
December 21, 1994 Alfa Music, Edge Records ALCA-9134 Released 20 days after the debut show of the "Revised" P-Model.
May 10, 2002
July 4, 2014		 Chaos Union, Teslakite CHTE-0009 Remastered by Hirasawa. Part of Disc 5 of the Ashu-on [Sound Subspecies] in the solar system box set, alongside phonosheet-only releases from 1983 & 1985, some of them by the members that played on this album. "Birds" is on the fan club exclusive Disc 0 (CHTE-0021). Re-released with new packaging by Kiyoshi Inagaki.
July 25, 2007
April 12, 2012		 Sony Music Direct, GT Music MHCL-1136 Remastered, limited release. Packaged in a paper sleeve to replicate the original LP packaging. Re-pressing (without sticker to indicate packaging) sold only through Tower Records.

References

  1. ↑ "サイボーグ / Saiboogu / Cyborg". Hirasawa Lyrics.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 キミは年末だからパーッといったか?. The Aggregated Past KANGENSHUGI 8760 HOURS (in Japanese). Chaos Union. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
  3. ↑ P-MODELが正式にメジャーレーベルと契約 [P-Model has Officially Signed a Major Label Contract]. SUPER HEAD MAGAZINE DOLL (in Japanese). No. 29 (DOLL). September–October 1985. p. 61.
  4. ↑ "レコレコ - recommend record -　音と生活 vol.4". 音めがね (in Japanese). otomegane.
  5. ↑ アーティスト列伝　P-MODEL [Artist Chronicle － P-Model]. Keyboard Magazine (in Japanese). Vol. Autumn no. 370 (Rittor Music). October 2010. ISSN 1344-6371.
  6. ↑ キミはキュートなテコドントのダンスを踊ったか?. The Aggregated Past KANGENSHUGI 8760 HOURS (in Japanese). Chaos Union. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
  7. ↑ Magazoff (in Japanese). No. 2 (Magazoff). 2013. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. ↑ "Karkador". Scanlines. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  9. ↑ "Karkador, Peter Callas". Electronic Arts Intermix. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  10. ↑ "Karkador". WGBH. Retrieved September 10, 2014.
  11. ↑ "NTW Karkador". The New Television Workshop Collection. WGBH. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  12. ↑ カルカドルコレクション. 電子降る日記 I am only my MODEL (in Japanese).

External links

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