Karkador

Karkador
Studio album by P-MODEL
Released October 25, 1985
Recorded

1985 in Tokyo

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 Gunma Prefecture, 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 it to live on the Galápagos Islands. He was replaced by Yasuhiro Araki, a huge fan of P-Model and drummer of the then recently disbanded punk rock band Allergy (P-Model and Allergy had both appeared on the Rebel Street compilation and had gigged together on the Scuba Tour). Araki's playing style isn't as intense as Tainaka's, but is more precise; with his coming P-Model also started implementing electronic drums on its sound. In late 1984-early 1985, Hirasawa worked on the album Stop Fuckin' Around! by the punk rock band The Loods, which was recorded on the Gok Sound recording studio. Through this, Hirasawa met Yoshiaki Kondo, owner and in-house engineer of Gok Sound (Kondo was the album's main engineer). The new P-Model lineup played their first live show in April 19, in the same month, P-Model resumed their "Another Act" project of phonosheet releases 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 3 phonosheets (which marked the end of the "Another Act" series) with songs written by each member and started regularly gigging with the "3 Days" Shinjuku Loft event, were they played older songs that weren't regularly played by previous lineups. P-Model got signed to Alfa Records (under their "Edge Records" sub-label for underground acts), which allowed them to use Alfa's studios and mixing equipment, which was of a far better quality than what they could use when they weren't signed to a major label. Alfa also had signed on musicians that would later collaborate with Hirasawa, such as Urban Dance's Shinobu Narita (also of 4-D), Shi-Shonen's Shingo Tomoda and Guernica's Jun Togawa.

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.

Hirasawa had many ideas in regards to the sound of the album, but faced issues with engineering. Hirasawa had wanted Yoshiaki Kondo to do the album's mixdown, but 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, 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 alongside Yokogawa, who felt that the touring in support of the album was rigorous,[2] two months after the album 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.[3] 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.[4] 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).[5] 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.[6] and has been shown on exhibitions around the world of Callas' work.

Track listing

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

Around the time of the album's composition, Yokogawa created 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.
December 21, 1994 Alfa Music, Edge Records ALCA-9134 Released 20 days after the debut show of the "Revised" P-Model. Hard to find.[7]
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. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 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. ↑ 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.
  4. ↑ Magazoff (in Japanese) (Magazoff) (2). Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. ↑ "Karkador %7c Scanlines". Scanlines. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  6. ↑ "Karkador". WGBH. Retrieved September 10, 2014.
  7. ↑ 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