Fishmans -- Season

 

Welcome to June! And sure enough, although summer is officially three weeks away, my city has been smacked with some heat and humidity typical of the hot season, somewhere in the area of 32 degrees Celsius. Frankly, we have to watch a lot of snow and ice and cold for a lot of the year, so I don't particularly mind this level of 3H weather (the third H stands for haze) because I went through something far harsher in Japan for many years.

Early last month, I wrote an article on the multi-genre (pop, rock, reggae, shoegaze, Neo-psychedelia, dub and Shibuya-kei) band Fishmans（フィッシュマンズ）for the first time via their relaxing March 1996 single "Baby Blue". A Fishmans fan by the name of bonk then recommended in the comments to try out "Long Season" which was an epic October 1996 one-track album which lasted around 35 minutes. I was planning to do so but then I read the description where "Long Season" was based on a nearly 6-minute single (the band's 11th), "Season", that had been released in September of that year. 

Well, I figured that I ought to try the original first before tackling the album (which I will do sometime over the weekend). Written and composed by the late vocalist/bassist Shinji Sato（佐藤伸治）, it's the story of a couple who carry on a devil-may-care romantic spree throughout Tokyo during what I assume is summer. Rather than alternative rock, I think "Season" is cloaked in atmospheric alternative pop and, as has been labeled in the J-Wiki article on the song, it's also heard as a dub number. I've learned that dub is an electronic genre that stems from reggae so I got some further musical education there.

The music video for "Season" is also quite evocative in a very dreamy way. I'm sure that pop psychologists would love to take this one on. The single peaked at No. 62 on Oricon. I'm now interested in hearing how "Long Season" goes. Does it provide even more insights into the couple's breezy summer affair? Inquiring minds want to know.