Sakanaction -- 834.194 (Disc 1)

 

Well, this is my first album purchase of Sakanaction（サカナクション）which was prompted by my great attraction to a couple of songs that have ended up on the interestingly titled "834.194": the quirky "Shin-Takarajima"（新宝島）and the City Pop/Vaporwave-y "Wasurarenaino"（忘れられないの）. As for the derivation of that title, according to the J-Wiki article on the album, the number represents the exact distance in kilometres between Studio Bepop （スタジオ・ビーポップ）where the band used to practice during their days in their native Sapporo and Aobadai Studio（青葉台スタジオ）in Tokyo where they do their recording now. Officially, the title is read "Hachi-San-Yon-Ichi-Kyuu-Yon" but apparently the members like to read it as "Yamiyo Iku yo"（闇夜行くよ...Goes The Dark Night）.

For this article, I just want to go into the first of the two discs supplied on "834.194" since there are quite a few gems there. By the way, Disc 1 has the official title of "35 38 52 9000 / 139 41 39 3000" but because I don't want you folks to keep reading this like a lottery ticket number, I'll just stick with Disc 1 if I have to use a title. 

"Wasurarenaino" starts Disc 1 off and then Track 2 is "Match to Peanuts"（マッチとピーナッツ...Match and Peanuts） which has vocalist and songwriter Ichiro Yamaguchi（山口一郎）singing about eating some goobers late at night. My envy goes to him since I'm a big roasted peanut fan myself but I really can no longer have them during the midnight hour. My GI tract isn't what it used to be. All kidding aside, after what sounds like a pretty hard techno beginning, "Match to Peanuts" has a fairly soaring and haunting guitar wailing away in an old-fashioned way as if it were hearkening back to those City Pop guitars of the early 1980s.

Ah, before I do forget, all of the songs were written and composed by Yamaguchi. The next track is "Kagero"（陽炎...Heat Haze）, a bouncy synthpop tune with the atmosphere of an Asian festival in the year 2050, and for some reason, I feel like this could have been a great tune to open up a TV anime series. Apparently a different arrangement of "Kagero" was supplied on Sakanaction's March 2018 greatest hits album "Sakanazukan"（魚図鑑...Book of Fishes）.

"Tabun, Kaze."（多分、風。...It's The Wind, Probably） was Sakanaction's 12th single released in October 2016 and though it has that synthpop beat in there, it also contains a slightly more rock edge. Looking at the seemingly psychoanalysis-friendly music video above, it does emulate what Yamaguchi put down in his lyrics. Plus, being a Marvel "X-Men" fan, I can't help but be reminded of Paige Guthrie, aka Husk while watching it. Incidentally, the mystery woman there is portrayed by fashion model Ruka（る鹿）. The single went Gold and was also used in a cosmetics commercial.

Not sure if this should have been called "Cocoon" instead of the official "Moss"（モス）considering the music video here, but it's another high-speed tune that strays a bit more away from the synthesizers. Lyrics-wise, it paints a fairly negative view of someone who feels the need to push away someone that he may still care about since he doesn't even know himself anymore. It was used as the theme song for the 2019 Fuji-TV adaptation of "Lupin no Musume"（ルパンの娘...Daughter of Lupin） which strangely enough is supposed to be premiering on TV Japan later this week. I kinda wonder whether the song reflects the personality of the main character.

I have to admit that of all the tracks on Disc 1, "Kikitakatta Dance Music, Liquid Room ni"（聴きたかったダンスミュージック、リキッドルームに...The Dance Music I Wanted to Hear at Liquid Room） is the one that has stuck to my brain like flypaper since it's got that groove. I mean, I've never been to the actual Liquid Room in Shibuya but I hear that it's more of a concert venue than a dance hall. However, when I listen to this track, I can't help but wonder if they do have their disco nights, and Yamaguchi describes in the song one heck of an overnight experience dancing with the girl of his dreams. Intriguingly enough, some of that rhythm reminds me of Steely Dan's "Peg"...another plus right there. This was also the coupling song in the "Shin-Takarajima" single.

There are a couple of more tracks on Disc 1 but I'll leave it here for now and cover those later. In addition, I also have to listen to Disc 2, but so far, Disc 1 has got its good share of Sakanaction goodness. The band on both the J-Wiki and Wikipedia articles have been categorized into a number of genres including alternative rock and electronica, and Wikipedia has stated that Yamaguchi and company are hard to pin down in terms of what they can perform. Of course, I think that's not a bad thing at all, although generally I tend to think of them with their synthesizer sound. Along with Kirinji, Sakanaction is another band that has been impressing me from the last decade. As for "834.194", it was released in June 2019 and hit No. 2 on the album charts, going Gold.