Kirinji -- Akumu wo Miru Cheese（悪夢を見るチーズ）

 

Earlier tonight, I was about to write about this particular track from Kirinji's（キリンジ）"Ai wo Aru dake, Subete"（愛をあるだけ、すべて）beginning with my usual expression of great love for the 2018 album. However, I was about to get into this article when I felt that I had to make an adjustment on the other article for the album, and perhaps I pressed the wrong button, but I ended up deleting that article!😭😭

Well, I did the emergency re-write of the article for "Ai wo Aru dake, Subete" which wasn't too difficult because I love the album so much. And now, I can take care of this one here, too. 

The reason for not including this track in the writeup for the album is that the YouTube video for "Akumu wo Miru Cheese" (Nightmare Inducing Cheese) didn't exist at the time. Boy, did I wish at the time that it had been put up, and I'm now grateful to the uploader Lonely Archive that they did so.

I'm not sure whether it was a little custom among leader and songwriter Takaki Horigome（堀込高樹）but I have found that at least for "Ai wo Aru dake, Subete" and the next album "cherish", there is a weird track involving food included (maybe Horigome admired Weird Al Yankovic). For the latter, it is the eminently catchy "Pizza vs. Hamburger" and for the former, it is "Akumu wo Miru Cheese", a really thumpy Steely Dan-esque blast.

Written and composed by Horigome with Kirinji bassist Manabu Chigasaki（千ヶ崎学）, it seems as if the protagonist unfortunately ate some bad cheese. As a result, he is now having one heck of a dreamscape involving the German word for "demonic", an invitation to get up for some movement at the dance-friendly speed of 120 BPM, and a tumbler of some whiskey that smells like the stomach medicine Seirogan (note to all...DECLINE!). That's one heck of a wedge of Limburger! Still, as with the other tracks on the album, "Akumu wo Miru Cheese" is one slapper of a song which features some goodly dollops of Chigasaki's bass, a beat that has me shimmying and shammying, and some more of those wonderful vocals from both Horigome and guitarist Erino Yumiki（弓木英梨乃）.

For those who have never experienced the famous Seirogan in the orange box with the cornet logo, it is herbal medicine shaped into tiny black balls that has the most pungent smell. I've taken it before and though it does work, I end up smelling like Seirogan for several hours although in recent years, a non-smelling coated variety has been on the market. Of course, the older generation swears by the aromatic original. For me, if my parents offer it whenever I have some gastrointestinal distress, I will take it but otherwise, I'm happy with Imodium.