Hikashu -- Atarashii Buzoku（新しい部族）

 

I didn't know this fact. But to preface this fact...from doing this blog and reading some things in the Japanese pop culture books, I found out that in the 1960s, the term gosanke（御三家...The Big Three）, which was originally used to refer to the three big members of Ieyasu Tokugawa's（徳川家康）clan, was used to also describe the top three male singers at the time: Yukio Hashi（橋幸夫）, Kazuo Funaki（舟木一夫）and Teruhiko Saigo（西郷輝彦）. Then a decade later, there was the Shin Gosanke（新御三家...The New Big Three） to describe the heartthrobs of Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）, Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）and Goro Noguchi（野口五郎）. Apparently, gosanke has been used ever since right up into the 21st century to describe certain outstanding trios in the music industry (and also in many other industries such as tourism and corporate Japan).

Now, to the fact that I hadn't known about until tonight. Along with the above two trios for handsome male stars from two different decades, I found out that there was such a thing as a Techno Gosanke（テクノ御三家） which consisted of the bands P-Model, The Plastics and Hikashu. Well, P-Model and The Plastics are bands that I've actually written about here on KKP. And before anyone asks, yup, I was left wondering then about Yellow Magic Orchestra.

OK, so then what of Hikashu? I never heard of them before but according to their J-Wiki article, they started out in 1977 and with a lineup that changed a fair bit over the decades. Currently, the band has vocalist Koichi Makigami (巻上公一) who also plays the bass, cornet and theremin, Mita Freeman (三田超人) on guitar and sampler, Masami Sakaide (坂出雅海) on bass and his laptop, Kazuto Shimizu (清水一登) on bass clarinet and piano, and percussionist Masaharu Sato (佐藤正治). Although Hikashu started out as that technopop band, they did later dip their toes into the avant-garde, acid jazz and avant-pop. Wikipedia has described them as experimental musicians, too.

From their 3rd album, "Uwasa no Jinrui"（うわさの人類...Mankind of Rumour） from May 1981 (produced by Haruo Chikada/近田春夫), I give you "Atarashii Buzoku" (New Tribe). Written by Makigami and composed by former Hikashu percussionist Toshiro Sensui（泉水敏郎）, the song begins with a Bullet Train whizzing through a station before something operatic and inspirational this way comes. Yup, the synths are in there, but I think that "Atarashii Buzoku" has more of that avant-garde New Wave feel. As well, I think that the song was meant to be performed on a stage as a march to accompany cyborg soldiers off to war...to assimilate the Federation, perhaps. Anyways, I did mention something about tribal experiences the other day; maybe this is the music for them.

Our local recent expert on Japanese technopop, commenter Tae, may have some better insights about Hikashu than I do, so I invite her to make any statements later on. Ah, incidentally, I was wondering how the band came up with their name. Back to J-Wiki, former member Yasushi Yamashita（山下康）got the light bulb over his head from "Hika"（悲歌...Elegy）, a work by the late composer/producer Toru Takemitsu（武満徹）. However, at the time, the members tried to avoid making any explicit explanations in public and they came up with some wild reasons such as discovering the name through seeing one mouthing something in a mirror or the sudden exclamation that popped out of one's mouth after getting surprised. Well, they are an avant-garde group.