P-Model -- Zombi

 

I'm not really into zombie horror movies but I remember watching "Shaun of the Dead" at my friend's apartment in Jiyugaoka years ago and enjoying it. I give my thanks to Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Continuing from the playlist of the University of Maryland radio station WMUC's Japanese Halloween-themed episode that one commenter cottoned me onto a few days ago which begat my first post of Tulip's（チューリップ）"Koi no Dracula"（恋のドラキュラ）, I'm picking out another song. This time, it's eclectic electronic rock band P-Model's "Zombi" from their March 1982 4th album "Perspective".

Having only relatively recently found out about P-Model as one of the Techno Gosanke（テクノ御三家）, I was fully expecting to hear something synthy with "Zombi". Actually though, aside from the Art of Noise-like pounding drums, the song comes across more as a strutting minimalist rocker than technopop while vocalist and songwriter Susumu Hirasawa（平沢進）sounds like a grown-up version of Milhouse Van Houten from "The Simpsons". As the Wikipedia article on "Perspective" states, the album has been categorized as post-punk, industrial rock and no-wave, and I think "Zombi" fulfills that third genre although I can also agree with J-Wiki's description of the album as an experimental rock project.

Reading the Wikipedia article, I discovered that Hirasawa had recorded all of the drum parts in the recording studio stairwell for that natural reverb. Apparently he had quite the battle with the recording engineer but Hirasawa won in the end. Good for Hirasawa. Incidentally, kinda like yesterday's Yuming's（ユーミン）"Corvett 1954", P-Model opted to go for a mistaken spelling of the title. Whether or not Hirasawa had been aware of the proper spelling of zombie in the first place I'm not sure but I'll just go with what has been officially written down on the album.