Decades-old stuff that was fairly unknown in the West but suddenly got very famous online (aka: the Fishmans thread)

well since there's no official fishmans thread, i'm making it this one.

on that note, the next project of bassist yuzuru kashiwabara is (was?) polaris. the last thing they released was in 2020. catalogue is fairly large and so far the first album (home, 2002) is highly recommended if you you like fishmans.

and again: if i had known about this band 20 years ago, i would have been a huge fan.

I think the first time I listened to them was smoking weed with some friends, we all loved them. they never sounded as good to me after that though

Thanks so much for the link to that documentary Austin, I am so in the tank for 3 hours of Fishmans.

I wonder if you might also like the band Clammbon too (singer Ikuko Harada pops up near the beginning)

and again: if i had known about this band 20 years ago, i would have been a huge fan.

Alvin Lu wrote about them in his "City God" column in San Francisco Bay Guardian over 20 years ago - must have been some of the earliest writing in the US on them. The piece makes references to a long-gone English-language website devoted to them (also note that Lu couldn't track down Long Season at the time).

Night Cruising

top selling album on Bandcamp right now is....a Susumu Hirasawa live compilation. his stuff definitely seems to be finding a Western audience lately

This documentary is deadly, thanks again, about halfway in.

cheers! i'm going to give it a watch this evening.

mentioning polaris again here already— it's fairly hypnotic stuff at times and if you like those "infinite" dub vamps that fishmans would get into there's a wealth of pleasing sounds waiting for you.

thank you for the link gj! that's pretty remarkable. it brings up something i've thought about a lot: i suppose i've always been in the minority in the sense that i don't mind (and sometimes prefer) pop music sung in a language i don't understand. and again maybe just me, but i always wanted the "imports" section in the record store to be full of mystery things that i had no clue about (not just expensive reissues of the same old classic albums). so reading alvin lu's quick overview there and getting the sense that he genuinely wanted to hip other people to the group —coupled with the more recent online revival for fishmans' music— it makes me wonder just how much in the minority i've been this whole time.

polaris — "光と影" (2002)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2HuHD8EYMQ

and tears of joy were wept.

sorry that's "slow motion", here's "光と影"—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1_2sT3uknk

("slow motion" also a very epic lovely)

everyone needs to watch that documentary.

Yes! So many thoughts about the way the documentary was made.

https://i.imgur.com/ulindD5.jpg

nice t shirt. i listened the fishmansus ca. 2013 but i still don't understand the praising.

Ata Kak - Ooba Sima

Is one of my favorites. Not sure if it qualifies because it was virtually unknown even in Ghana until Awesome Tapes from Africa unearthed it and it became popular.

Also Mariah - Shinzo No Tobira

i'm claiming the credit (indirectly) for Shinzo No Tobira taking off. I was in Eurasia records in Shinjuku, perhaps my favourite Tokyo record shop, around 2007/8. The owner was always playing great music and while I was browsing he put on Shinzo No Tobira and I flipped out and bought it on the spot. I shared a rip of it on a private music sharing site I had set up and it became the most popular track in that site's history. The version on Youtube that then went viral is the same vinyl rip I had uploaded.

I devoted a crazy amount of time to reissuing it but was ultimately beaten to the punch.

Wow thanks, stirmonster! I downloaded what must have been your rip from Root Strata about 10 years ago. It's wild that something so great can languish in obscurity for so long

hah, that's super cool, and yes I will give you the credit. sometimes I think it really does work like that. the Fishmans thing you could probably link back to one or two particularly enthusiastic fans.

I have a little bit of experience there actually - about 10 years ago I was really enthusiastic about Susumu Hirasawa and his band P-Model and since there was very little writing in English I was the guy writing stuff on RYM, blogs, various message boards, even an article for Perfect Sound Forever. I kinda thought all this was just going into the void but thanks to some soundtracks he did eventually he got a Western audience and when they looked him up I guess most of the results were just shit I had written. It's kind of surreal reading some reviews and seeing the exact same language and phrasing you used. In fact there was some long blogpost (with MP3s) that just quoted my stuff extensively. Later on I was invited to a Discord and found out that apparently everyone knew who I was and that actually a few Japanese fans were obsessed with figuring out who this random American dude was, because Hirasawa really had no presence here AT ALL. you couldn't even get his CDs shipped overseas.

That's great!

I’m the one who uploaded it to youtube!

The mp3 I used came from the 20jazzfunkgreats blog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRgLhEGEetc

Everyone that doesn’t know it needs to listen to it asap

Someone wrote to me that they had the rights and wouldn’t take it down because it was popular but they’d be the ones collecting the money which I had no problem with as I wasn’t monetizing it obviously. Only thing I asked for was to please get in line for the vinyl reissue.

I’m the one who uploaded it to youtube!

oh my! small world.

The mp3 I used came from the 20jazzfunkgreats blog

20jfg guys were members of my music sharing site / friends of mine.

Thank you so much for being the one who did the crate digging and brought it back into the blogosphere. Easily a top 10 song of the 80’s for me. My mind is still blown every time I listen to it.

Btw seeing as you should get credit for doing the digging, do you want me to post a writeup or link or something in the description?

thanks for offering but i'm fine leaving it as it is.

I may have edited the description either way ;)

thanks Moka. that's very kind.

that is very cool about the mariah record!! big thanks to stirmonster & moka for bringing it into our lives

this is another one definitely seems to have got out into the wider world in recent times:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGsSAVz1BBQ
Steve Monite - Only You

what a cool story, plus now I'm hearing Mariah for the first time and it's fantastic (some good comments on your YT page too Moka)

that Steve Monite track is an uber fave and another where it seems so mad it took nearly 40 years to become known more widely.

And its not even the best track off the album as i've recently learnt - Things Fall Apart is soooo good!

Steve Monite track is great.

There’s a somewhat unnecessary theophilus london + tame impala rework of it that I’ve overheard in bars instead of the Steve Monite one - which is a shame but hey better than nothing.

i get so many of these in my discover weekly. i think this one fits:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfEOg67L-gg
Om Alec Khaoli - Say You Love Me

it's not really comparable to people doing god's work on here but I ripped a yann tomita record that was not available in the usual places many years ago and I get some kind of strange pride when I encounter the same rip out in the wild, with my old file naming quirks and so on

thank you stir + moka.

i'd like to go back to fishmans for a moment. feel free to scroll past. they really have been an astounding discovery for me. i'd like to tell you about it. thanks for listening.

i have a lot of mental health problems. it's caused me a lot of personal problems. i'm that annoying guy, too: if i'm upset beyond reason, sit me in a room for five minutes with headphones playing a song of my choice and i'll be fine afterwards. it keeps me grounded in ways i don't fully understand. i'm a very cheesy person, so i say silly things like "I BELIEVE IN THE HEALING POWER OF MUSIC" without any sense of irony whatsoever.

i also believe genuinely weird things like time being an experience unique to the specific user. just as some people prefer coffee with a lot of sweeteners while others can't stand anything except plain black, an hour for you is not the same as it is for me. ned raggett —who i am hereby nominating as official mascot and media spokesperson of ilx— has talked about how music has affected his sense of time when hearing a specific song by a specifically significant band: TIME STOPPED i believe was how ned described his first experience with "soon." i know my version of what he's talking about. it's one of the reasons i keep listening to music. it doesn't happen very often, but hey now! when it does. i've posted about one of my experiences.

so i seek out music a lot. i wish i could contribute more than just awe and gratitude. i do feel quite like a poseur among you guys sometimes. now is one of those times because i discovered fishmans through the rateyourmusic top rated list. i wanted to have a look at it after seeing that kendrick had become the #1 rated album on the site. discourse re:rym in mind, maybe that's where my insecurity stems from?

all that to say, whatever the case was when i hit play on LONG SEASON just over a week ago late on a saturday night, i was ready to kill myself. i had a plan and had taken at least one of the necessary steps to follow through with it.

but... time [/u]stopped[/u].

you know that feeling when you just know? call it intuition, being "fully in touch" with your preferences, or whatever, maybe i'm just high on sunshine. in any case, there's a moment about 8 or 9 minutes into LONG SEASON where the key changes ever so slightly and somebody hits this guitar arpeggio for the first time — yeah, i don't remember my first listen to the rest of the album after that but i played it several more times in the next day or so.

it's really singular, obviously. i haven't heard every recording ever made, but it sticks out in my mind as starkly unique among the things i have. it signaled a bigger change in sound for them (which really came about on ku-chu camp) but nothing else in their catalogue sounds like it. even the way it was recorded and mastered sounds out of step with everything else around it.

i like the early pop/reggae stuff just fine. some really catchy songs in there, but i definitely prefer the "dreampop fusion" from 95ish onwards. uchu nipppon setagaya was another life-affirming first listen and that material has become my favorite. the album is a stone cold classic and the obsession with clocks and walking throughout pleases me to no end. just felt like one of those first time "five mic" listens walking through the park listening on my headphones. the surrounding material is also excellent. the non-album "season" single i posted upthread was also an instant classic. if you've never heard the walking in the rhythm remixes and you like longform kankyo ongaku sounds, it's exceptional. and ku-chu camp is not far behind all of that. all very definitively classic.

(the movie is great with reservations, btw. focuses solely on "the band," if that makes sense. there's some conflicts and deeper issues hinted at, but i did feel like a few things were maybe glossed over? i don't know the band well enough to say. there is a ton of great candid and archive footage of them. considering that, and sato's behavior as documented in the film, i feel like there's more to the story than they're saying. most likely unsaid out of privacy, which is more than respectable imo. i did finish the film with a deep sense of melancholy as the revamped band rips into "ゆらめき in the air" over the credits and motegi talks about how they want to honor sato's legacy by continuing to play his music. i can't think of anything else i would want to do if were i in his position. and yet. always gonna be a big blue tear on that smiley face next to fishmans. if you like the band, definitely watch the film.)

and here i am: still alive and still reading this discussion board and looking for more fuel. and that brings me back around to thanking you, stir + moka. i was geeking out when i saw your exchange. i don't know the whole story, but i believe both of you did play a part in the revival of that album and that song. it's because of people like you, i'm able to look it up on streaming and just be able to hear it.

which i did yesterday on my walk and immediately added "shinzo no tibira" to my `radio station` playlist. !!!tytytytytytyty!!!

anyway. as you were.

hugs 2 u austin. please stick around and keep posting <3

Cosign, I've loved reading your take on Fishmans and greatly enjoyed the documentary. I think I mentioned it upthread but I'd be interested to know what you thought of another favourite Japanese band of mine, Clammbon (whose singer Ikuko Harada is a talking head in the doc).

i third that emotion xx

Austin: that’s some deep stuff you’re sharing. I can relate as I myself have been called feisty around here and I believe in the therapeutic aspects of music. There’s been many times in my life where music has been my shelter. Even in the minor things: I might be the only one of my friends who doesn’t stress while driving in heavy traffic because it gives me time to listen to music calmly.

That said, while I feel very happy I could provide you with at least a new discovery you love, please reach out and seek professional help. We all want you to stick around.

hi i just reread my post and i didn't mean for it to have such a despairing tone. polar opposite, in fact. this place, you folks, and the things it leads me to are nothing but pure inspiration and happiness.

mares i have clammbon in my queue. ty!

(also steve monite is cool! nice!)

Austin, the Imagination record might be a good place to start, esp the tune called 'Folklore' :)

And speaking of loops or quasi-loops, it's not quite decades old (2005), but it's well worth posting this monster. As someone said, it hooks to a reptilian part of your brain and does not let go. It's probably my most amazing obscure find these past 10 years. Not that it had no following, but I can only imagine it will grow in popularity.

Ladybird - Shit and Shine

I've heard some of Shit and Shine's stuff, but never this. It's on Bandcamp now. I've listened to the whole thing twice since reading your post and it's crazy that even with the extreme length and repetition I find I want to listen again almost as soon as it's over.

Austin, that was a super inspiring post and glad you are here posting <3

hi thank you for listening!

also thank you mares, i liked imagination. it has a bit more of an "alternative" kind of feel, but yes good songs! will get to the others in time.

xp beard papa, I was turned on to Ladybird a couple weeks ago and I had the same reaction as you. It's the kind of record that deserves a rabid cult following if it doesn't have one already

...which is essentially what the post you quoted says lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aroJNFXGaOk

polaris covers "SEASON" from their 2017 ep-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5T-9ig8bbg

very faithful rendition that has brought tears to my eyes.

I really love that first Polaris album. All their other stuff I've heard is good, but that first album is a doozy. Especially the last track. I actually like them way more than Fishmans. It's music I can put on while I'm focusing on something to buoy my mood while I work, but it also plays just as well in a less ambient context.

agreed that they do "ambient pop" really well. the past week or so, i've just been putting on a few albums or several eps in a row to have on in the background. i listen passively, but still find some of the melodies stick with me pretty closely. it's like kankyo ongaku in pop music form. but ultimately, yeah also agree the first one is the go-to if you've only got time for one.

...but if you really like what's happening on that album, well, shucks friend, i don't wanna spoil anything but i think you might be alright with your decision to keep going through their discography.

also i love that they repeat some songs between eps and albums. makes those binge listening sessions feel a bit more cohesive.

most of the polaris catalogue, like i said, is a lot of moody, vampy 7+ minute meditations.

but they're also an absolutely incredible singles band. i posted "空間" above and that's one of their genuine pop single attempts (p successful one imo). when they merge these two (moody vamp vs more conventional structure), the results are actually fucking astounding afaic-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBoG9JNHU88
polaris - "深海 / 点滅と明滅をくりかえす" (2015)

lots of live footage on the tube; they're not very charismatic but they play under a blue light quite frequently and holy shit are they tight. i mean, they're one of those rock bands where a few of the members reference sheet music while performing, so yeah. kinda of the opinion that you don't need good banter if your music smashes that fucking hard.

and a final thought for now: i love yusuke oya's androgynous vocals. quickly becoming one of my favorite singers.

hi so quick thing: yusuke has some solo recordings from the past couple years. all one-offs and only listed under kanji on spotify (search オオヤユウスケ). only a handful of tunes, all basically a more electronic iteration of that soft rock polaris mood (he doesn'treally play guitar at all on these). here's "weekend" from 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrLVZshVzxw

it's all fantastic and i am officially in love with him.😎

(also: polaris on indefinite hiatus? hope not, but if it means more stuff like this, can't be too upset)

uhm, hi dummy if you'd stop being such a fucking hipster and search his name in english, you'd see he released an entire full length in 2019. it's all voice and guitar, sounds like polaris demos, highlights his virtuosity on his instrument, and he covers a shinji sato tune to close it out.

okay, fine. i'll just listen to him all day, every day. sheesh.

(but seripusly, stereo is quite a nice little supplement. very reminiscent of those longer, sparse polaris songs where he meditates for 8 minutes or more. everything here is much more concise and less ethereal. i can't even reconcile his guitar playing here though. he's a really good guitarist, holy hell)

i surely wanted to write something about my end of year favorites this year and have it be something new. something fresh. something contemporary. but, like the first track title on the excruciatingly disappointing andre3000 album, the wind had other ideas. the wind in this case is the hype. andre knew. i wish i had known. oh well.

(and what an amazing microcosm of why i just can't have the same level of enthusiasm for contemporary music that i will always have for catalogue music — yes i recognize the inherent contradiction there)

one look back at my missives on this thread will make the year's hero obvious: shinji sato was either an alien or a savant that could hear what's on the other end of the wormhole. he saw with his ears and that he was able to try and document it is nothing short of a miracle. humble faux reggae beginnings morphed into cheesy mutant pop, shibuya r+b, and then into the infinite funk dub of long season, "ゆらめき" and beyond. straight into the center of the universe; the introspect of a dude and his guitar sorting out his escape plan. what a rewarding heartbreak. i wish i was him.

but that's fishmans. they have become an institution and legendary unit by now. the discourse around them is so thorough and so... well, everywhere. they're kind of like the record nerd's beatles: a story so perfect, so rewarding, and so captivating that even the biggest cynic probably still vibes on "nightcruising."

fishmans changed my life. corny or dramatic of me to say, but still straight up facts. i'd have fucked off into oblivion myself if i had never sought out long season. the band stopped existing without its conductor, so bassist yuzuru kashiwabara founded polaris a year or so later. in yusuke oya, he secured a different kind of guide; more a co-pilot, really. while yuzurusan was the deep, reliable foundation in fishmans and sato leaned on him heavily, that was always going to be sato's show and nothing else — and to be clear, the gig as documented on the now recognized monumental live album 98.12.28 男達の別れ was to be yuzuru’s last. he wanted to move on.

polaris doesn't really pick up where fishmans left off —yusuke is a much better singer and far more subtle guitarist whose interests are not necessarily conventional, but just a bit less eccentric than shinji— however the two bands are, naturally, forever linked despite their distinct characters. polaris has a very familiar sound and really mines it for all its worth, while fishmans never got the chance to repeat themselves. every once in a while, polaris goes fully acoustic. right now, i can't even think of a single instance of an acoustic guitar on a fishmans record (not saying there isn't, it's just not as important). both bands liked to go in many directions, sometimes all at once but both also have an instantly identifiable groove. the same scene begat both groups, only the belief in the artificial safety of time defines their sonic differences. however, if you liked fishmans, will you like polaris? probably, yeah. they clearly are receiving some of the same frequencies that shinji was picking up on.

but, outside of the general sentiment of, “riyl fishmans!” nobody really talks about polaris. fishmans ended with the 90s and polaris has endured ever since. in my estimation, they’re one of the best bands of the 2000s. easily on par with radiohead in terms of perceived poignance. better and far more resonating pop singles than any of coldplay’s fluff. none of the stuffiness or overbearing oomph of arcade fire, but all of the irresistible melodrama. and i can guarantee they’re more consistent than anybody else i can come up with (i’m even willing to concede that they’re working with a more dependable track record than my beloved bobby wratten and the sea and cake’s respective outputs during the period). but i never heard them until this year because reasons i fucking guess IDK man.

hrmph.

when people think of fishmans, they probably think of long season. rightly so: it’s a perfect summary of their innovation, virtuosity, and.. well, it also fucking jams pretty hard, so there’s that. but what if i told you that polaris has made several mini-long seasons, like one per album? these 10+ minute conceptions that are able to get into serious grooves and move your heart in equal measure. i remember the first time i heard long season and it made me wonder about my place in the universe to the point that it inspired me. to do what? idk, keep going? not give up, not give in, always remember the beauty and love of the world in the face of the worst shit imaginable; its unfolding layers giving way to more harmonies, which evolved into more melodic mazes and which eventually redeemed, like peeling back the layers of trauma and finally finding solace. it also gave me a catchy tune to carry in my heart along the way. fuck yeah.

so yeah, polaris does that. quite easily, in fact. instead of going on for 35 or 40 minutes about it, they give you the cliff’s notes. “光る音” is case in point. three different recordings are contained throughout their catalogue and none of them clock in at more than 11 minutes. the cascading arpeggio (which, to me, is intentionally reminiscent of the classic long season piano loop) gives way to the main riff which then gives way to the vocal harmony, unfolding just like the example long season set out. the song first appeared on their 2012 ep of the same title and finally wound up on their 2015 full length music (maybe my favorite of their albums?). but that was by the time they were well-established and the song is fittingly masterful. they’d been doing it ever since their very first ep from 2001, on which there was really only two songs: “光と影” and “slow motion” — a good back to back set if you have about 25 minutes to kill and just want to zone out to some hypnotic grooves. fishmans proposed it, polaris perfected it. hell, they even covered “SEASON” on their 2017 Hashiru ep and did a spiritual sequel to “walking in the rhythm” on their 2006 album 空間. in polaris, “SEASON” becomes an unbothered vampy breeze while the wah’d out steady dub of “walking music” takes its cues and forms a new path. respectful of their inceptions while also politely trying to outdo them.

(ED NOTE: amelioration makes shinji happy)

i’d like to take a moment here to appreciate one of the secondary (but no less important) figures and her significance in the fishmans sphere: violinist 本地陽子 became such an integral part of the fishmans sound by the end, it makes perfect sense that polaris would incorporate strings into their music, sand out the rough edges and layer it all back on top of a ragga-informed movement. yep, polaris created what i’m officially labeling `CHAMBER DUB.` these songs show up occasionally all over their albums, reminiscent of the faux electro-dub of someone like vladislav delay, but jamming around with thievery corporation’s poppiest moments. yusuke oya’s affinity for wordless ”deee-deh-deh-deeeeeeee” vocalizations show up most frequently on these tracks, another section of musical smorgasbord. i’m not always sure what to make of these jams, but one thing is always for certain: the drop beat never sounded as stately.

(short addendum: she never collaborated with anyone from fishmans after shinji’s exit. honji “honzi” yōko passed away in 2007. respect.)

one thing that i have had the most trouble with is just exactly how to classify this music. sure, it’s just some guys in a rock band trying their damnest to not play boring old rock’n’roll. but i’m only human and i need to know: what do i call it? it’s comforting in this respect that, just for a random example, discogs describes the first polaris ep as containing aspects of all of the following styles: rock, pop, folk, world, alternative rock, post rock, jazz-rock, and shoegaze. elsewhere, they also get labeled as dub, dream pop, and even ambient — i mean, yeah, all of that is in there and they put little kankyo ongaku interludes all over their records too. but, also like fishmans, they are full of straight up pop songs. and these are some of their best moments. i’ve gone on record already: “one” from their 2015 album music is unconditionally and firmly my favorite song 2023. it’s “plastic love” meets “nightcruising” and we will fly forever. yusuke sounds celestial atop the glassy synths and it’s so catchy i can’t distinguish between verse and chorus. when he hits that falsetto at about the five minute mark, i’m usually not in the proper place to understand why i shouldn’t play it again immediately. it wasn’t a single, but who cares. a monolith is a monolith. respect it.

the song from that album that was a promoted single —”深海”— is the definitive polaris jam. everything is there: yuzuru’s deep bassline, dreamy delayed out chords, chamber dub violin, and yusuke’s compassionate croon. it’s almost like two versions of itself: in a rare move, they break up the song and jam portions into their own track markers —the jam portion is titled “点滅と明滅をくりかえす”— making it the listener’s choice if you want to stop with the concise iteration or dive in further. choose your own adventure in music form; shinji is smiling. other places, they do strummy jangle pop (“namioto”), fake chamber disco (“see the light”), the lightest soft rock cliches you can conjure (“it’s all right!”), and completely alluring, almost twee, indie pop (“空間”).

where does all of this leave me? a better person? a more accepting humanist? an even bigger, even more obnoxious hipster? i don’t know. it’s been a shitty year for me personally and i don’t think it’s going to get better anytime soon. i’ve had this music with me the entire time. it saved my life once, who knows, maybe i’ll stick around a while longer, polaris will reconvene, and i’ll just have to keep fucking going. oh well.

can’t stay mad when the jams are this hot.

i’ve compiled three playlists, all just over an hour long, highlighting the different aspects of polaris. you can hear them on spotify:
—”the band plays on the radio”: the best of the polaris pop songs.
—”the band's performance is very long and very beautiful”: the best of the polaris epics.
—”the band plays something else”: the best of the polaris chamber dubs.

thank you so much for reading. this music will never die.

Thanks for the playlists! Time for me to dig in.

worth a listen

https://archive.org/details/fishmans981228

really good post, thanks for writing it all up!