Technopop Eien Returns! (P-MODEL & Susumu Hirasawa)
There are so many ways in which the casual listener can view the history of Japanese popular music. It is easy to run into tales of popular music's arc changing wildly as the Economic Bubble of the 1980s took hold and the sounds of Keiko Fuji were mutating into hybrid forms closer to that of their western counterparts. Disco (which apparently has never really left the Jpop-o-sphere as of this writing) was king, and thusly a small, but dedicated invasion of punk music and its mutated cousins also moved in, leaving even more cultural stones turned, and giving an ear to a generation ready to embrace the uncertain future ahead. As in the west, techno fused art pop had begun to appear in less glamourous parts of the nation in the form of projects such as HIKASHU, Plastics, and P-MODEL. Clearly taking a strum from the schools of John Cage, Brian Eno with Roxy Music, and inevitably bouncing back with DEVO, and the oncoming "new wave", P-MODEL was a bold, jarring & hopelessly catchy project featuring early synth technology mixed with a smart alecky sense that things were indeed changing in Nihon.
Led by the ubiquitous Susumu Hirasawa, P-MODEL's formation came after a short time in the progressive rock band MANDRAKE, which was more Pink Floyd/King Crimson than the electro punk silliness that was to overtake Japan in 1979. Not a whole lot is known about the earliest parts of this group except to mention that there is indeed a sound that was forming that in many ways mirrored the directions a certain Danny Elfman was taking with his classic group, Oingo Boingo.
Read The Rest Here!
Led by the ubiquitous Susumu Hirasawa, P-MODEL's formation came after a short time in the progressive rock band MANDRAKE, which was more Pink Floyd/King Crimson than the electro punk silliness that was to overtake Japan in 1979. Not a whole lot is known about the earliest parts of this group except to mention that there is indeed a sound that was forming that in many ways mirrored the directions a certain Danny Elfman was taking with his classic group, Oingo Boingo.
Read The Rest Here!