I had my alarm set weeks in advance to wake up early and set up the living room to attend ALICE NINE.’s grand finale from afar. I set up a moon light on the windowsill near the loveseat and Scout hopped up to lie down beside it, as though he could sense the gravity and anticipation in the air.
There were audio and connection issues in the beginning and so I missed the first thirty seconds, but then–
アリス九號. never fails to surprise me, and it was in exactly that way that the Last Galaxy live began. I truly hadn’t expected the first song in the setlist to be GEMINI-0-eternal, but when they then leapt right into 閃光 after it I was both delighted and confused at the choice. Until I understood what they were actually doing!
The idea to weave the GEMINI suite evenly among the other songs in the main setlist was an incredible one, not least because it’s something they’d never decided to do before. But Saga is a storyteller when it comes to music.
It truly was a climax of a live the whole way through, with them playing their hearts out during each and every song; they were absolutely bursting with confidence and good humour (or intensity) as they played so many beloved big numbers and classics from their discography. The beauty of this live wasn’t simply the songs they played, but the energy and atmosphere they gave off while playing the flow of this setlist.
Even just watching from home, I was in awe and felt so proud of the amazing live they played — a culmination of their history, their hard work together, and also a celebration of the sheer fun they have onstage performing music for us 九組達.
A celebration of the world of sound they created, one that transports us to imagined realms.
They did two encores… and if you think I didn’t sit on my loveseat at home and clap, chanting アンコール in time with everyone at the venue until they came back on stage, you’re mistaken 🙂
アンコール!アンコール!★ミ
I love that they did the G3 line dance on stage, and from there it just got wilder and wilder! The sheer hotness of Saga headbanging his way through the song… the sheer hilarity of a drummer in a Nao-mask coming to replace Nao on drums so that he could run around in the crowd for a couple minutes… lol! Utter fun to see how this classic retained its roots and grew into something even bigger.
Ending the first encore on 春夏秋冬 was so feel-good and it’s kind of wonderful that the song has mostly stayed the same since the beginning. You might say the song is like a time capsule of their energy from 2005!
I chanted アンコール with great anticipation before they returned to play the second and final encore.
I teared up at the beginning of Waterfall, but by the end was smiling again at how beautifully they brought the song to life. Shou then thanked everyone individually in a quiet, heartfelt MC, during which Saga gave him a hug instead of replying in words. After that, it was time for the big, beautiful finale.
Grace and the beautiful name.
A breathtakingly beautiful flow of songs to purify the heart.
To me, the beautiful name has always been and will always be pure joy.
Next to beauty of Waterfall and Grace, it soared even higher.
言葉にあまりできないほどに、素晴らしかったです…♡
After the live, Saga made sure to point out the two suites besides GEMINI that had been nestled into the live. birth in the death and Living Dead, which were played during the setlist flow between GEMINI-I-the void and GEMINI-II-the luv, form a suite that links the GEMINI album to the GRACE album. Then, at the very end and for the first time, they played Grace and the beautiful name one after the other — the second suite, this one connecting GRACE to VANDALIZE. Thus, Saga explained afterwards, GEMINI GRACE VANDALIZE are not a circle of albums (as I had been thinking), but a line — with I. as the first song and Waterfall as the ending of the album trilogy.
I love Saga, the way he thinks and creates ♡♪
So without further ado, the piece I made inspired by some of the compositions Saga has made that I love most. The day before the live I woke up with an image in my mind and spent the rest of the morning trying to draw it on the page… even colouring the piece in and picking the perfect dried flowers out of my collection to add to the imagery.
The Phoenix of the jelly fish Galaxy
Within a universe of pure white darkness floats a galaxy like a jelly fish inside which the life force of a Phoenix will be burning bright for eternity 真っ白な闇という宇宙には 浮かんでる海月のような 銀河の中で Phoenixの命の炎が 永久に燃えてるよ
May our Last Galaxy be graced.
For this art piece, I borrowed from the concept of birth in the death and Phoenix again, as well as GRADATION and jelly fish — and I borrowed from the grandeur, love, and beauty of songs like Grace, the beautiful name, GEMINI, and Waterfall… another little homage 🙂
One flower is gently floating off into the void of pure white darkness (a favourite bit of lyric symbolism), and another flower has just bloomed on the jellyfish galaxy. Or is the galaxy a phoenix? Or is the phoenix a universe? Are those little golden raindrops stars or nascent galaxies, tiny-huge nebulas?
I wonder… ♪
Thank you so much アリス九號.… Thank you.
I enjoyed this live to the fullest and I think Saga did too… the setlist was gorgeous.
Until we meet again, let’s protect ALICE NINE.’s world and the songs that made it.
Saga with all the other members of ALICE NINE. — SHOU, HIROTO, TORA, and Nao — will take to the stage in a grand finale, thanks to the tireless efforts of their staff and the whole team behind the scenes helping to set everything up and make it as magical as possible.
I won’t be there in person, but I will be there in spirit, thanks to the live broadcast that they’re putting on for everyone who wasn’t able to make it out or wasn’t able to get their hands on a ticket (because they went so quickly!). During his pizza party the other night, Saga said with a laugh that their last rehearsal before the finale had “felt normal” and that’s kind of how I feel going into this live as a fan.
It’s bittersweet to not have been able to manage going in person, but even knowing that it’s their last planned live for some time (as you can never know what the future holds, or what things each member will pursue after the freeze), it still feels strangely normal. Part of that feeling might stem from the fact that I already knew it was possible that the last live of theirs I’d get to attend would be last November — and so I enjoyed every moment then to the fullest. I wish I’d been able to go to the tour this summer… but even having wanted to do that, I don’t regret in any way going in November instead and having the experiences there that I did. It was the right time to go. And it healed something inside of me. And goddamn were those lives ever fun. Incredible. Being bathed in the visceral sound of Saga’s bass lines… 🙂
I know that Last Galaxy is not a normal live, and I know that I’ll feel that fully when I’m in the moment. Right now what I feel is gratitude — that I get to attend this moment from afar. There was no live broadcast for TOKYO GALAXY, and there was no broadcast for their 10th anniversary pre-hiatus live either. But I get to be there in spirit for this historical, emotional, sure-to-be-amazing live.
If Saga felt like the rehearsal was “normal” then maybe that means that he feels satisfied with the setlist he proposed, and that none of them felt rushed or unsatisfied with the flow of the live they are choosing to play together. Sounds like readiness, confidence, and peace to me.
The perfect emotional base upon which to heat up that venue and rock us all out, move us deeply.
I’m so excited to hear, see, and experience this live that as soon as I woke up I started drawing and writing something as a little homage to this momentous occasion. And now I’m off to add the finishing touches 🙂
Saga and ALICE NINE. have completed their Act 4 Summer tour and now all that’s left is the big finale in September. It seems pretty definitive that I won’t be able to travel to Japan and attend in person… but I will be with Saga and the band in spirit. It is sad… logistically, I just can’t see a way to do it, barring a miracle. So I’m just going to support and cheer on from afar and look forward to (hopefully) going to attend something that Saga does after the freeze… ♡♪
I’m currently working on interview translations for the deep-dive for Funeral (so much glorious content) and then I’ll move on to the GEMINI suite. It is strange, I admit, but even though I consider the GEMINI suite (and album, of course) to have been such a huge influence in my art, I’ve kind of been skirting around the prospect of translating the lyrics of the suite in full. Oh, I’ve read them many times (listened even more) — it’s just that, I’ve been afraid of making them sound less epic than they are. But that’s silly. The original poetry will shine through no matter what. It helps that a fellow 9kumi asked me if I planned to do deep-dives on those songs, giving me an even more concrete reason to face that imposter syndrome and just do the thing!
So there you have it.
I’m doing it.
And the imagery of the lyrics is exactly as rich, as introspective, and as epic as the music sounds.
It was much later than I’d planned, but I finally recorded the Brothers Grimm fairytale that I rewrote to start the newest series that will be part of The Side B Anthology: Sable’s Tales, or ST for short. It was really fun to adapt The Seven Ravens in my own writing style and so I will slowly add more to the series. It was fun to record the narration too, of course; here’s an outtake of me making fun of one of my voices to Scout (who attended the recording by snoozing underneath the comforter of the bed behind me).
This weekend I intended to sit down at my laptop and write more for Casseltaur, but instead had a sudden flash of inspiration for the next fairytale re-write so I ended up typing away at that instead until I had a first draft. As a kid, one of my favourites was Little Red Riding Hood, but having read a few versions and retellings over the years, I had a very clear idea of how I wanted to shape it in my own words.
This is basically just a fix-it fic lol.
Casseltaur, meanwhile, gets weirder each time I sit down to do the worldbuilding for it.
Which, of course, is a good thing. :p
I’m now on week two at my new job and the amount of change it has brought about in my day-to-day life already is incredible. Scout and I get lots more time together, for one thing. Aside from that, my commute is actually pretty energizing now (what?!), and I have so much more time and energy during the week to clean, run errands, and even write and translate. The new team I’ve joined are great bunch of clever, funny people and I’ve barely scratched the surface so far of what I’m going to need to learn to do this new job correctly, but they’re all very supportive, and this kind of challenge is exactly what I wanted.
Also, this week I started watching episodes of Gundam The Witch From Mercury before work while eating breakfast. It really takes me back to my childhood, watching anime in the morning over a bowl of cereal… キャリバーンがやっとデター!Obviously I want to watch the latest Dragon Ball stuff (lol), but the next thing on my list is とつくにの少女 (The Girl From The Other Side), which I started reading the manga of a year or so ago, but stopped because I couldn’t get the next volume, I think. In any case, I hope watching it will be just as beautiful and mysterious.
In terms of live-action TV, what I recently finished watching was the arctic season (6) of the survival series “Alone” (set in Northwest Territories, Canada). I used to watch quite a number of similar wilderness survival series back in the day because seeing people living off the land and personally finding the pockets of abundance in a given landscape is both impressive and soothing, in a way. CONTEXT and Casseltaur both involve living in an arctic zone at some points in the plot, so my watching was sort of research-ish…? I did learn a number of really cool facts as I watched, anyway.
Also: one of the survival experts was basically an arctic Forrest Gump… if that isn’t a good enough endorsement, I don’t know what is. Haha.
One of the survival experts made an incredibly beautiful, durable shelter and was just so adept at creating handmade things from natural materials. Another was doing fine in terms of shelter and food but decided to leave early because he realized that time with his wife and kids was more valuable than the prize money (or bragging rights) he could win if he spent more time away from them… nothing but respect from me for that mindset.
Last night it was a documentary about the concept of infinity that I watched (A Trip to Infinity) and it was a delightfully strange thought exercise for my mind — it gave me goosebumps in the best possible way. I think it’s safe to consider this research-ish as well. As much time as I’ve spent thinking about the concept of infinity and of how our universe is configured, there were several things I hadn’t considered before — facts that tilted, stretched, and reframed my imagination and thinking on the subject.
The office surprised me with a pizza lunch the day before my last, and I really do mean surprised. I was working the last thirty minutes til my actual lunchtime, enjoying my music and the stillness of the room as everyone else went to work in another, when my fellow team lead came up to my desk with a serious question and asked if we could go talk. I felt kind of concerned and followed her. She led me to the closed board room door saying we should talk in there and motioned for me to open the door. When I saw that the room was completely full of coworkers apparently having a meeting, I automatically made to close the door, but before it was shut, everyone was saying “surprise!”
Feeling somewhere between sheepish and embarrassed, I went inside and thanked them (my fellow team lead had not allowed me to shut the door and make the tactical retreat I had intended to).
My embarrassment wore off as they started cutting the pizzas, and I thanked them all again (also mock-complained, “you guys really got me!”). Those two huge slices were definitely a tasty alternative to the sandwich that I had brought with me that morning.
Then, finally, it was my last day at the office I’d been working at for years, that I was going in to every day for most of the pandemic. I’d had quite a bit of notice and time to prepare beforehand so all of my responsibilities and jobs had been neatly handed over to others before I left (with plenty of time to train each person and make sure they were comfortable with the hand-over), the result being that I had no regrets upon stepping out the door for the last time yesterday afternoon.
I felt light, ready for the next chapter of my life to begin.
So I decided to kick it off by leaving early and going to Bluesfest for the first time since 2019.
Going back to this music festival after so many years was fun, even comforting — but I am also so much more centered now than I was back then. It didn’t feel like a new beginning, it felt like taking the next step in my life by leaving my old job, and then setting foot in this familiar place, days away from starting a new one.
The weather was warm but the breeze was cool making of the evening a perfect one for going to see some bands play outdoors.
I was a little late arriving to the River Stage for the first act, Pony Girl, so I encountered them mid-song, having never heard them play before. They were having such a blast on stage, it was impossible not to get into their music. When they suddenly played a clarinet solo outta left field, I knew I was in the right place, their songs delightfully unusual — art pop being a music genre I hadn’t been familiar with until their performance. Thumbs up for these talented, energetic, local musicians!
The frontman told the crowd they were having an amazing time playing for us that evening, which was especially important considering the night before had been the exact opposite: their rehearsal space had started flooding… with sewage. Yikes, man. He gave us extremely clear (read: comically roundabout) directions to the merch tent to buy their new album, and then got emotional thanking us for coming out to see them — because there’s nothing quite as special as “playing music with your best friends.”
And it showed. They just kept grinning at one another, sharing said jam session among friends with us, the crowd.
We cheered as they ended their set and began clearing away their instruments and equipment for the next band as the sun began to set.
As the sun continued to set, casting warm golden light onto the stage, Allison Russell came out with her band, beaming at us in her glittering blazer. Though she lives and works in the US, Allison Russell explained (en français) that she grew up in Montréal and that performing at Ottawa Bluesfest had been a longtime dream of hers. A dream so big that she’d missed her daughter’s first performance in a play to fulfil it… and we, the crowd, were grateful for her and her band’s presence that night.
I’d never heard any of Allison Russell’s music before and was touched by her lyrical storytelling through her radiant singing voice and radiant, radical message of love, peace, and acceptance. She spoke of growing up with an abusive adoptive father, of running away from the abuse, finding her chosen family, and of slowly unlearning the shame that her adoptive father had forced on her through his white supremacist ideals. It made the overpowering sense of love, compassion, empathy, and acceptance in her songs that much more beautiful. She introduced each member of the band as part of her circle, her chosen family, and all four of them radiated with purpose as they played, whether the song was sad and heartfelt or whether it was uplifting and euphoric.
They took their final bow to our enthusiastic applause.
The crowd packed in elbow-to-elbow as they cleared away equipment and rearranged the stage between bands; the sun had set entirely when Fleet Foxes came onstage as a cheer went up from the crowd. Their opening vocal harmonies were so soft, so clear, and finally seeing them live I understood that up to four band members would sing together at once for those beautiful, layered melodies, that it wasn’t several tracks layered together as I had figured. It was a wonder to see and to hear. I was also fascinated by all the different instruments they played throughout the performance.
The crowd was utterly thrilled by the performance (me included), singing along to songs, whooping, cheering, calling out to the band — and the band seemed pleasantly surprised by this enthusiasm, with the frontman continually exclaiming “thank you so much!” with a grin after almost every song.
Hey man, that’s our line! 🙂
It was particularly meaningful to me to hear Your Protector, Blue Ridge Mountains, and Blue Spotted Tail live, three of my favourite songs by them. Your Protector gave me chills… Blue Spotted Tail was so quiet and beautiful, the lyrics deeply touching. Something about Blue Ridge Mountain’s lyrics just puts the coziest sort of image in my mind.
I heard about their self-titled album through one of Saga’s entries on his old ameblo. It wasn’t nearly as easy to sample albums back in those days, so I just decided to trust Saga’s taste and buy it on a whim — it became one of the most-listened to albums in my library (especially when I was writing), and is the album that clued me in to the fact that folk rock is one of my favourite genres. Thanks, Saga! ♪
They played right up until the minute it turned 11, and then they stopped and left the stage… an Ottawa bylaw prohibits loud noises past that time, so even though the whole crowd was ready to call out “one more song!” (and I’m sure the band would have wanted to play one) they wouldn’t have been allowed to do an encore.
It was a gorgeous concert.
I made my way home, tired but glad that I’d gotten to hear such great sets, and went to bed as Saga and アリス九號., on the other side of the world, were setting up to play what would turn out to be a seriously wild and passionate live at 新潟NEXS… ♡♪
It was truly a momentous occasion at ホームBASS last night, as Scout discovered that mixed in with cans of food and a bag of litter were some new toys! But not just any toys. Bath toys. That float.
He hasn’t had another bath yet, but he was absolutely delighted to just be able to admire his new ocean friends before bed.
This morning I drifted back and forth between the offline writing laptop and the web-dev laptop, preparing a new page for Alice9Lives while Scout cooled off, belly-up, on the hardwood floor. He’s a perfectly strange character, and I wouldn’t have it any other way! Just after breakfast, he was having fun untying the bow of the ribbon I use to keep some kitchen cupboards shut. He untied it and then carried the ribbon over to me, utterly pleased with himself. I had to figure out another way to tie it to keep my little tactician out of trouble lol
I spent the afternoon chatting with other writers at the monthly pub meet-up and aside from just relaxing and catching eachother up on our writing lives (during which time I heard yet more interesting bits of advice), we also discussed how to keep the monthly meet-ups going because the current Ottawa Writers’ Circle is set to close at the end of the month. We sat around the pub tables and discussed rudimentary plans to keep parts of the group going under a new name. At the very least, we wanted to make sure we’d all know where and when to meet up again the following month.
I volunteered a subdomain for this purpose (until or unless we decide to buy a domain as a group), and others volunteered to take on organizational responsibilities so we could carry over some elements of the original group (it has a huge online user base and had many events, so we just chose to focus on maintaining the core elements for now).
Much like last month, a contingent of introverts stayed behind at the end for a bit of extra conversation (myself included) and then, once more running into another meet-up group that needed our space, we said a quick goodbye and headed our separate ways. My feet carried me to a newer shop downtown: Midori Gifts.
Correction: I intended to go to right to Midori Gifts to peruse the cute stationery imported from East Asia, and was on the right street, but I walked almost four blocks in the wrong direction. Yep. I completely passed the store front. When I finally checked the map and realized my mistake, I felt incredibly embarrassed (also amused) and made a u-turn. The store’s selection was exactly as cute as I’d expected. I may or may not have bought a new eraser and sketching pen to add to my regular lineup…
Oh, I got one other thing out of the afternoon: a mild sunburn. This, despite having slathered on sunscreen beforehand! Ah, well… nothing a bit of deep moisturizing tonight and tomorrow won’t soothe. I was craving a salad of all things on the way home (fun fact: the tastiest salad I’ve had in the city so far is from my fav pizza bar) so I picked up some greens and Scout and I have been settled in at home ever since. In fact, we’re enjoying having the windows open for some fresh air tonight, since there’s no smoke and the temperature has cooled…
Over in Japan, Saga is preparing to go onstage with the other members of アリス九號. in Sapporo… ♡♪
ALICE NINE. have kicked off their nationwide tour and so far it sounds like they’ve been putting on incredible shows, even better than the ones I was able to attend last November. I’m so happy to know that they’re giving every performance their all leading up to 9/3 and enjoying the hell out of it in the process… meanwhile, Saga’s getting back into collecting Gunpura figures (my heart!), Arsenal’s still doing amazing and holding their own in the Premier League (great motivation for Saga, surely) and Hiroto started a coordinated, daily effort to get アリス九號.’s name trending, and it’s worked two days in a row so far! The best part about that effort is, all we have to do to keep the trend up is tweet just once a day, together, about the thing we all love: アリス九號. I love Show’s insistence on savouring each and every live as well — both in his note interview, and in this tweet:
Saga playing bass in a flowy white suit embodies beauty, grooviness, and grace. Such catharsis in the wake of GRACE’s release, especially considering how difficult an undertaking it was…
Exhausting though they are, I’m glad lives are as much of a refuge and a pleasure for the members as they have always been for me as a fan attending — not to mention them being a sandbox for each song to grow during the performances.
It was magic.
It is magic.
A technician showed up at the apartment incredibly early yesterday morning (an hour earlier than I’d been expecting) in order to switch me to a new internet service provider, and even though Scout was giving me an expression of trepidation, he came right up to the technician as he was taking off his boots. That’s how Scout is — brave, and unwilling to let me face a dangerous or new situation alone. He’s such a good boy. What was particularly interesting, though, was that when people I know personally have come over, Scout has gone right up to them and sniffed their hands or rubbed against their legs, but he must have sensed that I considered the technician a stranger (albeit a friendly one) because Scout kept a polite distance from him the whole time, just as I did.
Later in the day I went out to meet up with the Ottawa Writers Circle for a casual in-person event, and despite my initial reticence at de-hermitting myself on a weekend (oh, the horror!), it was a great experience. I picked up several interesting ideas for new avenues to explore in terms of writing (mainly: narrative VR), and more importantly, I got to listen to elevator pitches, pain points, and the thought processes behind the works my fellows are currently writing (or had recently finished writing) which was both inspiring and motivating. I’d give all of their stuff a read. There was a ridiculous amount of imagination crammed into the seats at that pub.
Also reassuring (yet nerve-wracking) was the experience of giving my own elevator pitch and trying to describe the ever-weird TE novella, as I hadn’t really been discussing it with anyone in person up to this point (…does my therapist count?). I did post a somewhat snarky 1-star faux-review on the discord channel as part of one of our question of the day prompts though:
Too many random poetry interstitials. Author keeps trying to engage you in conversation yet constantly interrupts. Do not go into this acid trip of a forest.
Now I just need to word it in a less snarky, earnest manner and I’ll be good to go.
It was refreshing to be among like-minded writers.
Their next album, titled GRACE, will be released on the 2nd of November 2022, and will kick off a nationwide tour that same month, which will end in a grand finale to be played on the 24th of December 2022. They also announced the commencement of preorders being taken (through the fanclub only) for the limited edition of their new album, which will include all 10 tracks of the album on a CD, along with a Bluray disc containing the album’s two music videos along with the entirety of their finale performance for the Brutal Revelation tour this past spring.
As if that weren’t enough great news for one day, they also unveiled their newest music video, which promotes the last track on their new album.
Grace
The album name is in uppercase, while the title track is in lowercase. And yes, it does share the name of a compilation album they did a limited release for back in 2016, but this deeply-significant word and concept clearly deserved a revival.
One of Saga’s influences going way back was Jeff Buckley’s album Grace, and just last year for their 17th Anniversary live, in which they played the entirety of their GEMINI album, they played the Buckley track Grace in the livehouse while fans were still finding their seats and waiting for the concert to start. I’ve made no secret over the years of how much I love and have been inspired by ALICE NINE.’s album GEMINI so being able to watch that performance as it happened, even from afar, was in all honesty a dream come true for me. It was bliss. That being said, I am also a fan of the album Grace, which I started listening to because of the fact that Saga blogged about it years ago, and it’s continued to influence me over the years as well. Thanks, Saga! 🙂
I don’t know if the new album title (or the title of this lead track) had already been decided, even back then, but I thought that was a beautiful connection. A little premonition of what was to come, back when Saga first tweeted a hint that a very significant album for ALICE NINE. was on the horizon.
Grace is a Saga composition, and one that has been in the works since early 2020, though Saga tweeted to say that it wasn’t originally meant to be released as an ALICE NINE. song, which is why there are vestiges of Saga in it (that is, Saga sang extensive harmonies with Show in it). I’ve included the translated tweets below. If you compare the still cover image used on Funeral to that of Grace before you watch the video, you’ll note that Funeral features only Show on it, while Grace features a still of the entire band mid-playing. That contrast in initial presentation alone in the context of the album is very interesting. But the songs themselves also sound incredibly different in feel and atmosphere. I’ve already written at length about how much I love Funeral, so I’ll just get right into my love for Grace.
March 31st 2020 In times like this I make songs I’m making one right now
By the way, this isn’t related to the album or to the band (Saga uploaded a clip of the song-in-progress, which we now know is Grace, and was referring to their album NIGHTLESS CITY EDEN)
September 9th 2022 I’ve had Grace since then, you know. I had neither the intention of making it the lead track of the album nor of doing it with the band, but That’s why, as a sort of relic, I’m singing in it.
As as soon as you press play, it is immediately apparent that Grace is tied to a classic, well-loved ALICE NINE. song: the beautiful name.
A prélude, maybe, or else a companion piece, an homage.
Is this perhaps the long-held idea that Saga mentioned in the last album-related tweet? An idea that Saga then began making a reality in early 2020? We’ll have to wait for interviews and talk events to learn more.
With the long, quiet lead-in, the anticipation builds to an incredible point; I wonder if the long lead-in and outro is just for the music video, or whether all eight minutes are part of the recording on the album proper. Grace is wonderfully layered and complex with a beautiful, uplifting melody; those harmonies between Show and Saga feel like an updraft, continually pulling the song skyward.
Grace is expansive, but it takes its time to unfold.
No rushing. A steady march to take in the glorious scale of the music.
The way that the music bursts with light at 5:47 is nothing short of magnificent.
I am in awe.
This song is a thing of beauty and grace.
The アリス九號.
And in the video, at the end, they all huddle under furs, snow falling over them, waiting for the arrival of spring. Which, of course, is their joy-filled classic, the beautiful name.
The end of the voyage and the day to be graced.
Incorporating lots of slow-motion shots, along with the lengthy intro and outro ending on a shot of a door standing before an ocean, the music video further underscores the epic scale of the music.
Show revealed in a tweet that 武瑠 Takeru (through Akubi Inc Tokyo) was the artistic director of this music video, following his previous work on their CYAN video released in the summer of 2020. Just like the last time, 武瑠 Takeru framed them in a way that hadn’t really been done before. There is something to be said for having a fan take the reins!
Show, September 9th 2022 “Grace” Into irreplaceable days, we load love
I can’t say everything I want to about all the thoughts I have, so please let me talk about them another time. Thank you.
武瑠 Takeru, September 10th 2022 Following CYAN, I’ve been afforded the chance to produce an MV. “The アリス九號.” as a theme was big here, so the idea took some time to think of, but the slow motion staging opened up the creative path in one go. As did the homage to a past song. Once again, congratulations on your 18th anniversary.
Show replied again to Takeru this morning to say, very warmly,
“While busy with an overseas live and his own activities, I got a deep impression from Takeru, who didn’t compromise one bit on the direction of the project or MV. I’m truly grateful he undertook it with us.“
They managed to get trending on Twitter as well both before and after their live, which was all the more significant due to the fact that it coincided with the appearance of the harvest moon. Auspicious.
Grace is the sort of song that doesn’t need you to fully understand it right away. It is the type of song that sounds better with each listen, becoming fuller with each new detail of the sound strata you take notice of. I am going to be very excited to delve into the minutia of the lyrics on release day. Grace must have been spectacular to hear live, and I’m sure it will just become more beautiful as it is played and listened to, as time goes on. A classic in the making.
I think it may also be significant that in the 18th anniversary live, they played Waterfall just before Grace, a song which leads the listener into the beautiful name… those three songs together form quite a breathtaking flow of emotion. I love that they are all being woven together that way. I think it may also be safe to think, at this point, that “Grace” is the beautiful name.
Another element in the アリス九號. mythology given shape.
For the moment though, that’s just my own personal interpretation. We’ll have to wait and see whether they expound on this in interviews and comments in the coming weeks and months. Slowly, the world their music inhabits deepens, unfolds further.
As a longtime fan, I am so proud of them, and am very much looking forward to listening to the entire album, start to finish, when it comes out in two months.
This soundscape, this mindscape is worth the wait.
Saga is well-versed in the art of building anticipation.
With just over a week to go until their 18th anniversary live, Saga tweeted to reveal another detail regarding their next, as-yet-unnamed album, nearly a year to the day after first teasing the news that they were about to embark upon the creation of another deeply significant ALICE NINE. album. The very fact that they aren’t rushing with this release already marks it as being something different from usual, and I have no doubt that the wait is going to make it all the better, more meaningful.
For such a small message, the tweet manages to make a spectacular reveal. Not only did Saga create yet another song suite like their first groundbreaking experiment GEMINI, the latter half of this nearly twelve minute suite makes use of an idea that Saga had been holding on to for over ten years. What was the long-incubating idea? A melody? A sound texture? A technique?
沙我三昧!╰(*´︶`*)╯
I can only imagine, and am so very excited to find out, in time.
August 29th, 2021. Thank you for 17th theatre While I do think that GEMINI is a work that each person has an emotional attachment to, it is, as you might expect, an album with particularly deep significance for ALICE NINE.
It’s unclear whether it will surpass GEMINI However I get the sense that the time has come Where we must create an opus that wholly reveals Everything that the band is.
August 31st, 2022. Although a year has gone by, It’s unclear whether it surpassed GEMINI, but I created a song suite this time that approaches twelve minutes in length with an idea that just about surpasses GEMINI jammed into it The latter part of the song suite is an idea from over ten years ago
I don’t remember the true beginning of the events that followed, but I have a sense that I had spent the previous day at work. Where I worked was a strangely vertical, cramped area above someone’s rather gargantuan living room. I recognized the living room. It was either a very strange imagining of the living room of someone I grew up with, or it was a living room that I used to dream about as a child. Either way, my workstation was above this living room, which had a chasm in the centre of it. I never saw the chasm, I just had the very profound sense that it was there, and that that was why we kept our gazes high or level, and had to use things like ledges, bridges, and rope-swings to get from one side of the living room to the other. When I was in that lower, living room space, I felt like I was a kid again, interacting with other kids. Moving around and across the living room with trepidation, gravity, and a paradoxical ease that I may not felt as an adult. There, I played video games with the other kids whenever we reached the TV — more than likely, we were playing on N64, Dreamcast, or PlayStation, but I don’t remember any specific game or console from the dream. Up some steep, carpeted, curving stairs, was my cramped, carpeted workspace, with other coworkers. I didn’t recognize any of them, and maybe that is simply because I didn’t truly interact with any of them in the dream.
It was a new day.
It seems that I lived with my parents, or at least near enough to them that I could go over in the morning before work and ask if I could drive one of their four cars to my office. This is strange for two reasons: I do not currently and have never had a driver’s licence, and they have never had more than one car at any given time. To make matters stranger, after accepting, my parents told me to take the car “at the end”, a vintage vehicle, newly restored and looking pristine.
I protested, but they insisted.
Off we went to work — and I do mean “we”. My parents also insisted on coming along. I’m not certain what the rationale was, but when we arrived, my mother wanted to have a look around and, of course, chat with anyone in the vicinity. I felt very stressed, knowing this, but for whatever reason I had truly needed to borrow a car to get to work that morning, so I mustered up patience and tried to get on with things. Sure enough, as soon as we’d parked and gotten out of the car, she began chatting with everyone we passed, though thankfully, it seemed, not with anyone I worked for or with directly. From the outside, my office appeared to be a trailer, a truck, or a luxurious shipping container — that was the sense I had, even though I never looked at it directly during the dream. It seemed to have some sort of vertical protuberance, like a tower, jutting out of it. This small-seeming exterior of course belied the fact that the fully-carpeted interior contained an upper floor that served as an office for who-knows-how-many workers or companies, an enormous split-level main floor that served as the house of someone I had been friends or acquaintances with as a child, and in the centre of all of that (of course) a fucking abyss.
No big deal.
My mother wanted to come into the office and attempted to do so, despite my protests.
The next thing I remember is that I was just outside the back of a Winners, and that it was winter — or at least cold enough for me to have shrugged into what seemed to be a new coat before walking over. I didn’t work there. Nevertheless, I went through the back door — me and a couple pushing a cat in a coat in a stroller. I found the sight both endearing and bizarre. Though I did not seem to find it unusual to be entering the store from the nearly-unmarked back. The room that we found ourselves in was well-lit, but had strange dimensions, with a winding foot path cut through piles and stacks of children’s toys, mainly. The couple wheeled over to a miniature aisle (child-height) in order to look through new clothes for their curiously-calm cat.
In the top-left corner of the room, there was a very small flat escalator, moving in an oval around that small section of the room; a loop with no apparent purpose other than perhaps to entertain children and keep them in one place. I got on it and when I did, I was at such an angle that I could look through a large window set into that back corner, looking down into the rest of the store, which strangely seemed to have been built continually downward, below ground level. From that vantage point, I also noticed that down below the window there was a separate conveyor belt that you could get on in order to be taken down there.
So I got the hell on it.
Down below was a large, mostly empty atrium of sorts, with a few patrons passing through it, mainly crossing from doors and hallways at opposite ends of the room. I turned away from the conveyor belt and followed a rather dark corridor leading back from where the upper-level window had been.
The next thing I remember was being in my aunt ’s living room, though a very strange version of it. She’s the one that used to babysit me and make me Delicate Cookies when I was a kid living in Newfoundland; still one of the best recipes in my collection. I don’t get the sense that she looked like herself in the dream, but I knew instinctively that it was her. I was with at least one other person — my brother, maybe, but I can’t remember who it was. In her house the living room, dining room, and kitchen are all on the same level, with a door separating the living room from the two other spaces. In the dream version of her house, the living room and darkened dining room were on the bottom level, and then walking up a small set of stairs took you to a small, purposeless landing, where you could take another small set of stairs to reach the kitchen at the top. It was all open plan.
In reality, she is still sound of mind and reasonably healthy, physically, but in the dream, she seemed confused and kept putting things in unusual places. At one point, she startled when I came near her and explained that she’d actually been sleepwalking the whole time. I felt unnerved. The house was very dark, all the curtains drawn; the only light that had been on had been the one above the stove. She led me and whoever I was with away from the kitchen, over toward a set of double doors. Beyond them, it was broad daylight, and other relatives were sitting on the patio chatting and laughing as if nothing had been amiss.
I sat and stayed for a while, but then suddenly I was walking out into another large atrium, brightly-lit and far more cavernous than the one at Winners had been. I recognized this place; much like the living room abyss, this was a location I had dreamt of more than once in my childhood.
It was the McDonald’s corporate headquarters, it was the 90s again, and a gaggle of families were there with their children, sitting at the heavy, restaurant-style tables scattered throughout the atrium, eating cake. Some sort of celebration was underway, but we had likely arrived just as it was winding down.
My parents led me and my brother through that carpeted main hall without stopping for cake.
We were little kids again. Six and three.
One section of that main hall had been walled off in glass or plastic barriers and filled with child-size tables and chairs so that kids could mingle freely on the inside while their parents watched on the outside.
For some reason this detail stuck out in my mind: one kid in a dress, sitting on a chair, shoes just barely touching the carpeted floor, eating cake.
I don’t know what my parents were looking for, but it clearly wasn’t cake.
They led us all the way over to the other side of the atrium, where barely anyone had chosen to sit, and then into a corridor. It was carpeted too, and felt both too-clean and still-grimy, the way old airports tend to when they don’t get the foot traffic they used to. It was too quiet back there, and I started to feel uncomfortable.
Then my little brother and I were alone.
I don’t know why, just that we were.
So we had to be brave — I had to be brave.
I took my brother’s hand and started to walk back through the corridor we were in, though I had no idea where we were going, or how to find our parents again. I tried not to let my fear show. A few people passed us, but we weren’t to talk to strangers, and curiously, they paid us no mind. Finally, after wandering through several corridors without success, we came upon a glass door that led into a unlit room. My little brother opened it cautiously, and together we stepped just inside, the both of us holding the door ajar. The light from the corridor gave us some sense of what was in there. To our left were pools of water, the water running and overflowing gently into each one. I didn’t like being in the dark, but there was something strangely calming about the dark pools of water, like they were the beginnings of an aquatic garden.
My little brother tightened his grip on my hand, and I looked over at him quizzically.
Which is when my eyes caught on the sight that had alarmed him.
Eyes.
Countless eyes flashing back at us from the other side of the room, the humanoid figures that belonged to them shrouded in shadow.
A cry caught in my throat, and holding even more firmly to my little brother’s hand, I pulled him back from the room into the hallway, the glass door shutting behind us as we broke into a run, going back the way we had come.
Or at least I assumed we were heading back the way we had come.
We were utterly lost, fear sharpening our reflexes and making our panicked minds go fuzzy.
At last, we ran into another room, this one lit from above by pot lights and filled with rows of large, oval tables, some sections of the room fenced off with plain chain-link panels. But there they were: our parents.
Sitting at one of the tables and eating some sort of meal — though not cake.
The rest of the room was conspicuously empty, and my hackles rose.
My parents seemed rather relaxed and unbothered, and somehow I knew that their food had been laced with a drug of some kind.
We needed to leave, all four of us, as quickly as possible.
Something told me that the eyes that had stared back at us from the depths of that darkened water-garden had been adults like our parents at some point, having been whisked away to be experimented upon after having ingested the tainted food. I kept urging our parents to follow us and leave, but they didn’t have any real sense of urgency. They were humouring me.
I kept hold of my little brother’s hand, and we led the way, but the hallway was darker coming back out of the room than it had been going in, and we slipped off into a side passage where I hoped we could avoid notice so that our parents wouldn’t be captured. This new corridor’s walls were made of curving glass, and utterly dark; I thought there might be some sort of liquid on the other side of them, but I couldn’t be certain. The floor was a wooden boardwalk suspended in water and lit dimly from below. Water sloshed up over the wood, the walkway bobbing and swaying, as we made our way across.
My brother and I were so busy looking at our feet to make sure we were walking on the planks of wood and not getting our little feet caught in the watery spaces between them, that we didn’t notice the researcher’s approach until it was too late.
From the depths of the snaking, eerily-lit corridor, a figure wearing a full diving outfit, complete with glass and metal bubble helmet came lunging toward us, and —
I woke up.
I woke up to Scout giving me a quizzical look from the end of the bed, because I’d just emerged from a frankendream and probably seemed rather flustered and sweaty. I’m not actually certain when I fell asleep, but given that the dream-turned-nightmare went four levels deep, I have to assume I was under the influence of the stranger parts of my subconscious for a good hour or two.
Not long after that, I made myself presentable, gave Scout and early supper, and headed out to my brother’s house for a family dinner.
A dinner that featured a roast expertly-prepared by my brother’s girlfriend, sweet corn shucked by my brother and I (inexpertly, according to our very amused and somewhat exasperated father), and fried cod tongues, a belated birthday present for our mother, whose favourite food is exactly that.
As soon as I got in the door, though, I was greeted by two cardboard boxes: one filled with some LPs from my mom’s twenties, and one filled with tons of not-for-sale singles from her days as a radio DJ and morning show host that she’d been allowed to take home from work and keep. My father didn’t have any records, because instead of those, he’d been collecting 8-tracks and cassettes, all of which he’s long had converted to mp3 files. He seemed particularly delighted when we unearthed a single by The Alan Parsons Project (Side A: Eye In the Sky / Side B: Gemini), one of several bands, apparently, whose works he’d collected almost entirely on cassette.
I felt a little indignant about the fact that my parents used to listen to those sorts of bands but would always just put on soft rock radio stations at home instead of playing cassettes/records of albums that they personally collected. What gives?! Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the music on those stations. I just. Could have had more exposure to rock and albums made to be listened to as whole works of art much earlier — rather than simply listening to individual songs in isolation the way I did for most of my childhood.
The important thing, I suppose, is that I’m trying to work through a backlog of cool sonic journeys now, as an adult. And enjoying all the new ones that are coming out currently.
ALICE NINE.‘s as-yet-unnamed album will be one such epic sonic journey, I’m quite sure, especially given how cool the lead track Funeralis, and the passion that Saga currently seems to be pouring into the recording of said album, if the following tweet is anything to go by:
Half of the album has bass solos, I’m playing acoustic guitar the whole way through on I dunno how many songs, And I’m singing the chorus, rapping, growling, chanting, and doing backup vocals, so 😇 What’s my part now? 😇
I love Saga deeply. Reading that update made me so very happy. Let your passion and musical talent be unleashed even more! My ears, my mind, my heart, and my imagination are in for such a treat on release day! 楽しみだよ!♥
Ahem. Back to discussing the family dinner.
When my mom noticed the gold pearl ring on my finger, while we were chatting between supper and dessert, she expressed how pleased she was that I still wore it, because she was the one that gave it to me when I was twelve (it used to be hers), but then my father chimed in to explain something about it that I hadn’t known. Apparently it had originally housed a ruby (mom’s birthstone), but the ruby had fallen out long ago. When they’d been living in San Diego as newlyweds, they’d repaired it by having a pearl set in the ring instead. My mom insisted that the pearl had been chosen from a clam “at a Japanese garden”, while my father had insisted that the pearl had been bought “at Sea World”; maybe they were somehow referring to the same place. My little heirloom just got more mysterious.
After dessert (an incredibly rich wild blueberry custard pie that my brother’s girlfriend had picked up from the farmer’s market), me and my brother’s girlfriend exchanged an inordinate number of cat photos (…okay, I admit, it was mostly me showing her a ridiculous number of Scout photos), as well as some recommendations. She advised me to listen to Lizzo’s newest album Special (I did so while doing dishes this morning and it elevated the entire experience into something playful and joy-filled), while I advised her to listen to Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE in full because, where Lemonade was an album imbued with a confidence born out of anger and hurt, RENAISSANCE is an album filled with confidence couched in ease and trust — both powerful for different reasons. I also recommended she listen to the latest Billy Talent, Crisis of Faith (a rallying cry for social justice and compassion wrapped up in a truly hard-hitting, excellent sound), and to my brother, I recommended OFF-TRACK, Steve Neville‘s first solo album, created and recorded while he was undergoing cancer treatment, and you can hear all the humanity and raw emotion of that experience in the sound on the record. His sister Jacquie Neville and former bandmate Liam Jaeger participated in the creation of the album as well.
As an aside, the Neville siblings and Liam Jaeger were the founding members of The Balconies, one of my favourite bands, which happens to have been formed in my hometown of Ottawa, Ontario. I never actually attended a show when Steve was part of the band (he left shortly before I managed to see them live), but I did attend the very last concert they played for their 10th Anniversary on February 3, 2018. It was stellar. They also released a final album at that point, “Show You“, that boasted recordings from 2012 — compared to their last two albums, Fast Motions and Rhonda, the sound on Show You was a lot more ‘garage’, and it featured earlier arrangements of songs that had come out on later albums. It was a great surprise release at the time, is what I’m saying, and I recommend it.
Just after dessert, my father made a big announcement: he’s going to be interviewed for an internet security podcast this week (he’s a big name in the white hat/security world). As someone who listens to a lot of podcasts during the workweek especially, I thought that was pretty cool and I’m looking forward to listening to the episode, even if a lot of the shop talk goes over my head.
If you’re curious, some of the podcasts I listen to regularly are ones like RISK! (since like 2014 or 2015 — incredible cross-section of true stories that are moving, hilarious, filthy, shocking, and thought-provoking), Getting Curious with JVN, Writers Ink, The Secret Room, What Was That Like, The Dark Paranormal, Financial Feminist, Hiroto’s Voicy, Kei’s SYNERGY twitcast, and lately, the back-catalogue of Supercontext, which I can already tell is going to become a bit of an obsession for me. I’m currently listening to a detailed examination of David Bowie’s Blackstar album, and then I’m on to an absolute treat… an in-depth analysis of one of my very favourite comics: volume one of the incomparable space opera, Saga (art by Fiona Staples, story by Brian K. Vaughn).
And no, it’s not a favourite just because it shares a name with Saga (though I love that link). It definitely delivers on the “space opera” front, has a diverse cast of characters (including plenty of queer ones), incredible art and witty writing, is steamy and filthy in all the right ways as well as being perfectly fluffy and romantic when the mood calls for it, will move you to tears, and then later make you laugh with its often dry and irreverent sense of humour.
It’s a favourite because the comic series itself, both visually and narratively, is stellar.
And I was today-years-old when I realized that they actually started releasing new issues of Saga again this January after a long hiatus; their 10th volume is going to be published this October, so I might wait to buy that and then start buying single issues after that. Yet another thing to get very excited about.
Okay, I’ll stop waxing lyrical about Saga2. (´・ω・`)
It’s a long weekend, so I get to stay home and do more creating tomorrow. Back to writing and editing TE9…
From their fourth studio album GEMINI, the song birth in the death is performed not only during ALICE NINE. concerts with Show on vocals, but frequently features on THE ALTERNATIVE’s setlists as well, with Saga doing the vocals (if you are subscribed to their note, Nao posted footage of one of THE ALTERNATIVE’s performances of the song here). For their 15th anniversary concert in 2019 they played a beautiful rendition that resonated through the atmosphere of the outdoor venue. During their 17th anniversary concert in 2021, ALICE NINE. played all of the songs from the album GEMINI (including a really emotional, uplifting rendition of birth in the death); in anticipation of that concert, they also put up a video on their official note with all 5 of them reminiscing about the making of the album.
You can find a translation of the song’s lyrics here.
It’s always best to get a feel for the creative process from the artists themselves. Here are a few excerpts from magazine interviews, mainly featuring composer Saga and lyricist Show (though everyone had plenty to say about it for SHOXX), discussing the song and how it fits into the album’s overall concept.
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Gekkayo 2011.03 (Photography: 徳間) Show: Personally… I find that the characteristics of the first track I. and the last one, birth in the death, are largely different, and that’s a point I was very conscious of. Saga: If I were to expand on that in a simple way, the former and latter halves of the album are frankly different bands. I would think that a band that were to play the songs in the former half wouldn’t play those in the latter half. In that fact, you can really feel the dual nature of the album. It’s not simply a difference in nature between pop and rock. We’re doing two things together that wouldn’t be done together.
Neo Genesis vol 52 (Photography: Susumu Miyawaki / Text: Hiroko Yamamoto) Saga: birth in the death has for me what is the closest to being a personal section I would say, and is a very profound one. I think it’s perhaps the same in terms of the lyrics. Show: It is. Actually, among the members, this is the song that garnered the most voices saying “I want to do this”.
B-PASS 2011.03 (Photography: Takashi Hirano / Text: Yuichi Masuda) Show: As you’d expect, we’re human, so we want it to be understood, this core aspect of ourselves. In order to have that understood, we intend to have put in our maximum effort. I think, if you looked forward to getting in touch with that nucleus of us as a band as a listener without forcing it, that would be enough. Because if we do things the right way, we’ll say everything we need to with this one album.
Fool’s Mate 2011.03 vol. 353 (Text: Yuka Sugie) Saga: In birth in the death, Shou-kun takes up guitar for the first time. Hiroto: Saga-kun is also on guitar in this one, so there are 4 of us on stage in front, all of us holding guitars.
What’s In 2011.02 (Text: 杉江由紀) Show: The first song I., fourth song 4U, and thirteenth song birth in the death feel like they are primordially connected in some way. This time the songs that we’ve come to include were really deep and so I think there are a lot of words in the lyrics that came up as a result of a profound part of me feeling an impetus from the music. birth in the death, a song that allows you to see love and hope while facing sadness, is actually also one that has I. on loop during a part of it.
SHOXX vol 217 (Photography: SUSUMU MIYAWAKI / Text: NAOKO TAKEICHI) Saga: For a couple minutes from the start of the song, Nao-san, well, we don’t need him (laughs). I’m wondering what he’s gonna do during lives (laughs). Hiroto: In the middle of the song, he could even suddenly appear on stage, and start drumming naturally. I think that would be totally cool. Nao: A great idea. I think it’d be extremely cool. Let’s go with that! Tora: This song is unexpectedly hard. In terms of the guitar, it’s not that you’re doing anything all that complicated, it’s hard because the monotone phrase you’re playing is in a loop. It’s not a song where you’re all high energy and putting in a lot of effort. You play the same arpeggio over and over, and in the middle of that, it’s like, you ask yourself where you are in the phrase you’re playing and end up not knowing. Hiroto: Exactly. But personally, out of all the many album songs we’ve had, from the demo stage, this is the song for which I most felt, “I absolutely want to do it!”. It suits the frequency of my body. A song that requires physique, you might say. Saga: Also, for this song, there’s a shocking fact! Surprisingly, I wasn’t playing bass in it. This song’s bass was programmed. It’s not that I planned to do that; I recorded the bass live at the outset, but as a result I figured I didn’t need the live take, and I ended up trying to see if I could program it in. So… I wonder what I’ll do in our concerts. Show: When we’re doing this song in concert, what do you think of Saga-kun and Nao-san appearing in a live film for us? Hiroto: Great idea. During the performance of the song, would we be able to get the two of them to play the roles of “life and death” for us? (laughs) Show: The lyrics are on the darker side. They’re of a subject I can’t speak on forthrightly. GEMINI-0 to GEMINI-II are the same, but if I were to speak deeply on all these songs, even a personal interview wouldn’t end up being long enough. It’s like, the self objectively watching human lives twinkling and disappearing like shooting stars. They’re the lyrics that concentrate most on what I’ve always been singing about. Listening to this album’s songs live as well as through the studio recordings lends different impressions so I’m very eager to play these in concert. Saga: Right now, for us personally as well, these moments of coming to get to know our new selves are really enjoyable, so of course with this album, I think I’d like you all to put your hopes in what’s next for Alice Nine.
CD & DL Data 2011.02 (Photography: 草刈雅之 / Text: 赤木まみ) Show: This is a song in which shooting stars light up and disappear in the night sky that you’re gazing up at, and that is the scenery you watch while shedding tears over the ephemeral nature of human lives… that’s the gist of it. It also carries the message that, precisely because human life is so ephemeral, it’s precious. What’s more, the piano sounds in the song are wonderful and… bring you to tears. That’s something that Saga-kun put in during the demo stage, but when I heard those notes, I thought, this man we call Saga is a genius. I absolutely want you to listen to this on repeat, and afterwards, feel the love in it.
ROCK AND READ 2016.04 vol 65 (Photography: 山内洋枝 / Text: 東條祥恵) Saga: birth in the death. That was the first song I was satisfied with. In the band, I had a feeling of satisfaction that was like, “I made this”. I was way too picky about the details because partway through, I was told by the producer Okano Hajime-san, “Fine, man, do whatever you want!” (laughs). That song is my personal favourite, even now.
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Despite the fact that this song is now over ten years old as of writing this article, and that it has a bit of a cult following among fans, it still manages to cast the listener into an incredibly mysterious atmosphere. The original studio version has a very different feel from the version they play live as a band, as well as from the version Saga and Nao play live as the duo, THE ALTERNATIVE. I wonder what things, specifically, Saga was picky about. Did four of them truly play guitar for the studio version? Because the live versions certainly don’t feature four of them on guitar! Was there something personally significant about the piano notes that caused such a strong emotional reaction in Show upon hearing the original demo? Its lyrics are serenely beautiful, and Show hinted at there being a link between them and those of the GEMINI suite, but also mentioned a link between them and the intrinsically linked I. and 4U. What was the detail that Saga was so stubborn about that caused Okano-san to finally give up on trying to, well, produce the feel of our favourite bassist’s favourite composition?
I love the utter passion (not to say stubbornness) with which Saga approached this song, getting it from demo (I wonder how different the demo sounded!) to its completed version; I love, too, the ways that it has grown through being performed by them all on stage. Show’s lyrics take us to a deep, spiritual place.
There is beauty in the details, Saga; keep that passion for music aflame.