Album:In a Model Room

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In a Model Room is the debut album of Japanese band P-Model. In 2007 Rolling Stone Japan ranked it at number 52 in its list of the 100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time and Snoozer ranked it at number 125 in its list of the 150 Greatest Albums of Japanese Rock 'n' Roll. Susumu Hirasawa re-recorded the album (except for "Sophisticated") in the style of the P-Model live shows of 1979 as Virtual Live-1 [P-Model Live at Roppongi S-Ken Studio 1979].

Background
By 1978, Susumu Hirasawa was unsatisfied with the style Mandrake worked in, thinking that progressive rock had lost its social link and became just entertainment. By then, Mandrake's had only achieved reception by a niche live show audience for national progressive rock and bit parts on synthesizer-heavy works by Akiro "Kamio" Arishima, Hirasawa's superior at Yamaha who made instrumental music heavily influenced by Wendy Carlos. Experiencing punk/new wave music and visuals primarily through promo videos of groups like Sex Pistols, 999 and Métal Urbain; acquired by Susumu's older brother Yūichi; the Hirasawa siblings and keyboardist Yasumi Tanaka had a revelatory experience, feeling that it was the advent of a new era. They started writing songs in that style, and cut their waist-length hair short, alongside drummer Sadatoshi Tainaka.

Mandrake had turned into a half-hearted band and, after declining an offer from the director of Victor Music Industries, Hirasawa decided to "abort" Mandrake, characterizing it as the defeat of alchemy to commercialism. To that end, the band's final live performance, which happened at Shibuya Jean-Jean in late 1978, meant to be the symbolic burial of Mandrake's aborted body, was a two-part show that lasted three hours: The first two and a half were the last performances of the progressive songs, done inside a large picture frame hung on stage. After the first part ended, the lights went out and Katsuhiko Akiyama—keyboardist of the Emerson, Lake & Palmer-influenced trio Abikyōkan (阿鼻叫喚) who had been an actor in previous Mandrake shows—came out of the frame dressed in a doctor's coat and holding a fetus that glowed red, green and blue. The frame was dismantled and Yūichi, while running on a treadmill wearing a doctor's coat, counted to four in English. With that, the band played new wave songs, ending Mandrake.

On New Year's Day 1979, the members of the band (alongside Yūichi) held a meeting at Hirasawa's house in Kameari to define what the new sound and image of their "project" would be, conceptually. Having observed that the kind of music that big companies pushed had appeal for people who are not music fans and worked as entertainment, something that progressive rock was not capable of being, the band decided on a complete change, both musical and visual, aiming to cultivate an unthreatening image. Bassist Tohru Akutu, obstinate in his passion towards progressive rock, decided to depart from the band, going on to work on various projects with the members of Shingetsu; Akiyama was later chosen to take his spot, despite the fact that he had never played bass in his life before.

After deciding what concept the band would follow, Hirasawa and Tanaka recorded a 2-song demo at home and P-Model proceeded to distribute cassette copies to parties that might show interest. One of them was an Amuse employee that recognized Hirasawa as being a Mandrake member while sitting on a Music Man amp Hirasawa had sent to Greco for repair. The Amuse employee put it in a pile of other demo tapes the company had gotten; a different employee heard it and offered to make a deal with the band, but was rejected. She also played the demo through the phone to her husband, Rockin' f magazine deputy editor-in-chief Akira Katoh; amazed at what he managed to hear, he offered to help the band get a record deal. After writing to the directors of 10 different companies, sending them each a copy of the demo and an invitation to the band's debut live performance, he got strong interest in the band from 8 of them.

Of their options, P-Model chose to sign with the one that was the biggest and that they knew, which was Warner-Pioneer. Tomonari Sassa, the director who expressed interest in the group, was from Warner's western division, which already handled a similar band (Devo); he asked the Japanese division to take P-Model, but they didn't understand what they were going for, so the band ended up in the hands of the western division. "Bombarded" with overseas new wave labels, they went with Warner itself, since it was the most "major", they had no experience going overseas or good grasp of English and wanted to overthrow Pink Lady. With half an album's worth of music already written, the band put out both a debut single and album with relative agility.

Conception
The early P-Model sound originated from "playful" experimentation: synthesizers at the time (primarily represented by Kraftwerk and Switched-On Bach) were thought to be instruments of contemplative sound, so Hirasawa wanted to hear what they'd be like with distortion, sound decay and noise. In particular, an unique blipping noise Tanaka got out of a Maxi-Korg 800DV synthesizer, named "Musical Stapler" (ミュージカル・ホッチキス), came from this experimentation, going on to become a cornerstone of the band's sound. At first, they called this style Acrylic Pop (アクリル・ポップ) (a term created by Hirasawa), and thought of it as something Pink Lady fans/general public would [not] listen to. Hirasawa in particular found it to be completely unmatchable with the Mandrake style and material.

The band agreed to only write songs with whole tones; while Tanaka easily wrote bars full of them, Hirasawa was only able to muster "Art Mania". They ended up with a tendency for complex compositions and unusual time signatures. Unlike other technopop bands of the time, which sung mostly English lyrics, P-Model wrote only one song in that language, with the others having lyrics in Japanese, due to Hirasawa's lack of proficiency in the language.

Conceptually underpinned by George Orwell's 1984, the lyrics of In a Model Room reflect the changes Tokyo was going through as Japan's economy surged. In the '70s, it was commonly thought that subcultures were disgusting and that those who participated in them were bad people. The government spent the decade attempting to purge subcultures from the special wards to make them "wholesome", something the group was acutely aware of. Having seen the transformation Shinjuku went through (to Hirasawa, it simply became a city for drunkards), the process that Ikebukuro was undergoing during the band's formation—namely, the construction of the Sunshine City complex, and the Sunshine 60 skyscraper (the tallest building in Asia from 1978 till 1985, and in Japan till 1991) at the centre of it, on what they considered an unrefined town—made the group think Tokyo had reached its end. That led them to put an Orwellian sense of hopelessness in the album.

With the expelling of subcultures and the population influx from elsewhere, P-Model, who with the exception of Tainaka were all Tokyo natives, felt displaced in the metropolis, and that it lacked a shared culture and anything interesting to do. Since the songs they were working on were a counterpoint to the cultureless Tokyo that was being built on top of the place's original culture, Hirasawa decided to call it Jouban Line Pop (常磐線ポップ).

To create an unthreatening image, P-Model based its visuals in bright colors, continuing the Mandrake tradition of painting instruments, as well as changing their clothing. It was decided that the band's name would be changed to something that evoked the new development of a mass-produced industrial good, a fake product model. The letter "P" (ピー) was chosen for the name because it sounds ridiculous, Yuichi produced "P" badges, which the members wore on live shows. Hirasawa took to wearing plates with intentless sentences like "Ｉ　ＡＭ　Ａ　ＣＯＫＥ" and ＹＯＵＲＹＯ　ＪＩＤＯ (優良児童) on them, as well as replicating the "death sentence" (死刑) pose of the protagonist of the comedy manga Brat Cop.

Production
In a Model Room was produced by Plastics keyboardist Masahide Sakuma, who agreed to do so on the strength of the album's first track. Described by Hirasawa as "unlike any other kind of musician or industry person; an honest man who acted with a life-sized air of cleanliness", Sakuma was swiftly trusted by the band, who were cautious with making their debut. P-Model thought they were the only ones in the country to make their kind of music; when Hirasawa and Tanaka saw Plastics live at S-Ken Studio, they were shocked to see a group doing the same style and even the same kind of sound distortion that they were doing, even if they found that band to be more fashionable.

Although Plastics did not have an album out by the time P-Model worked on its album, Sakuma had 4 years of experience in production working on releases by his previous band, progressive rock group Yonin-Bayashi. Producing on his own for the first time, In a Model Room turned out to be the first step of a prolific session producer career for Sakuma. Since he had experience with both prog and new wave, Hirasawa held a strong sense of sympathy towards him, and on occasion they found common points of production sense during the album's recording.

The instrumentation is a mix of standard punk with electronic devices for particularly mechanical tones: A Roland CR-68 drum machine does simultaneous counterpoint beats to a standard drum kit; the Maxi-Korg 800DV synthesizer was used for a unique blipping noise, to which Hirasawa coined the term "musical stapler" (ミュージカル・ホッチキス). P-Model came to argue with Warner-Pioneer, Sakuma and engineer Makoto Furukawa daily over the Yamaha YC-10 combo organ: The band chose it for a clicking noise made when a key is pressed, the production wanted to take it out of the mix and constantly told P-Model to rent an expensive keyboard, which they refused adamantly. P-Model would alter the equalization settings Furukawa used to remove the clicking noise every time he looked away from the mixing console until he stopped noticing it.

Track listing
The group also planned to include 2 other songs on the album: The Hirasawa piece "Alien" (異邦人), created as a Mandrake song, which was left off the album due to complications with releasing the clear pink vinyl edition and/or issues with getting a suitable arrangement (the song was recorded twice during the album's sessions and multiple arrangements were performed by the band live), it was later rerecorded, with new parts by Tanaka, for Landsale; and the Tanaka piece "White Shoes" (ホワイト・シューズ), which was later used as BGM for the end credits of the Photon-1 video.

Personnel

 * P-Model - production, arrangements
 * Susumu Hirasawa - vocals, guitar, synthesizer, jacket design
 * Yasumi Tanaka - combo organ, synthesizers, sequencer, backing vocals
 * Sadatoshi Tainaka - drums, drum machine
 * Katsuhiko Akiyama - bass, synthesizer, backing vocals


 * production and visuals
 * Masahide Sakuma - Switchist, production
 * Makoto Furukawa - engineering, remixing
 * Kozo Kenmochi, Kenji Konno & Ryuichi Suzuki - assistant engineering
 * Yūichi Hirasawa - art direction
 * Hideki Namai - photography
 * Tomonari Sassa - direction


 * Special Thanks to:
 * Hisaaki Katoh, Nobumasa Uchida, Yūichi Hirasawa, Hiroshi Yamamoto, Daiji Okai, Sunshine City Gals, Ms. Shirota

Release history

 * "Roomrunner" is included on the GET THE PUNK -J PUNK & NEW WAVE 1972～1991- various artists compilation.
 * "Art Mania" is included on the ROCK is LOFT　-Purple Disc- ～SHINJUKU LOFT 30th Anniversary～, TECHNOLOID -JAPANESE 80's NEW WAVE SAMPLER-, Rock NIPPON～Selected by Hiroshi Tsuchiya, KING SONGS of NEW WAVE and SAKUMA DROPS compilation albums.
 * The album's singles were reissued on CD on paper sleeves to replicate their original packaging with the band's other Warner-Pioneer released singles as part of the Tower Records exclusive Warner Years Singles Box box set in 2012.