Album:In a Model Room

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]. Polysics covered "The Great Brain" for the 2007 album Karate House and have performed "Art Mania" live. A cover of "Art Mania" using Kagamine Rin is included on the Hatsune Miku sings NEW WAVE cover album.

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. Hirasawa had discovered punk rock groups like Sex Pistols, 999 and Métal Urbain; and Mandrake discovered the Nylon 100% café bar/live house, where they were introduced to New Wave music and visuals. Feeling that it was the advent of a new era, Hirasawa and keyboardist Yasumi Tanaka started writing songs in the punk/new wave 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 at the 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 rock 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 and Mandrake's only fan) came out of the frame dressed in a white coat and holding a fetus that glowed red, green and blue. The frame was dismantled and Susumu's older brother Yūichi, while running on a treadmill wearing a white coat, counted to four in English. With that, the band played techno punk 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 their new sound and image would be, conceptually. Bassist Tohru Akutu, still attached to 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 heard, he offered to help the band get a record deal. After the going to their debut live performance, he proceeded to contact the directors of 8 different companies, seemingly sending them copies of the demo and photographs of the show. Of the eight, P-Model chose to sign with the company 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 the group, so P-Model 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.

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, which Hirasawa 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), 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".

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. To that end, they based their look in bright colors, both in clothing and instruments, continuing the Mandrake tradition of painting instruments. Hirasawa took to wearing plates with intentless sentences like "Ｉ　ＡＭ　Ａ　ＣＯＫＥ" and ＹＯＵＲＹＯ　ＪＩＤＯ (優良児童) on them. 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.

Composition and Production
Most of the songs on the album were created by Mandrake late in the group's existence, which allowed for a quick debut release. The songs show a tendency for complex compositions and unusual time signatures. The lyrics reflect on the sociopolitical issues of Japan at the time, during the Japanese post-war economic miracle, and were influenced in part by Nineteen Eighty-Four; unlike other technopop band of the time, which sung mostly English lyrics, P-Model had one song written in that language and all others had lyrics in Japanese, due to Hirasawa's lack of proficiency in the language.

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 for the first time for a band he was not a member of, Sakuma went on to become a renowned session producer.

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 more than one arrangement was 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


 * Staff
 * Masahide Sakuma - "Switchist", Production
 * Tomonari Sassa - Direction
 * Makoto Furukawa - Engineering, Mixing
 * Kozo Kenmochi, Kenji Konno & Ryuichi Suzuki - Assistant Engineering
 * Yūichi Hirasawa - Lyrics, Art director
 * Hideki Namai - Photography
 * 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.