Album:Monster

Monster was the working title for the "phantom" album by P-Model. Originally planned for am early-mid 1987 release, the band faced over a year of difficulty finding a stable record deal, and only managed to record one song in a studio. The album was silently cancelled in mid-1988, and the events surrounding it ultimately led to the "freezing" of P-Model later that year.

Envisioned as a concept album, Monster would have followed an original story primarily themed around mass hysteria, returning to the band's socially commentative roots. Susumu Hirasawa pushed for Jungian psychology to be a second major theme, which was a source of contention among the remaining band members. Musically, the album was planned to further the usage of synthesizers that began in One Pattern, while introducing a darker and more foreboding sound.

Though the album itself remained unreleased, the live shows surrounding it were popular both critically and commercially, and eventually became the primary focus of the band's efforts. Two VHS releases of the time, Moire Vision and The Physical Atlas of Three Worlds, included live recordings of five of the new songs. Later, the 2002 box set Ashu-on (Sound Subspecies) in the Solar System included a demo (with new elements) and three more live recordings. Each writer salvaged their creations for solo releases.

Concept
The album would have centred around a being known as the Great Mother (グレイト・マザー), an oriental, "Yamanba-like" parental goddess figure that possesses the ability to create and destroy. It would be the titular "monster"; a creature that threatens the egos of young boys and men. The "monster" manifested itself as different extremely influential era-defining symbols over different generations: Hirasawa listed Mother Earth, an equivalent "Mother Sea" and the Virgin Mary as examples. Hirasawa intended it to encompass the whole spectrum of femininity, "from lolitas to yamanbas".

The articulation of that aspect was to be modeled after the work of Jun Togawa: around that time, Hirasawa listened to her discography seriously for the first time while commuting by train, and decided he wanted the sort of femininity expressed in her lyrics to be the kind expressed in Monster. He felt frustrated that he, as a man, only seemed to be able to write songs about femininity instead of songs that genuinely capture femininity. Togawa, in his view, was the only Japanese female musician that embodied his ideals of femininity, which he thought were only theoretical beforehand.

Other "monsters" that would be focused on were timely media topics, like splatter films, and social issues like asthma and kids skipping school. This was partially driven by Hirasawa's wider fascination with transient fads, at their peak, being treated by the public as though they were facts of life. Instead of going for a defined theme like previous concept albums, "monster" would have been more of a symbol with no concrete meaning, to be defined by listener interpretation. The keyword was picked to recall old kaiju movies (due to the large amount of fans of that genre in the rock scene).

His elaboration of the theme was inspired by his continuing dabblings in Jungian psychology: Hayao Kawai's The Japanese Psyche: Major Motifs in the Fairy Tales of Japan was a direct influence, and he had also been reading Joseph L. Henderson's Thresholds of Initiation, Kawai's The Buddhist Priest Myōe: A Life of Dreams and Erich Neumann's The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype at the time.

Hirasawa perceived himself as between two dichotomies: the maternal and paternalistic views of society, and the ancient Japanese and modern westernized worldviews. In the live context, "every one of us, on stage and in the audience, are part of a group of animalistic archetypes that gather around the perimeters of the Great Mother". He hoped to catch the collective sensibility of the era and create a hit song that would change the course of the music scene.

The focus on Jungian psychology was more difficult for the remaining songwriters, Teruo Nakano and Yoshikazu Takahashi, who had minimal exposure to the work of those psychologists beforehand. While Nakano successfully incorporated these motifs into his songwriting, Takahashi was particularly negative about the process, thinking they were essentially getting lectured and trying to make songs out of what they had just learned. By the time he withdrew from the band, the majority of the songs being drafted had bombastic titles about the heavens and other forms of spirituality, such as "Heaven Hades". Takahashi's successor, Hikaru Kotobuki—whom Hirasawa wanted to work with for two years by then, whose advice for bettering P-Model during that time went ignored—expected that he would write material for the album as well, and thought the final result would be fantastic based on what he heard and played.

Production
Monster's production officially began in February 1987. It was intended as "the next step" for P-Model, and give them a different character than held before. Hirasawa intended to ask Togawa to participate in its creation, but issues within the band meant it didn't work out. The group made a large amount of unfinished tracks, with many under provisional names like "I'm Full Up" (おなかいっぱい). Those added to the live repertoire were popular with the audience, but looked very difficult to perform.

P-Model planned to program all synths through dedicated digital sequencers for recording. By the point Kotobuki joined the band, brass parts were played with a sampled sound source Hirasawa was enamored with, instead of the synthesized equivalents from lineups past. Akiro Kamio Arishima was part of the song selection process alongside the members, and proposed a release outline to shop for labels, where they would first release three maxi-singles on vinyl following the Great Mother story and then compile the best songs for the album on CD. When they were still signed with Alfa Records, A&R coordinator Toshikazu Awano seemingly assured that Yoshiaki Kondo would be allowed as the chief engineer of the sessions, a request denied on past albums due to company policy.

The group had a complete roadmap of every element of production up to the release date, with the days they would need to use a studio set down. The only session—attained with Kamio's assistance and done despite Awano's absence —felt forced on the band's part to Nakano: Hirasawa pushed everyone to work despite them walking in not fully prepared, and was so focused on the process he barely noticed anything beyond. "Coyote" tracking was at least started, but the extent of its completeness and fate of its multitrack is unclear. Work stopped that day after Hirasawa received a phone call from the label: He was told they would not pay for studio time, something he had not been informed of beforehand, and that the band should wait before proceeding. P-Model was slightly indignant at that, and continued to work on material regardless, but progress on the album eventually stalled.

Tensions
No longer able to make significant progress on Monster itself, P-Model focused more on their concerts in a move of desperation. While they had already switched to a more rigorous gig schedule under Mitsuo Nagano's direction, the lack of album productivity enabled them to pay much more attention to the elaborateness of their performances. The concerts became a way to buy time for the band, most likely hoping for Alfa to change their stance; ultimately, they had no choice but to cut off their contract with the label by October 1987. Per Takahashi, the business of releasing an album by a band they had so much friction with wasn't worth it. He believes Kamio held many secret negotiations, and was the hardest hit by the break. In the meantime, Hirasawa approached multiple nontraditional record companies, including subsidiaries of companies that did not focus on music, but ultimately couldn't secure anything. He was very invested in the songs, and did not want to enter a contract with a company that would treat them sloppily.

In March 1987, Yasuhiro Araki left the band due to circumstances in his personal life. He was replaced by a returning Sadatoshi Tainaka, who was eager to rejoin the band. Due to Araki's departure, Hirasawa's failure to secure a label, and a general lack of satisfaction with the songs being written, Takahashi decided to give up on the project and left the band in September of the same year. Hirasawa called upon Kotobuki, a former roadie, to take his place as the band's keyboardist. Although this lineup shakeup brought stability to intraband relations, and the two new members brought even more success to their live performances, the group's motivation kept on sinking as a whole.

For many reasons, Hirasawa remained distant from the rest of the group. He had long felt that the original lineup of P-Model had a level of closeness that subsequent incarnations had never achieved, with Hirasawa not seeing most of the members eye-to-eye. The younger members starting out as fans meant that their aim was to make music like their favorite material by the band, instead of the original concept where the band was the means through which the members communicated their individual ideas. For Hirasawa, who constantly worked to meet the greatest common divisor of all members' wants, this lead to P-Model becoming a difficult and rigid framework to work inside of. Undisclosed monetary factors also weighed on him. He took on all administrative decisions by himself, and was not communicative with the rest of the band (leading to misunderstandings "all over", according to Tainaka).

Hirasawa gradually started to resign himself to the idea that the band was coming to an end; by mid-1988, he had personally abandoned both Monster and P-Model itself, a conclusion which the other members reached on their own in the following months. In 28 December of that year, P-Model was formally dissolved, simultaneously putting an end to all production surrounding Monster.

Considered songs
Since no running order configurations for the album have ever been released (or outright confirmed to have existed), the following is an alphabetical list. Some songs are represented by working titles used at the time, others never received final titles. All tracks written by Susumu Hirasawa, except where noted. Further information on each track can be found on their respective pages.


 * "Call Up Here" (Teruo Nakano)
 * "Coyote" (コヨーテ)
 * "Cruel Sea" (Nakano)
 * "Gen" (げん)
 * "Heaven Hades" (ヘヴン・ハデス) (Yoshikazu Takahashi)
 * Monster (モンスター) (unknown)
 * "Monster a Go Go"
 * "Monsters a Go Go" (Nakano)
 * "Orgel" (オルゴール)
 * Tou No (Takahashi)
 * "The Workshop is Taboo" (仕事場はタブー)
 * Two songs without final titles (Takahashi)
 * unidentified song whose melody was reused for the "Ocean of Storms" intro

"Call Up Here" predates the album, being a setlist staple on P-Model shows from the beginning of the Nakano era. The earliest known appearances of "Coyote", "Monsters a Go Go" and "The Workshop is Taboo" are on Shoot the Monster (20 June 1987 at Yomiuri Hall, Yurakucho); "Monster a Go Go" on Saitama Prefecture Theory II (埼玉県動説 II) (12 September 1987 at Saitama Arts Foundation Small Hall); "Cruel Sea" on The Strike of Gretel? (グレーテルの一撃？) (27 September 1987 at Yokohama City Education Center). While "The Workshop is Taboo" was an uncommon presence live, all other songs were setlist regulars. For the Ashu-on boxset, Hirasawa overdubbed an instrumental demo of "Monster a Go Go" made in 1987 with lead vocals recorded in 2002. "Gen" and "Orgel" only existed as instrumental demos and were never performed live. Takahashi's songs also lacked lyrics, and were performed as a solo set midway through The Strike of Gretel?, his last concert with the band. P-Model seemingly hadn't completed the two without final titles, as he wrote them to fit with Hirasawa's singing.