私はかわいいキラキラ子猫 (I am a cute shinny kitten)
のはずが変な工場に就職 (But I found a job in a weird factory)
なんかの部品組み立てさせられ (They force me to assemble the parts of something)
言うこと聞かなきゃご飯抜き (If I don't listen to them, they take away my food)
全員ロボット (Everyone is a robot)
ロボットの街 (It's the city of the robots)
私はいつからここにいるんだろう?(Since when am I working here?)
いつからかここで働く毎日 (Everyday I'm forced to work here since who-knows-when)
私の可愛いキラキラ王子様 (My pretty shinny prince)
助けてよ (Help me!)
変な子猫達は叫び続けて消えた (The weird cats kept screaming and disappeared)
We are weird small animals
Ho
Pi: I’m a weird small animal
I hope you are too
Mo: Well, I’m a weird small animal
Maybe you are too
PIMO: If you are weird small animal
Pi: Call 1-800-Weird-Small-Animal Hotline!
Ho
We are weird small animals
君の生きた The wavelength of your life, still today
波長は今日も
飛び続ける is spreading across the universe
宇宙を越えて
この世界の Til the far edge of this world
遠く果てまで
Ho
Nyan
etc.
Believe in me
You’re my followers
Take my word
Or you’ll die
Your soul belongs to me forever
Massage me
Like a queen
You are just my
Cute little pet
In my kingdom everyone is safe
Free and happy
If you believe in me
In your heart
Otherwise
Otherwise
You’ll fucking die!!!
Whenever I think of you
Only the voice of you appears
Waiting for the reunion
I wanna memorize you face
Isshoni
Futaride
Making memory together
Waiting for the moment we will be
Forever free
Isshoni
Flying away
Can’t you hear the sound of wind
It’s the forest calling you
Come back to me, my prince
We will make a kingdom here
Isshoni
Futaride
Making memory together
Waiting for the moment we will be
Forever free
Isshoni
Flying away
押してはいけないボタン押してみたい
(I wanna to press the button that I'm not supposed to press)
押してはいけないボタン押しちゃダメ!
(I shouldn't press the button that I'm not supposed to press!)
(Oops I pressed)
After everything is gone
The world is not the same
There is no one around
I am the king of the world
Ever since
You pressed the button on that day
Wo oh oh
Maybe it’s better after all
Like the world it used to be
Finally I can live freely
C’est la vie
No more sharing
No more bumping into anyone
I just cheer to my life
Drinking margarita on the beach
But sometimes
I wish you were here next to me
Wo oh oh
The city that we used to live
is now sinking underwater
The sun keeps rising and falling like
Nothing ever happened
I live on the beach day after day
This is a long long vacation
I just keep living happily ever after
about
Why 2 0 8 0?
It might be easy for a synthesizer enthusiast to guess why it's called 2 0 8 0 because it's coming from the famous Roland's JV2080 synthesizer sound module. There is one preset called 2 0 8 0 in the synth & it sounds very futuristic & it exactly sounds like the year of 2080 to me. The first time I heard this sound, I was fascinated by the imagination of the sound engineer at Roland in 90s. I could picture the collapsed building at the end of the century in my mind. I made the first song 2 0 8 0 with this sound & I really liked the atmosphere of the song. I was like "Why not making the whole album with the same feeling?", so we just made it.
It's interesting for me to see the retro-futuristic illustration made in the 70s etc because people are already communicating with aliens in the year of 20xx. This kind of imagination really fascinates me. I just thought 2080 may be too close to be futuristic because it's only 60 years later from now. So I asked Pixy maybe we should switch to 2180 instead and she said: "2080 is better because this way people will be more alerted". In the end, we chose 2 0 8 0 as its title.
The hardest thing may be making the lyrics for me. I made 9 patterns of Japanese lyrics for Forest Calling, but it turned out to be all failures because it started to sound like Chunibyo (middle-school second-year syndrome, look it up). The one Pixy made in 10 min on the airplane turned out to be the best. To be honest, I really don't want to make lyrics anymore after this. It seems too much trouble for me right now.
I was imagining there is a cat being forced to work in the factory as a storyline for this whole album. This cat & another cat will escape to the universe by the flying car. And being chased by space police & crash into another planet and so on... And at the end, the man press the button which can end the world & only one person will survive.
I think the biggest difference is almost all the instruments are synthesizers this time. The only acoustic instrument is the acoustic guitar for Forest Calling & electric guitar for We Are Weird Small Animals. But I tried to leave the "human-ness" without editing too much digitally for playing keyboard & drums. I feel like selling my soul, so I tried to avoid the quantization (auto-fix for timing) as much as possible.
Also, I'm into 80s music & I think it influenced the sound a lot. I was reading the interview of the musician Mioko Yamaguchi & she was talking about painting the scenery with the sound, so I wanted to follow her idea. I tried to make the sound after I have a specific image in my mind. And of course, the music of Isao Tomita, Fumitaka Anzai (Composer of Urusei Yatsura), Haruomi Hosono, Chakra, Kraftwerk, Hans Wuman etc. influenced me a lot this time.
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The City of the Robots
This song is about a cat who is being forced to work in the factory. I made the lyrics while remembering my horrible part-time in NYC. The song was previously called "Berlin Underground" & I wanted to sound like a piece of electronic music made in the basement in Berlin. I happened to make a weird sound by accident & it turned out to be a song in the end. The way the singer Jun Togawa sings in her "Takahime Sama" as if she is a bad school kid which inspired me a lot.
We Are Weird Small Animals
This song has existed for a long time & we were basically repeating "We are weird small animals" over and over. I finally made a new part this time & arranged it into 80s Italo pop style. It was fun to make the sound of the synthesizer as if the cats are crying. In my imagination for this song is like, 2 cats are escaping from the factory with a flying car & doing the car chase with space police.
Evil Woman Cult
You probably heard the song before. This is the arrangement of Chopin's "Revolutionary" Etude. My sister used to practice this song at home, so it's kinda memorable song for me.
We recently visited Italy and saw a band who does the mixture of synthesizer & heavy-metal music. We liked the band, but the singer was the type who does not shout, so we were a little disappointed about that. We were like, we can make the cool synthesizer metal music that we were imagining with a screaming vocal. The day after seeing the band, I instantly made the lyrics on the train. Sometimes it's easy to make the lyrics.
Forest Calling
This is the song that was hard for me to make the lyrics. I made the sound imagining the sunshine is coming down from the tree branches in the forest.
The very first birds sound is sampled at our Brooklyn apartment in the morning, but it was so noisy with an ambulance, drill from construction, sanitation car, airplane, the guy spitting on the street etc. It was almost a miracle that it became quiet for 40 seconds, so I could record the birds.
Golliwog's Cakewalk
It's the song by Debussy. I wanted to make like the choir of the cats who were converted into robots & I was also trying to sound like it's a generated music from the sampler Fairlight CMI. The low bass sound is my sampled voice & the high sound is Pixy's. I mixed with other cat-like sounds & FM synth's bird-ish sound.
The Man with the Button
This is the song that one man is trying to make a decision of pressing the button which will end the world. And he pressed the button in the end.
In the beginning, I was only trying to re-create the bass sound of the song "Little Love" by infamous Japanese band Pegmo (means Penguin & Mogura) in the 80s. Somehow I ended up making the whole song from that sound. The song with the tempo is going faster is kinda rare, but it actually comes from one of MMW's song (was called Bubblehouse) which I always think the idea is great.
After Everything Is Gone
It's the last song in the album. It's connected from the previous song & it's the destroyed world after the button was pressed. But at the same time, the singer is feeling peaceful & safe. The music is also kind of Bossa Nova-ish & it has a peaceful feeling. If everyone is gone from the world, I was just imagining it might be actually peaceful to be alone. But I hope this won't actually happen to the world. I'm not intended to scare people by showing the collapsed world & stop it from happening. I was just enjoying making the song, to be honest.
So this is it for the explanation for this album. I hope you enjoy listening, Thank you! - Moro
以前のアルバムとの1番の大きな違いは、楽器をあえてほぼシンセにしたところです。今回生の楽器はForest CallingのアコギとWe Are Weird Small Animalsのエレキギターだけです。でもキーボードやドラムの打ち込みは、出来るだけ編集せずにほぼ僕が手で弾いたままで、出来るだけ人間臭さみたいのを残すのがこだわりなんでしょうか。やっぱりそこはちょっと魂を売るみたいな感じなので、クオンタイズ(自動タイミング補正)みたいなのはできる限り避けてありますね。
あと80年代の音楽に本当にハマってまして、それも音に影響したと思います。山口美央子さんという音楽家さんのインタビューを読んでいて、情景描写が大事だと話されていて、僕も真似しようと(笑)。なので、シンセサイザーもまずイメージをもってから、情景が浮かぶような音色を作るように心がけました。もちろん冨田勲さん、うる星やつらの安西史孝さん、細野晴臣さん、Chakura、Kraftwerk, Hans Wurmanなどなど。。。他にもいろんな人たちを参考にさせていただきました。
この曲はけっこう前からあって、"We are weird small animals"ってリピートして歌ってるだけだったんですけど、今回やっと他のパートも作って、80年代のイタリアのポップス風(Italo Pop)にアレンジしました。猫が鳴いてるような音色など楽しんで作ってましたね。イメージとしては、二匹の猫が空飛ぶ車に乗って工場から脱出して、宇宙警察から逃げ回る、といった感じでしょうか。(笑)
A surprisingly tender and intimate concept record about long distance love from Cody Votolato of The Blood Brothers/Head Wound City. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 30, 2019