Fishmans
How about this for a proposal for a band? The aesthetic will be fishing trip chic: plenty of outdoor clothing and stray hooks. The music will be underwater dub comprised of equal parts submarine rumblings and lolloping beats. The singer will eschew conventional singing in favour of cooing and gurgling like an unborn baby swimming in utero or moaning and groaning like a massive mutual whale massage occurring off the coast of Japan. Oh, and said singer will be suffering from an incurable heart defect that will lend a tragic undertow to the whole ill-starred caper.
Allow Japan Onchi to flick its tail and enter more mainstream waters to incorporate Fishmans into its canon of the unusual. Formed in 1987, Fishmans released seven albums that gazed longingly from a distance at life and the universe. They were just becoming deservedly massive when frontman Shinji Sato eventually succumbed to heart failure in 1999.
The song Weather Report, taken from 1997’s Space, Japan, Setagaya, speaks the universal language of euphoric despair like little else before or since in Japanese music. And to think, this from the country that gave you Orange Range! The world is a funny place but Fishmans understood that better that you or I ever could.
June 11, 2008 at 7:11 pm
My fave Japanese band. Brilliant.
August 16, 2008 at 2:36 am
Fishmans were so good and left us way too soon. At least their influence (and members) lives on in the Japanese music scene. Thanks for helping keep the memory alive on your blog.