Karkador

Background and composition

Karkador was mainly inspired by the dreams of P-Model's vocalist Susumu Hirasawa. He had been seeing a Jungian counselor at a welfare facility for the mentally ill in Takayama, as he was in a troubled mental state at the time. The counselor suggested that he record his dreams in a notebook to aid his recovery. He developed a narrative and lyrics for the album based on those notes.

Sadatoshi Tainaka, the band's original drummer, decided to leave after the previous tour's conclusion. He was replaced by Yasuhiro Araki, a huge fan of P-Model who had formerly played in a punk rock band. The band got signed to Alfa Records's sub-label for underground acts Edge, which allowed them to use Alfa's studios and mixing equipment, which was far better than what they had access to during their independent period.

Recording and production

In addition to Hirasawa's journal, P-Model used songwriting contributions from their keyboardist Shunichi Miura and bassist Tadahiko Yokogawa. Hirasawa and Yokogawa had equal creative control over the band, though Yokogawa has said that his influence on the album was somewhat nuanced. Although the album has a new wave style much like 1984's Scuba, it also includes a wider array of sounds; mixing live drumming with programmed drumming, march-styled rhythms, and classical instruments. The band tried to keep the album raw, with the MIDI data of the electronics going uncleared.

Hirasawa had many ideas in regards to the sound of the album, but faced issues with engineering. He wanted Karkador to sound "underground", feeling that in-house engineer at Gok Studio Yoshiaki Kondo was best for the job. Alfa balked at the idea and wanted to use their own engineer. Kondo mixed the recordings, making the drums purposefully messy, but his work was altered by Alfa without Hirasawa's consent. Miura had doubts as to the direction that P-Model was taking and left the band alongside Yokogawa, who felt that touring in support of the album was too rigorous. Due to their departure, half of the album was never performed live after from 1986 onwards.

Track listing

All tracks written by Susumu Hirasawa, except where noted.

Personnel

Release history