Radwimps 4: Okazu no Gohan

Background and development

After the band's RADWIMPS Haruna Tour in September 2005, the band rush-recorded five songs, including the singles "Futarigoto" and "Yūshinron." These two songs took up an extreme amount of effort for the band. "Futarigoto" was a song originally intended for RADWIMPS 3, however as the band could not work out how to complete the song properly, it was shelved. "By My Side", the B-side on the "Setsuna Rensa" single was also a part of these sessions. Work on RADWIMPS 3 was finalised in December 2005, but as the band still had many things they wanted to try, they immediately started work on their next album.

For the band's fourth album, the members consciously focused on the sound the band had. This is in comparison to the band's first album, in which they had an image, but had not really considered what it was. However, the band did not start out with a particular concept to work around. Vocalist and lyricist Yojiro Noda noted that while lyrics were the central point of RADWIMPS 3, the importance of the lyrics were more balanced with other aspects in RADWIMPS 4. When the band recorded "Bagoodbye" (after the sessions that produced "Yūshinron"), they noted there was stylistically something good about it, and then considered it the focal stylistic point of the album. Noda also felt that it was exactly the sort of statement RADWIMPS had wanted to make in a song. RADWIMPS 4 felt like a point in experimentation where the band had wanted to get to, where in RADWIMPS 2 they first felt this desire, and in RADWIMPS 3 they felt closer to their target.

"Enren" is the first RADWIMPS song based around fictional events. It was created by Noda after fans had kept requesting a long-distance relationship-themed song.

Many of the song titles in the album contain wordplay. "05410-(n)" is goroawase (writing numbers and using their phonetic pronunciations) for the Japanese word okoshite (起こして, to wake someone up). The -(ん) in the title is intended to indicate the 10 should be pronounced as the English world ten, but with the n removed. "Masumaru" is written with the hiragana masu, followed by a Japanese-style circle full-stop, in this instance pronounced maru (丸, circle). The resulting name, masumaru, which is similar to the Japanese pronunciation to marshmallow, mashumaro (マシュマロ).

"Setsuna Rensa" and "Sanbyōshi" are songs with multiple readings of the same words. In "Setsuna Rensa", rensa (連鎖) means chain/connection, while setsuna has a duel meaning of setsunai (切ない, painful) and setsuna (刹那, moment). Sanbyōshi (三拍子) is the Japanese word for 3/4 metre, while san in the title is given the different kanji 傘, which means umbrella.

Of the songs on the album, eight are sung completely in Japanese, two primarily in Japanese with English phrases, one entirely in English, and three primarily in English with Japanese stanzas.

Promotion and release

The band's third album was released in February 2006, and throughout the rest of 2006, the band toured and released three singles: "Futarigoto" in May, "Yūshinron" in July and "Setsuna Rensa" in November.

After the album's release, the songs "Ii n Desu ka?" and "Me Me She" received music videos, both directed by long-time collaborator with the band, Daisuke Shimada.

In promotion of the album, the band toured throughout March and April 2007, on their 15 date Harumaki (春巻き, spring-roll) tour. The tour was released on DVD in July 2007, and was the number one selling music DVD for the week.

Track listing

All tracks written by Yojiro Noda.