Shoxx 235 - Song interview (2/2)

The Gazette
from DIVISION to DIPLOSOMIA part 2
#1 disorganization

ヘドロ (Hedoro) - (Sludge)

Interviewer: Listening to this song I had the strong feeling that is a perfect song for lives, Uruha-kun, basing on which image did you write this song?

Uruha: In the moment I started composing it, I did it as a song near electro music, but in the end it wasn't added to Disc 2. What I cared about was the rhythm. It's different from the 4 beats even if it's a standard rhythm and since the sound itself of the band was retrospective I think it became a characteristic song. We've discovered till which point this song could change before twisting.

Interviewer: You can actually perceive the Rock and Roll taste through the sound of guitar riffs.

Aoi: Maybe because there's a gently consumed feeling? But the rhythm is contemporary. Even the way the situation was developed, since it's frequent we thought it would let this song be interesting.

Interviewer: Talking about the guitar timbre, it's distorted but at the same time clear. Did you point at this excellent balance, didn't you?

Aoi: Speaking about our band, the sound recorded is really refined. Isn't it for this reason that even a song with a similar nature is easy to hear? It doesn't matter how distorted can be, it never becomes rude as in metal.

Interviewer: Regarding the drums, this sensual and hard rhythm, how did you create it?

Kai: When I heard it for the first time -as Uruha said- I didn't have a strong perception of rhythm presence in the reproduction of the sound. I took the song and went back home, I opened the datas and only kicks[1] and snare drum[2] were integrated, I had to add the remain.

Interviewer: It's a hard situation for a drummer.

Kai: I thought "what are you doing? …only two points?[3]" *laugh* As first thing, I tried to create the third point adding the hi-hat [4] and while going on with the work I added various things to fill in the blanks. Talking to Uruha, we managed to bring it to an end distributing what until that moment was playing with cymbals with the hi-hat. The phrases itself are not hard, but the composition was irregular. It gives a sensation of a drum applied to every single part.

Interviewer: In this case, Reita-kun, which kind of position did you try to assume?

Reita: This is a song with lot of pauses. The melody is rock, however as the GazettE, it's a song with pop sides. However, since it's a song with a good rhythm, in the recording we added serenely those pauses. The problem would be live. We'll do our best live in order to exploit the pauses at the best without letting the rhythm to elapse.

Interviewer: In this song -full of a sensation of dynamism- here it comes the dirty title Hedoro. Probably in this lyrics the social satirical element is strong.

Ruki: Mass media and stealth marketing form the theme of the song.

Interviewer: That word had a great diffusion over the past year.

Ruki: I think a thing like that is a necessary evil. It exists because there's demand and in a capitalistic society is it something appropriate to exist maybe? About gossip, it's full of people who doesn't care about it but it doesn't mean that there are many people who like it. The meaning of this lyrics is that we don't know how things really are.

Interviewer: The problem is if listeners will realize or not the stealth marketing that mass media spreads or if they can't take seriously hidden falsehoods and gossip. I think it's awfully important in this period to have clear what is media literacy without begin confused by information manipulation.

Ruki: After the calamity of the earthquake I perfectly understand what you mean. Even twitter spread is like this, the falsehoods in the world are easy to discover by now. Both stealth marketing and occult informations, or if someone is doing something, honestly didn't it become easy to understand? Taking advance of the confusion, you can try and determine certain things or keep going on things according to a pre-established harmony.

Interviewer: I agree with you.

Ruki: The Japan after the disaster of the earthquake -from some points of view- is ridiculous.

Interviewer: I strongly agree with you again.

Ruki: Despite no-one believes in media anymore, they remained the same and it's full of people who watch them mockingly.

影踏み (Kagefumi) - (Trod shadow)

Interviewer: It's a beautiful delicate ballad. When you listen to it, it penetrates slowly.

Uruha: I composed it because I wanted to insert a ballad in DIVISION. Beautiful, painful and vaguely sad, this is what I perceived.

Kai: It's a song with a slow tempo, from a drummer point of view, it has a high level of difficulty. Since from the phase of original song, it was a really complete song, I played paying attention in particular to rhythm changes, intense parts and entrance drum rolls [5].

Reita: As rhythmic team, I think it became a song in which we could create a perfect combination. Speaking of the bass, at first I had in program to play with the pick, but it couldn't be well harmonized if I used it, for this reason I quickly shifted to fingers. *laugh* This should have been the most suitable choice. I managed to give life to a pleasant sound which matches with the song both if you play it or hear it.

Interviewer: In this song there a realistic sound and you can perceive a kind of warmth.

Aoi: Lately -speaking of trend- it seems that lot of music is adjusted with donkama (kurikku)[6]. I think it's a good thing even if there would be a song with points moderated in which you can stir up. As a professional, the priority is to create a precise sound but I like a sound a bit wild. Among human beings, I can affirm that I'm the only one that can produce this sound with the guitar, a touch of sweet sound and a tempo perception so accurate.

Interviewer: From the title Kagefumi, I can feel a kind of nostalgia. Even speaking of the lyrics, it seems something that describe refinement.

Ruki: Speaking about the flow, it's a lyrics in which complications and collisions are evoked. However I don't write it concretely with words, in the end what it's represented is the death.

Interviewer: There are no words..

Ruki: Little by little, you go towards it. In death, finally, two people became once. However, even if they are dead, it's not the end.

Interviewer: What could it mean?

Ruki: Well, it was just a metaphor. It doesn't mean I wanted to write something about double suicide for love. The thing is that when two people can head on one thing together, in that moment can't they become one thing as human beings for the first time?

Interviewer: Ruki-kun, the love tragedy you describe, don't you think it could be seen as a failure?

Ruki: But the two of them are positive, since they can achieve what they craved for. Besides, probably if they won't fail, the bond between them wouldn't get stronger. Whatever happens, if they love each other, that's the best.

余韻 (Yoin) - (Afterglow / Reverberation)

Interviewer: This is a dark song, with a disturbing atmosphere that oppress the listener with a imposing sound, was composed by Aoi-kun, right?

Aoi: It's a song I wrote while I wanted to represent a viscous [8] japanese horror movie. It's different from a flashy spatter western movie, doesn't japanese horror make you feel terror for details, characters climate or the scenery? Since I always wanted to represent this all, I composed without the intention of explaining the scenery of the story for example in the refrain. However, the lyrics doesn't have that contents.

Interviewer: Despite the theme being so explicits, you entrusted the lyrics to Ruki-kun, didn't you?

Ruki: Because if you explain too in details, it ends up as you conducted the theme. What I talked about was the adding of the lyrics to sing in relation to the notes.

Interviewer: Speaking of the modelling in the main part, Kai-kun, how did you think you wanted this song to be heard?

Kai: Since flam was added too, I followed a ternary tempo and I tried not to ruin it. Since melody A suddenly follows modulation too, I thought that point could become a passage to hear as one thing in the next live. Then, during recordings, since Aoi told me he wanted to recreate an ambient [7] feeling, I gave lot of importance to this too.

Interviewer: Reita-kun, when you received this song, do you remember what you felt?

Reita: From the beginning this song was dark and heavy. Moreover, I think it's a deep song that gives the feeling of an existence that perfectly adapts to the ending part of DISC 1, so as the sound. I just faithfully represented in this way the melody. Of course among the GazettE's songs there are other dark songs but since this one is not only dark but there's the feeling that the refrain spread itself, I think it's different from the others. Maybe it's because it's an excellent song with a limpid and firm sound that it's becoming a song with an original taste.

Uruha: Speaking of the guitar, it was a song that we recorded using a lot our head since arpeggios were added, they fill completely but according to the situation, patterns and single tonalities change. Moreover the ambient feeling of the drums is synchronized to the sound. Playing a single song with various arpeggios was very interesting.

Interviewer: It seems that Aoi composed this song thinking about an horror. Ruki, what did you want to represent with this song?

Ruki: I felt too that horror feeling. The sadness and beauty of japanese horror.

Interviewer: However, from this lyrics I perceived lot of feelings other then these. I think there was a kind of message.

Ruki: I represented in this lyrics the reality, the situation during the tsunami and the nuclear power plant -which is slowly breaking up-, I call this situation Yoin. During TOXIC, I represented the situation of the nuclear power plant was current, since then for lots of people this is something from the past. It's becoming some kind of resonance/reverberation.

Interviewer: These are words I want to take with care.

Ruki: I'm wandering if the speed of break-up isn't faster than I expected. Even if there are lot of people committed into this… I wrote this toward myself too.

[Diplosomia]

Interviewer: About this song, in the Limited Edition there's a video, isn't there?

Ruki: The content of this video is a the bridge with Disc 2. I wanted to represent in the video the image of a complementary group, Siamese twins. I want you to feel DIVISION thinking about this too.


[1] When you play the bass drum with your foot. Bass drum.
[2] Snare drum.
[3] bass drum and snare drum.
[4] Hi-hat.
[5] Drum Roll.
[6] A sort of Rhythm-box, during lives the sound of the drum is sent through earphones in order to keep time.
[7] He literally use the word 'runny' or 'thickening', he meant that japanese movies in order to describe japanese horror which is not really neat and clear as western ones and it's mainly based on psychological horror.
[8] Ambient Music.



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