Music Industrial Wastes: P-Model or Die

Untitled

Music Industrial Wastes: P-Model or Die, stylized as Music Industrial Wastes〜P-MODEL OR DIE (音楽産業廃棄物〜P-MODEL OR DIE, Ongaku Sangyō Haikibutsu〜P-MODEL OR DIE), is the twelfth studio album by P-Model, the third by its "revised" lineup and the final one for the band overall.

Background

In 1999, feeling that technology had advanced enough and frustrated at major labels' reticence to adopt it, P-Model terminated their contract with Nippon Columbia and started the Music Industrial Wastes: P-Model or Die project. Through it, the band would redevelop their distribution methods, starting up the online MP3 store P-Plant as their primary commercial channel (to service those who don't have computers, the independent label Magnet Records handled CD releases) and organizing multiple events for more direct interaction with their listeners. As 1999 was also the 20th anniversary of the band's foundation, many activities were organized to commemorate its history.

The concept of the album Music Industrial Wastes: P-Model or Die is summed up on its first track, inspired by the frustration the P-Plant webmaster was having with the difficulties of copyright in the information age, "Logic Airforce": P-Model is locked on a battle of logic with the music industry. As an extension of the concept of Fune, the long voyage started on that album ends on a post-war battlefield, where people are rebuilding a new world, where all are invited to acceptance, things that would be called escapism and madness in the real world are celebrated, and evil spirits can show their faces. However, in order to continue living inside the real world to some extent, people cast aside their "real names", instead living as "dust humanoids", or "DUSToids".

Composition

A theme present in the album is a proper revisiting of the core P-Model concept. To explore that, Kenji Konishi used the drum spatial processing from Perspective and whole tones, giving most of his songs a "concrete garage-like" sound and some periodic sampling of snare drums. Further playing with the "retrieving industrial wastes" concept, he also recorded about 3 hours of sampling from construction sites and similar locations.

The song that most closely realizes the "replay" concept, "Heaven 2000", is a combination of two songs: "Heaven", from Perspective, and 4-D's stand-alone single "After Dinner Party". Both "Heaven" and "After Dinner Party" were part of both bands' regular repertoire in the '80s. While originally entirely unrelated, both songs can be read as complimentary to each other, and that was the motivation behind the making of "Heaven 2000".

Recording and production

With the advances in technology, members sent each other demos as MP3 files, which are of a higher quality than RealAudio ones, which meant that each member could do their entire workload without meeting face-to-face. Continuing that trend, P-Model experimented with "Remote Mixdown": backups of each member's hard disk recorder were sent to Hirasawa's Studio Wireself, were Masanori Chinzei engineered them, periodically sending MP3s to each member's computer. They would then communicate feedback and instructions to him through an exclusive chat system. The whole process could be seen by the public, who had their own chat, could see a new picture of the studio once every 3 minutes and listen to lower rate MP3s, all happening in real time.

Because MP3 downloads were being considered as the primary method of distribution, P-Model made sure to compress the songs to about 3 to 4 MB, with 5 MB being the maximum; they also deliberately went for "festive" numbers to celebrate the new medium.

Track listing

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Logic Airforce" (論理空軍 Ronri Kūgun)	Susumu Hirasawa	3:20
2.	"Lauretian" (ローレシア Rōreshia)	Kenji Konishi	3:49
3.	"Recovery Ship" (回収船 Kaishū Sen)	Hirasawa	4:16
4.	"Moon Plant-II"	Hirasawa	3:55
5.	"Heaven 2000"	Konishi	3:18
6.	"Ancient Sounds"	Konishi	3:20
7.	"Rehash"	Konishi	4:37
8.	"Waste Cabaret"	Hirasawa	3:11
9.	"Mind Scape"	Konishi	4:12
10.	"DUSToid" (DUSToidよ歩行は快適か? DUSToid yo Hokō wa Kaiteki ka?, Oh DUSToid, is Your Walk Comfortable?)	Hirasawa	3:40

Personnel

• Susumu Hirasawa - Vocals, Electric guitar, Synthesizers, Sampler, Amiga, Sequencer, Programming
• Hajime Fukuma & Kenji Konishi - System-1 & System-2, Backing vocals
• Masanori Chinzei - Engineering

Relese history

Date	Label(s)	Format	Catalog	Notes
September 1, 1999 (1999-09-01)	Chaos Union, Teslakite	MP3	PP-00001	All songs are available for download individually (cat. nos. PP-00010 – 19).
September 22, 1999 (1999-09-22)	Magnet Records, Teslakite	CD	MAGL-5002	Packaged on a smart tray jewel case, with a small booklet and a strip of magnetic tape with project logo, TESLAKITE logo and catalogue number printed on it.
May 10, 2002 (2002-05-10) July 4, 2014 (2014-07-04)	Chaos Union, Teslakite		CHTE-0014	Remastered by Hirasawa. Part of Disc 10 of the Ashu-on [Sound Subspecies] in the solar system box set, alongside Virtual Live-1 and "Moon Plant-I". Re-released with new packaging by Kiyoshi Inagaki.

• "Logic Airforce" is included on the LIVE VIDEO Music Industrial Wastes〜P-MODEL OR DIE and MAGNET RECORDS/biosphere records PREMIUM DVD videos and the January 2000 Nikkei netn@vi and JAS SKI & SNOWBOARD 2001 CD-ROMs.

References

Bibliography

• Takahasi, Kasiko (2010) [1999], 改訂DIGITAL復刻版 音楽産業廃棄物 [Music Industrial Wastes Rev.2.4], vol. P-Model Side — Open Source (3rd ed.), Fascination {{citation}}: |format= requires |url= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help).

External links

• MANIFESTO
• Music Industrial Wastes〜P-MODEL OR DIE at NO ROOM - The official site of Susumu Hirasawa (P-MODEL)
• Music Industrial Wastes〜P-MODEL OR DIE (All Song Package) at TESLAKITE online shop
• Music Industrial Wastes〜P-MODEL OR DIE at MAGNET / biosphere Records
• Music Industrial Wastes〜P-MODEL OR DIE at MusicBrainz (list of releases)