Liner notes
TL note: This section is a translation of the freely available Fanbox post describing this album's concept.
This is a chat about the concept and production of the album “Imashime to Juuichibanme no Aquarium”, the new release for M3-47 in spring 2021. I wrote about the production details and motifs, as well as some rejected drafts, in a bit of detail.
It is definitely not anything like “This is the correct interpretation!” Really, if I had to say, I myself am more of a “the listener's interpretation is that song's interpretation” kind of person. So I would be glad if you would take the details presented here loosely!
For the first edition of liner notes that follow here, I would like to write about my latest album “Imashime to Juuichibanme no Aquarium”!
Commandments and the 11th Aquarium
It is the new release that follows approximately 1.5 years after “Yumemiru Shoujo to Nanatsu no Shuumatsu”. It all started because I wanted to make completely new songs, because “Yumemiru” was derived from old music that I had made before. I started working on it in November 2019, but I had some trouble with attending events because of my work and other circumstances. Other than the time I spent on production, I also spent a lot of time thinking about this and that, so in the end the production time turned out to be rather long.
This time, for “Imashime to Juuichibanme no Aquarium”, the motif I used are the Ten Commandments of Moses from the Old Testament, “the 10 melodies that Moses received from God”. (Although it must be pointed out that this is only a motif, I did not write any songs specifically based on the Ten Commandments)
What I wanted this album to depict are the commandments I set for myself in order to live like myself, the state of mind to exist like myself. I transformed these ideas into an omnibus-type album consisting of 10 (plus 1) characters.
As for why I chose the title “Commandments and the Eleventh Aquarium”: it is because I created 10 albums up until now — this is my 11th album. I have the impression that this album has captured my own “Eleventh Commandment” for me.
CD jacket
At first, I wanted to create a cover designed like a novel or a light novel. This was because I initially planned to write a short story for each individual song. (I will touch on the story contents a bit in the explanations for the individual songs). For the crossfade video, I wanted to put a bit of “story-style” writing together with the title of each song, but eventually I thought, isn't this “style” a bit too much, am I overdoing it? So I scrapped this idea.
The idea for the cover image itself was derived from the story of Moses splitting the sea, and the composition of the image revolves around the idea that the path between the two aquarium tanks that I selected to contain the commandments looks like the splitting of the sea. Within the aquarium tanks, there are ten sunken melodies to represent the commandments, and the eleventh girl — the girl on the cover — is drawn to look at them like she looks at the past passing by while she moves forward.
By the way, there were also these rejected plans for the cover. I don't really know enough about illustration to be able to explain why I rejected them (I really have to learn more...), so I'll only touch upon it in passing...
Rough rejected plans
↑ It's rather wondrous... or should I say, there's a feeling of overwhelming transience. I was unsure whether or not to use English for the title...
↑ This one was rejected because I put in too many of the things I wanted to put in, so it became messy. There was also the feeling that the girl's determination was too strong.
Changes during the production
As for changes I made during the production that relate to the sound of the music in particular, the most important one was the change in drum sound. While the previous drum sound was powerful and band-like, and I personally liked it because it was cool, I changed to a comparatively clean-sounding drum audio. My own habits and preferences often cause me to put in too many notes, and with clean-sounding drums, I felt that it might be easier to hear the other instruments more (at least I think so). But it might also have been nice to have a song that sounds a bit more unclean and mangled... I want to try this next time.
Also, I've been buying different kinds of guitar distortion effectors, and now that I've become somewhat used to them, songs that contain phrases that can be heard with a more distorted sound have become more frequent.
I've tweeted that “this album will be my last CD production”, but this doesn't mean that I made it with the thought of “this album will be the last one!!”. I tweeted this because I thought it will become difficult to produce and sell CDs at events in the future because of the state of the world, but even so, I have rather a lot of ideas for albums I want to make from here on, and I hope I will be able to present them in another form other a CD!