廃墟

Archived here as the original publishing is lost.

During my formative years as a computer-addicted teenager, I spent all my free time scouring YouTube rabbit holes trying to find the next piece of music to absolutely obsess over for months to come. I discovered Dots through one of the now many YouTube channels that pride themselves in bringing unheard Asian music to the web and was floored by what I heard.

Dots blew my mind immediately from the start. "Idol music" to me was only ever associated with the bubblegum sweetness of J-pop acts such as AKB48 or the charismatic, trend-following K-pop acts who dominate the world as of the time writing this. Dots were like nothing I had ever seen before. I remember stumbling across an old live gig recording in which the girls brushed their teeth on stage, eyes covered by the group's signature masks while an array of screeching harsh noise played throughout the venue. As confusing as it was to witness, it made you want to see more.

Discussing the record's actual content, we must acknowledge the stacked production lineup that builds the foundation for this stunning record. ambient/drone producer Hakobune created all 4 of the "Tokyo" tracks, 3 absolutely alluring interludes carefully placed between a selection of memorable shoegaze tracks, and then tokyo4, a 50-minute harsh noise composition which while repetitive by nature brings a whole new level of uniqueness to what was already a conceptually strange piece of idol music.

The first proper track スライド also known as "slide" in English was written by 管梓 [Azusa Suga] of For Tracy Hyde fame, which after hundreds of listens this song still manages to impress with its dreamlike production and infectious backing synths. This is followed by トリニティダイブ which while being the safest track on the album still manages to dazzle with its sugary idol pop sound which could be described as dipping a 2000s J-pop hit in a bucket of reverb and masterfully mixing it all together. The final vocal track ねぇuses its sensational melodies and infectious bassline to fill any listener no matter who with feelings of warmth and nostalgia.

I spoke to Azusa a while ago about the record in an online interview, in which I asked him about the process of the record and his opinion on the growing experimental idol scene. Azusa was told to not worry about writing "idol music" but to create as he would always create. He told me that this is becoming more common in underground idol communities and because of it we are seeing these kinds of results. "One thing that's really fascinating about the idol scene is that as long as an idol group is performing, you can actually get away with doing pretty much anything you like. That makes for a great field for experimentation which unfortunately isn't really used to its fullest potential in the overground idol scene, but is being explored by many underground groups".

By underground Azusa is referring to what he called the gakkyokuha (song-oriented) scene. A selection of upcoming idol acts who are passionately pushing the limits of idol music to reinvent the genre within their own scenes or circles.

This in a way is where everything went wrong for Dots. Dots were set to play many of the countries finest shoegaze clubs which resulted in a majority of the countries shoegaze fans shaking their heads in disgust at the fact an idol group was infiltrating their beloved genre. It's reminiscent of old heads attacking new hip-hop or the old rock vs new rock debates. People are so terrified of the degradation of their precious music that they sneer at the changes the newer acts bring.

I remember reading scathing review after scathing review of the group. People called them gimmicky or criticised them for being fake shoegazers or another idol group to oversaturate the market. Over time the group seemed to lose their "weird" factor releasing progressively more tame records to try and appeal to broader audiences such as 「」 and Points, which both while still excellent do not hit the same spot as CD for me personally.

CD did everything right in my opinion, a beautiful and surreal set of promotional artwork, dreamy interludes which interconnected a string of well-written and vastly unique shoegaze tracks followed by the cherry-on-top which is that mind-bendingly insane harsh noise section at the end.

Dots were too idol for the shoegazers and too experimental for the idol fans. they had their fanbase while they were around but they never truly found their niche in time. their legacy will live on not only through their follow-up act RAY but as a step forward for what idol music can achieve.

Dots proved the idol industry can be more than just cheesy pop songs or a quick cash-grab but instead can create meaningful music and experiences that hopefully will last, only time will tell.

ねぇあの日のメロディ波のオーケストラ黄昏時包んだ -ねぇ

Archived here as the original publishing is lost.

As a part of my interview series on artists and bands participating in the alternative Japanese music scenes especially the Shoegaze and Dreampop scenes I talked to Azusa Suga also known as Bot who wrote a plethora of songs for alternative idol groups such as ・・・・・・・・・ (dotstokyo) and RAY, and is a member of bands such as For Tracy Hyde and April Blue. Additionally they are now leading their own solo project called Letters To Annika.

Q1: What albums have you been listening to lately that you have been enjoying?

夏bot: I haven't been actively listening to new stuff that much (which definitely isn't good for a songwriter, but I need the comfort of same old under these times of unprecedented change). However, I am trying to dig into music that I haven't really listened to in the past, such as folk, country, and slowcore. I have also been enjoying Julien Baker's 2015 album "Sprained Ankle" as well as both of Bluetile Lounge's studio albums.

Q2: Who was the last band you listened to?

夏bot: Galileo Galilei. Their album "Portal" is an old favourite of mine. It has had a huge influence on my music too.

Q3: Are you personally a fan of any idol groups?

夏bot: To be honest, I can't really say that I'm a fan of any particular idol group. While I do contribute with my songwriting skills to the idol industry, I still have personal doubts about its system and customs as a whole. Sometimes the sexually exploitative nature of idol culture can get too overt for me to enjoy. Luckily RAY are presented in a very clean manner so I don't have that many qualms about working with them.

Q4: As someone who has written for various idol groups before, what exactly does idol music mean to you? do you approach writing idol music differently in comparison to writing music for your other bands?

夏bot: Actually when I was first offered to write a song for Dots, the precursor of RAY, I was told by their musical director to write as I would usually do, without thinking that I'm writing idol music. Which was very fortunate for me considering the fact that I didn't really know that much about idol music except for a few songs that I liked. One thing that's really fascinating about the idol scene is that as long as an idol group is performing, you can actually get away with doing pretty much anything you like. That makes for a great field for experimentation which unfortunately isn't really used to its fullest potential in the overground idol scene, but is being explored by many underground groups.

Q5: Do you personally think the idol industry is taking the correct steps towards being more ethical as a whole or do you think they are too stuck in their old ways and traditions?

夏bot: I guess it depends on where you're looking. The AKB empire seems to be staying more or less the same. On the other hand, the gakkyokuha (song-oriented) scene is pretty healthy because the people involved in management have a genuine love for music (often they are musicians themselves), as well as the fans.

Q6: Do you have an advice for anyone who would want to work as a songwriter/producer in the idol industry? any personal stories about how you ended up working dots/RAY?

夏bot: I can't really give any advice because I entered this world due to sheer luck (a friend of mine who used to organise shoegaze gigs booked Dots once, and he introduced me to their director, leading to my career in idol music). I'll just say hone your skills, actively look for opportunities and connections, and when you see a chance, take it.

thank you so much to @chelseaguitar for lending their time for this interview

please check out their solo project Letters To Annika alongisde their other works

Letters To Annika:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-zx5WQTCwms
https://linkco.re/Yee5PQd7?lang=en
https://letterstoannika.bandcamp.com/track/summercrush

For Tracy Hyde:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6D4CyQKY5fDsjK5qKNfqDy?autoplay=true https://www.youtube.com/c/ForTracyHyde

[Goldsmiths University Bachelors Degree First Year Paper]

[Extract Taken From Full Paper On The Medium Of Animation]

Japan has had a longstanding reputation as being one of the animation powerhouses of the world. Directors such as Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, Angels Egg), Hideki Anno (the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise) and Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Paprika) have been experimenting using animation to explore topics of the human psyche ever since the latter half of the 1900s. These directors have covered mental illness, religious faith, existentialism, and more through their varied works. Some of these films have found increasing cultural significance such as Angel’s Egg (1985) which due to the lack of dialogue, sparse plot, detailed visual style, and links with religion is referred to as "animated art rather than a story" (Brian Ruh, 2004).

Towards the end of the 1990’s director, Satoshi Kon released the critically acclaimed Perfect Blue (1997) which was perceived as a critique of voyeurism in the digital age (Susan Napier, 2006). The film tells the story of Mima, originally the lead singer of the pop group Cham she decides to leave the idol image behind after her management insists that it would be the best for profits and instead rebrands as a mature actress who is starring in a television thriller as a serial killer. This complete switch from her once youthful and innocent idol image causes her to lose sense of reality and her own identity. She is unable to tell who she truly is, if she is a pop idol, an actress, or a serial killer.

She is shown as being pulled back and forth by the different forces influencing her image, the agents and management of Mima constantly push her in the direction of the mature actress while her superfan (known as Mamoru Uchida or Me-Mania) becomes increasingly violent as they will do anything to restore and protect Mima’s pure idol image. As she descends into madness her personal life, the fake stories about her online and the television drama all begin to merge into one questionable reality.

The story of Perfect Blue can be interpreted in many ways that are critical of human nature. Firstly, the film offers a critique of the real-world relationships between celebrities and fans. The main character's downfall comes with the concept of their forced perfect identity and how the fan/celebrity relationship can become incredibly damaging. “Perfect Blue’s depiction of a fan community and the solitary psychopath offers a further division of fans as part of a broader community of common interests, and as isolated individuals who are ‘possessed’ by, or obsessed with, their favourite programme or idol” (Craig Norris, 2012). Through this, we see the dangers of stan (a term coined by Eminem in the early 2000s, stalker-fan) culture as individuals can become so involved in their idol that it leads to emotional dependence/responsibility.

This has been the case in many real-life instances including Ricardo López (a superfan of the Icelandic musician Björk, who he tried to kill by sending a letter bomb to her residence after learning that she was in a romantic relationship) (Hoffmann, Meloy and Sheridan, 2008) whose actions quite literally mirror scenes of the film such as the letter bomb incident, or other situations less physical such as South-Korean musician Sulli who was openly and violently critiqued due to her behavior while she was an idol and due to this suffered from mental health issues which eventually resulted in her tragic passing (BBC News, 2020).

During the second half of the film, we are shown the television drama Mima is a part of for a moment. The scene features the dialogue “illusions don’t kill” followed up by the other character replying with “but what if the illusion found someone to possess”. This is seen in the character of Me-Mania as he is so absorbed in his obsession and ideal form of Mima that he would even dare to kill to maintain it. Scenes of the television drama are intertwined with scenes of Me-Mania (now possessing the form of Mima) committing acts of brutal murder as revenge for the treatment of Mima. A scene earlier in the film even shows him buying up every single copy of the lewd adult magazine she featured in just so no one else could see those images of her, an act which portrays his investment in her image being under his complete control.

Regardless of celebrity culture, the film can be additionally recognized as a critique of voyeurism entirely. Gaze theory can be applied when looking at scenarios such as the superfan Me-Mania's concept that Mima is the damsel in distress that needs saving from evil, a character archetype designed to satisfy a viewer's fantasy that may especially become engrained in someone invested in otaku (socially inept fans of pop culture) society. Mima is shown as telling her mother how suffocating her role as an idol is. She becomes self-aware about how the audience has restrained her identity and how she must appeal to the voyeur's view all the time for the sake of profit. Looking at the voyeur/performer relationship which may link back around to the points about celebrity culture shows us how the shift in Mima’s job roles has affected her perception of how she is received. Back when she was an idol performing on a stage, she could see in real-time how her actions were being responded to but with her switch to acting and modeling suddenly she is now more reliant on sales statistics and written reviews to understand how she is being seen. Due to this lack of immediate response, she becomes struck by paranoia and constantly unsure if what she is doing is the right thing for both the business and the fans.

Lastly, the film can be interpreted as a commentary on privacy in the digital age which can both relate to the previously mentioned celebrity stan culture. During the film Mima finds a website called Mima’s Room after hearing mentions of “I'm always looking into Mima’s Room”, the phrase alone portraying the paranoia of always being watched in the technologically modern world. The website features a diary of her life which not only is worryingly detailed reiterating what was said before about always being watched but additionally contains fake entries based on the fan’s ideal image of her, linking back around to the idea of the voyeur suffocating her image.

Using animation to show internal mental struggles has become popular due to the lack of restrains of the medium. Films like It's Such a Beautiful Day (Don Hertzfeldt, 2012), and the previously mentioned Perfect Blue can quite literally show you the characters psychological issues they are facing through a variety of different visual techniques that simply wouldn’t be possible to the same extent within the medium of live-action.

In the case of Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon uses the medium of animation to create warped and distorted realities to portray their sociological concepts within. We can properly see Mima interact with the different realities of herself through hallucinations resulting in her internal conflicts being shown in a way that can be depicted through a physical set of visuals. The ability to warp characters image is a great advantage animation has over live-action that Perfect Blue makes full use of. Me-Mania possessing the image of Mima which was mentioned beforehand is an effective way to show how absorbed he is within the protection of her public image. The same is applied when attempting to show the paranoia she is facing which is effectively enforced through elements such as stranger’s faces warping to appear as those negative opinions she fears which can then show you how terrified her character is by the behavior of people such as Me-Mania. Like this, the character of Me-Mania appears and disappears from shots at random to enforce this always being watched feeling caused by the enforced paranoia from instances such as the Mimas Room webpage.

Bibliography:

BBC News. 2020. Sulli: The Woman Who Rebelled Against The K-Pop World.
Crafton, D., 2011. The Veiled Genealogies of Animation and Cinema. Animation : an interdisciplinary journal, 6(2), pp.93–110.
Hertzfeldt, D. & Bitter Films , 2012. It's such a beautiful day
Hoffmann, J., Meloy, J. and Sheridan, L., 2008. Stalking, Threatening, And Attacking Public Figures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Napier S. 2006 “Excuse Me,Who Are You?”: Performance, the Gaze, and the Female in the Works of Kon Satoshi. In: Brown S.T. (eds) Cinema Anime. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Norris, C. & Kon, Satoshi, 2012. Perfect blue and the negative representation of fans. Journal of Japanese & Korean Cinema, iv(1), pp.69–86.
Ruh, B., 2004. Stray Dog Of Anime: The Films Of Mamoru Oshii. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

[Goldsmiths University Bachelors Degree First Year Paper]

For many years the British media have portrayed homosexuality in a vastly negative light. They pushed the idea that homosexuals were perverse and were corrupting the youth with their shameful idealisms but where did these ideas originate? What led to this deep-rooted hate for LGBT citizens within the press? In this essay, I will be investigating the origins of this hostility towards homosexual people and how the media have changed their views as time has progressed.

Throughout time the media has played an important role in educating and interpreting things to the general public that were unknown to them beforehand. This is seen as why LGBT media representation is such an important part of the movement as for many heterosexual people especially before modern advancements such as the internet the media had been their first introduction to homosexual ideology and existence.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that positive real-life homosexual representation started making its way onto British television screens through documentary series such as Gay Life.

Gay life (Michael Atwell, LWT, 1980) broadcast by London Weekend Television was a television series dedicated to shedding light on homosexual communities in Britain and the history of their treatment. The programme was widely considered the first-ever gay television series (Bedell, 2007). Attwell said that the staff felt that they were "in a sense trying to ride two horses – putting forward the gay viewpoint and relating to non-gay people". Regardless of this and the fact that some members of staff were homosexual themselves backlash came from the fact that lesbian groups felt underrepresented by the programme as it mainly only focused on homosexual men. The representation was also considered problematic as mentioned in a review of the series written by John Russell Taylor for that week's issue of Gay News in which they mentioned the extravagance of the gay men portrayed who were featured in drag, covered in leather and shown using queer nicknames which Taylor stated “led the straight media to treat gayness as extraordinary, and therefore had to seek out vivid representatives of it in order to confirm their own per-constructed idea of it" (Davis and Needham, 2008).

The reason why I am starting the essay by mentioning this programme is that it is a great resource which looked deeply into the origins of the media’s treatment of homosexuality. One standout episode of the programme was “being gay in the thirties” which depicted the homosexual behaviors of British citizens before they were defined as such acts. Its paints a wider portrait in which we can see that while homosexual behaviors were still seen as illegal back then no one truly understood what they were and due to this went about performing them freely without feeling guilty or as if they had committed a taboo act.

As sexologist's work came to the forefront of science such as the works of Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Sigmund Freud the general public began to gain what they considered a further understanding of what homosexuality was. They split homosexuals into 2 different subgroups, the invert, and the pervert which stated that the invert developed homosexual tendencies due to stunted sexual instincts while the pervert is sexually normal yet deliberately acts in homosexual ways (Talmey, 1933). Due to this concept of homosexual perversion the general public was worried about the possibility that their children, friends, or family would be corrupted by homosexuality, and this is just the start of where the media hostility began in terms of fearing the homosexual influence.

Post-War Britain was filled with constant anxiety as many had gotten used to the times of fear and uncertainty. People found comfort in patriotism and celebrating family values in their idea suburbia's so anything that threatened this was met with an outstandingly negative response. In 1951 as the sexologists' ideas about the corruption of homosexuality made their way into public knowledge members of LGBT minority groups were met with another problem. Two members of the Cambridge Five (a spy ring that passed information from Britain to the Soviet Union during World War II) Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess fled the country after nearly being unmasked as spies. Much was made by the press of the fact that Guy Burgess was a known homosexual and because of this, the negative publicity of homosexuality kept on coming. in a short biography about Burgess, the author states that “they did much to prolong and accentuate repressive attitudes to homosexuality" in Britain (Kerr, 2014). Around this time the Metropolitan police began more and more arrests against prostitutes and homosexuals resulting in a tenfold increase of indecency arrests. As new constantly broke about homosexual indecency, older men in different fields of work seducing young boys and other negative LGBT representation the general public felt more and more inclined to hate the homosexual and what was seen as their corrupting behavior.

Newspapers began to publish stories directly targeting homosexual groups such as in 1962 where the Sunday Mirror published a story titled “how to spot a possible homo” alongside a picture of John Vassall who like the previously mentioned Burgess was another Russian spy who was homosexual (Morley, 2016). Due to this the words homosexual and traitor started to become synonymous with one another.

The end of the 1960s brought with it the massive change that was the reformation of the sexual offences act. While still somewhat flawed as it set the age of consent for homosexual acts at 21 instead of being the same as the heterosexual age of consent which was 16 which was most likely due to the remaining mindset that homosexuals corrupted the youth, the reformation meant that the years of being prosecuted for committing gay acts were finally over. Scotland went on to do the same in 1980 and Northern Ireland followed in 1982.

While there were a lot of legal issues and discrimination remaining against homosexual groups this reformation was the beginning of a step in the right direction for equality. London had its first-ever official gay pride march in 1972 in which around 2000 lesbians and gays marched down from Oxford Street to Hyde Park to celebrate their homosexuality and how far the movement had come (Knitting Circle Pride history, 2001). The 1970s continued its stride of positive changes with increasing representation such as Tom Robinson’s song “glad to be gay” which in 1976 reached number 18 on the top singles chart or the previously mentioned Gay Life which aired right as the 70s ended.

The 1980s brought with it a new problem that many communities around the world including homosexuals would have to face that had devastating consequences. Many homosexual communities started to experience a breakout of a then mysterious disease that caused mass panic immediately. In 1981 the first UK death from HIV/Aids was reported with more to eventually follow. Due to the fact HIV spread through unprotected sex and was becoming prominent in the homosexual community's some members of the press started coining terms like “the gay plague” and fueled false stigmas such as the belief that HIV could be passed on through any sort of physical contact (BBC News, 2021). These homophobic myths reinforced the general public's belief that homosexuals were dangerous and overall a risk to welfare. The HIV/AIDs epidemic continued throughout the 1980s with the created stigma having an overwhelming hold on the press with it slightly relaxing towards the end of the 80s as major figures tried to relax the general public's minds such as in 1987 when Princess Diana helped open the Broderip Ward, a ward at Middlesex Hospital dedicated to the treatment of HIV patients and shook the hands of AIDs patients without wearing gloves which showed the public that they should throw away their fear and ignorance and show compassion instead (BBC News, 2017).

Around this same time the problems that were homosexual rights were being weaponized politically by the press to push certain agendas as part of political campaigns. Right-wing press would publish articles trying to question the values of the “loony left” such as in 1986 in which The Sun reported that they had discovered that a teachers resource library in Islington which was a Labour-held borough at the time contained a copy of “Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin” a children's book about a girl and her two gay fathers which to the British media was seen as nothing more but a homosexual recruitment manual that undermined traditional values (Clews, 2012). The press described this book as vile and used it to paint the left-wing competitors as prioritizing minorities over the average British citizen making them unfit for government (Lovelock, 2017).

The outrage caused by books and other material promoting homosexuality caused the Section 28 law to be introduced in 1988 by Margret Thatcher's conservative government. The law stated that local governments should not intentionally promote homosexuality or promote the teaching in schools as an acceptable family relationship. The passing of the law forced many pro-homosexual groups to have to go underground or self-censor to avoid any sort of legal punishment. Many politicians continued to support the law including Right-wing MP Peter Bruinvels who once said that "I do not agree with homosexuality. I think that Clause 28 will help outlaw it and the rest will be done by AIDS, with a substantial number of homosexuals dying of AIDS. I think that's probably the best way." (BBC Radio 4, 2009). The Section 28 law was eventually repealed in 2003 after constant government conflict both for and against the continuation of the law which resulted in a vote in which the section was voted out in the Commons by 356 to 127 votes, a triumph for 21st century tolerance over decades of prejudice (Gillan, 2003).

History has shown that in times of political uncertainty the public and the media scramble to protect traditional values often shunning sexualities and genders which they deem as “unnatural”. As seen earlier in the essay this was the case post World War II and repeated itself again in 2016 as Homophobic attacks in the UK rose 147% following the Brexit referendum vote (Townsend, 2016). Not all was banned for LGBT communities in the 2000s though as the previously mentioned section 28 law was repealed, and same-sex marriage was also legalized signifying the fact that homosexual relationships were finally considered valid by the state. There is still a certain amount of stigma that homosexuals are dangerous which isn’t helped by assorted media stories such as a MailOnline story in which same-sex traffic lights in Trafalgar Square were deemed as “dangerous” to pedestrians (Chan, 2016) or other stories which while not directly targeting homosexuals are still trivializing whether they are to be considered safe or not.

References
BBC News. 2017. How Princess Diana changed attitudes to Aids. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-39490507
BBC News. 2021. 'Life was a party before Aids arrived in London'. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55983269
BBC Radio 4, 2009. Stonewall. [podcast] The Reunion. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mpmm4
Bedell, G., 2007. Coming out of the dark ages. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/jun/24/communities.gayrights
Chan, E., 2016. 'Gay' traffic lights will stay. [online] Mail Online. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3795097/Gay-traffic-lights-stay-No-plans-sex-symbols-three-months-replaced-green-man-celebrate-London-LGBT-Pride.html
Clews, C., 2012. 1983. Book: Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin – Gay in the 80s. [online] Gayinthe80s.com. Available at: http://www.gayinthe80s.com/2012/06/1983-book-jenny-lives-with-eric-and-martin
Davis, G. and Needham, G., 2008. Queer TV. Hoboken: Taylor & Francis.
Gillan, A., 2003. Section 28 gone ... but not forgotten. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/nov/17/uk.gayrights
Kerr, S., 2014. Burgess, Guy Francis de Moncy. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Lovelock, M., 2017. Fifty years of gay rights but some in the British media are peddling the same homophobia. [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/fifty-years-of-gay-rights-but-some-in-the-british-media-are-peddling-the-same-homophobia-81465
Morley, N., 2016. 'How to spot a homo': You won't believe this news article from 1962. [online] Metro. Available at: https://metro.co.uk/2016/01/25/how-to-spot-a-homo-you-wont-believe-this-news-article-from-1962-5644069/
Talmey, B., 1933. Homosexual perversion. Love: A treatise on the science of sex-attraction (newly revised and enlarged)., pp.334-338.
Townsend, M., 2016. Homophobic attacks in UK rose 147% in three months after Brexit vote. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/08/homophobic-attacks-double-after-brexit-vote
Knitting Circle 2001. Knitting Circle Pride history. [online] Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20071023022039/http://knittingcircle.org.uk/pridehistory.html