In 1996, shortly after
Fishmans released their highest-charting and most accessible album
Kuchu Camp, the Japanese trio worked on an idea of creating a full-length consisting of one song with several parts. A dreamy, slightly funky single titled "Season" was released in September, filled with gliding violins, chiming acoustic guitars, a brief burst of noisy turntable scratching, and
Shinji Sato's lyrics about driving in a dazed reverie through Tokyo with someone that he wants to spend more time with. The band expanded on this theme with the ambitious, experimental
Long Season, released a month later. Vastly different than the single, this one has a significantly catchier melody, cascading pianos, lusher arrangements, a more dub-worthy bassline, and slightly different lyrics. Structured more like a symphony than a pop song, the piece constantly evolves, cycling through repetitive phrases, accordion parts, additional vocal sections, and several other elements. Around 15 minutes in, the main parts drift away and everything gets real hallucinatory, with constant echoing water droplets, whirring tube noises, bugged-out distorted drum solos, clustered music box chimes, and other strange sounds. The full rhythm and vocals return during the last ten minutes, but this time the main melody seems a bit mutated, and the different parts seem a bit more densely layered, elevating the intensity as it all comes to a close. The overall effect is transformative and profoundly moving. Quite simply, there really isn't anything else on earth that compares to this truly unique, enchanting piece of music. While
Long Season was spliced together in the recording studio from multiple takes, the band started performing the work in its entirety during their concerts, slightly altering it each time so that it would never be played the same way twice. A particularly moving 41-minute version concludes
98.12.28 Otokotachi no Wakare, a recording of the band's final performance which took place months before
Sato's sudden death due to heart failure. As
Fishmans' international popularity grew exponentially throughout the following decades,
Long Season emerged as the band's most celebrated studio album, with some online communities even voting it one of the best dream pop or neo-psychedelia albums of all time. After one or two full listens, it's not hard to hear why. ~ Paul Simpson
