Ballsack’s J-Pop Midlife Crisis, pt. 6: 3776

Starting sometime last year, I started really getting into Japanese music. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, because I had always thought I hated singing in Japanese. Turns out I don’t! In the night threads for the following week, I’ll write a little about each of my favorite artists that I’ve discovered, and share a streaming album for you to dutifully ignore.

3776¹ is probably the most traditionally ‘idol’ band on this list here… though, they’re still probably the strangest project on here. Started by Akira Ishida in an attempt to make AKB48 style local idol band. He sent letters to a bunch of cities volunteering to create a local idol group for them, and Fujinomiya, a city at the base of Mt. Fuji decided to take him up on the offer. After going through various changes, the group kind of solidified around Chiyono Ide (井出ちよの) in 2014 when she was only 13. None of that is particularly notable, but Ishida took the project in some pretty weird directions even from the beginning. The first EP with Ide has a 20 minute song on it, for example. The concept of the group centers around Mt. Fuji (being 3776 meters in height), and, with 2015’s 『3776を聴かない理由があるとすれば』(Minanaro wo kikanai riyuu ga aru to sureba) the conceptual nature of the group started to take root, focusing on a virtual climb of the mountain counting each meter every second of the album.

This aspect, the idea of each album involving a central concept really exploded with 2019’s 『歳時記』(Saijiki). Here each track is one month of the year, the days are counted off in the background, seasons and different festivals are explained, and the album really has about five different ideas going on at once. It is an absolutely singular, bizarre, and possibly not great work. But it’s an album that sits in a pride of place for those that find it and really explore it. One of those records: a true cult record.

After 『歳時記』 didn’t release another album until The Birth and Death of the Universe through Mount Fuji just last month. Chiyono Ide had moved to Tokyo and started working in other Idol groups, the light-hearted うさぎのみみっく！！ (Usaga no Mimic!!) and the Kawaii Metal nicora ray ark. Both are… fine. Akira Ishida moved on to Mi-II, which I haven’t really heard as it’s only available as an import CD. But the new album is fire.

None of the 3776 albums are available on streaming sites, which is too bad. But they’re all available in really nice and, relatively, inexpensive digital versions on https://ototoy.jp/_/default/a/109998. You’ll notice even weirder releases there, like two collections of extended live improvisations. The second one, 『即興曲集第二集 2017-2019』, is 12 hours long (!).

Anyway. Here’s 『歳時記』, have fun.

1. Pronounced Minanaro, so it’s read more like three seven seven six rather than three thousand and seventy-six. ↩︎