Good Reads: Children of Men

The book: Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo

If all you know of Akira is Otomo’s own (admittedly awesome) anime adaptation of his masterwork, then you’ve only scratched the surface of the story. The film version barely touches on the events of the first volume of his six phone book-sized tomes, chronicling the plight of psychic street punks in decaying Neotokyo. The film ably captures the body horror aspect as Tetsuo’s newfound power rips his body apart, but it doesn’t quite capture the same sense of social horror as Otomo addresses the fraying ties that unite a country and the uneasy alliances that are left over when rigid hierarchies fall away and people are forced to shift for themselves. There’s certainly a lot more going on with Akira than bike punks on a rampage. Check out the books and widen your scope on an anime classic. Like Gojira before it, Akira starts with a thinly veiled allusion to the atomic bombing of Japan, bifurcating of the country's history and casting aside the rigid ordered past in favor of something new and unsettled. The unease that accompanies all sudden social upheavals strongly informs Otomo's tale as the cross section of complex characters each try to grapple with the unknowable power represented by the titular, godlike Akira and his insane chamberlain Tetsuo.

A representative passage:
“Ours is a young nation, and some might say it’s vulnerable! It is true we are yet weak, without laws or a constitution… …But a glorious future awaits us if we remain steadfast in our will and in our faith! Interference from the outside world will not be tolerated! We will repel all attacks whether from the United States, Russia… .. or even from Japan herself! … This land is our land!”

The album: Orphan by GrindLink

Orphan is a good theme because Otomo’s Neotokyo is a culturally isolated city full of people who have been disconnected from their past and their culture by the power of Akira. Cast adrift from its history and social institutions, Akira’s world is full of people who are forced to make compromised choices out of ignorance and necessity just to get by. GridLink’s freneticism and Far East fascination perfectly pair with the dizzying, neon-fried landscape that dominates Otomo’s masterpiece.

A representative song: “Orphan”



I never wanted this distance
This distance between myself and the rest of the world

Unanswered voicemails the cursor hangs anxiously
Waiting for words that never come
Pages filled with scraps of life imagined
Reconstructed like the act of a murder scene
I don't want the baggage of things that are left unsaid
Somewhere in between we've lost ourselves

Keep our cards close it's how we wear our lies
Together but we are alone
Bridge of memories, that ends in death cycling like cover flow
Why are we trapped where only shadows fall?
How do we belong?
Punching holes in myself when there's no holes left to cut and regret does not absolve

It's all falling apart in my hands
It's all I have
Choked up
Bled out
Waiting for tears
Will they come?

Further our hearts
Our rendered voice
Across the world
Still the tears won't come

Orphan Land

You know that segment of The Animatrix “World Record” where sprinter Dan Davis literally runs until his muscles rend and he destroys his body in pursuit of an untouchable 100 meter record, leaping from the Matrix through to reality in the process? That’s pretty much the sensation of GridLink’s Orphan, a relentless 12 minute amplification of everything that made Amber Gray the greatest album of 2008. It's a transcendent, boundary shattering nugget that’s one minute longer than Amber Gray so kwitcherbitchin, clock watchers.
Mark it down on your calendars: at 9 p.m. Eastern time Jan. 5 the race for 2011 album of the year began – and possibly ended – when Jon Chang gave me an exclusive sneak peak at Orphan.
As with Hayaino Daisuki’s transition from Headbangers Karaoke Club Dangerous Fire to Invincible Gate Mind of the Infernal Fire Hell… Or Did You Mean Hawaii Daisuki?, Orphan is also a refinement of what GridLink had already been doing so damn well. It’s an intricately layered album that boasts a bigger sound, faster tempos and more melody in one emotionally wearying package. Some of these songs are almost hummable.
“I don’t want to say I really want to make a catchy record, but I really do,” said Chang, who said Deathspell Omega is the first band to really capture his attention since collaborator Takafumi Matsubara’s Mortalized. (And may I just say, meatspace Chang is an exuberant personality whose opinions aren’t quite as … let’s call them … impassioned [that’s a good word] as one would assume from internet interactions with him. I hope I didn't ruin some of your preconceived notions by humanizing him.)
“Takafumi said the first GridLink and Hayaino Daisuki were all brutality and he wanted to add intelligence,” Chang said.
For all the hubbub about Steve Procopio (ex-Human Remains, sometimes Discordance Axis substitute) and Ted Patterson’s (ex-Human Remains/Burnt by the Sun) addition, I listened to Orphan three times before I even remembered they had joined up. So don’t expect too many changes in that direction. Rather they just lay a foundation to for Matsubara to push what he was already doing in even more aggressive and intricate directions.
Just listening to Matsubara fillet his fingertips and drummer Bryan Fajardo crack tendons on the bullet train “Scopedog” is enough to set my joints to creaking with incipient arthritis. The songs are so unrelenting in their tempos (and the band insists everything must be recorded live with no punch-ins later) that Fajardo had to master a two footed blast to provide the requisite intensity, but the payoff is in the organic aggression that forms the album’s foundation.
“This record was a huge challenge for him,” Chang said. “This was a grueling record to make. Making any record like this is miserable.”
Vocally, Chang has broadened his repertoire to keep up with his cohorts’ demanding performances. Yes, the low end grunts are back, but so is and the same alleyway mugger come-on that graced Hayaino Daisuki’s “Shibito.” That means one of the finest lyricists in grind is screaming with enough clarity that you can occasionally hear what’s on his mind.
“The high vocals didn’t fit with everything I wanted to do. I went back and changed some of the parts out,” Chang said.
And what’s on his mind these days is more political than albums past. Inspired by his recent work on “real world military stuff” at his game developer day job, Chang said he wanted to attack issues like Islam (opener “Dar al-Harb,” “Flatworlder”[sorry for the original typo]), militarism and war (“The Last Red Shoulder”), the dislocation of technology and traveling (“Red Eye,” the title track) and other splinters of our shattered millennium.
But beyond that, interpretation is up to you, he said.
“I try to come to this with no expectations of what people will take away from it. What it meant for me isn’t going to be the same thing it meant for someone else to take away from it.”
Orphan is still slated for a late February or early March release. The first pressing will be vinyl, including a remixed version of Amber Gray that adds bass by Patterson. It will also come with a download of karaoke versions of the songs so you can stop embarrassing yourself in those Justin Bieber lip synch videos you’ve been posting to YouTube. A “very limited” run of CDs – possibly as few as 200 – will come later. And if you didn’t catch the band at Maryland Deathfest (which pretty much paid for the recording sessions for Orphan), don’t look for GridLink on your local bill. The combination of a sagging economy and the reality of being bi-continental means the band probably won’t venture beyond the confines of New York City.
But while you’re still absorbing Orphan, GridLink are already talking about the next album. Inspired by Red Dead Redemption’s soundtrack, Chang said that could involve acoustic grindcore – complete with blastbeats and death screams if Matsubara can get his head around the concept. Early experiments in that direction haven’t gelled as of it, Chang said.
Until they work that out - even if they never do - Orphan will provide plenty to dissect and explore for now, demanding repeated listens to tease out its subtle mysteries. If I didn’t already have a decade of emotions invested in The Inalienable Dreamless, this could have been my favorite album of all time. For some of you, it probably will be.