Yes, there actually is an idea (not concept) behind this release. This release is really a companion to my Fading From Here release on Boltfish. The Boltfish release was very much like the photo on the CDr. There is a suggestion of hidden menace in the landscape itself. It hints of a possible darkness in this society itself. Well, that was the point I tried to make with the music and the photo itself.

This companion though has its roots not only in my personal experiences and thoughts living in Tokyo. It has it's roots in a book (The Informers) by the author Brett Easton Ellis. It is my favourite of all his novels. The Informers is a collection of short stories that seem to share a thread but may not. In it are two shorts that stand out for me. The first is titled: Leaving Japan..., the other one's title escapes me at the moment but it is the final story.

Leaving Japan... is perhaps not the best story to read in acquainting oneself with the country. The story looks at an American Rock-Metal star whom has, literally, sexually destructive cullings of young Japanese girls (never said; there is an implication in the reading that the girls are young: 14-17) one evening after a concert in a Hotel in Tokyo. It is a pretty unsettling read. But many things really echo from it being here, in Tokyo, now. The main point of the story really echoes well here: The commodification and therefore disposability of human beings piteously. Tracks like Like Rain... and XXX Pachinko reflect this story. XXX Pachinko reflects accurately, I think, the young 16 year old girls that dwell endlessly seeming in Shibuya. To put it bluntly; they make "Bimbos" seem like vessels of human complexity. These girls endlessly buy the latest fashions; listen to very hard Techno/Gabba - saying they like Hip Hop (only for the image) and giggle endlessly in died hair colours of various hues. There is the impression of nothing there; a vast materialistic emptiness.

The other short story is atypical Ellis. It is the simple tale of a woman in a relationship she is not sure about. It focuses simply on one moment at a random walk in a zoo where her current boyfriend reveals he (believes) comes from an alien planet that monitors human beings and will colonize the planet once people destroy themselves. After this monologue the woman thinks to herself "I don't know why; but I have faith in him...". Tracks like I Have Faith In You (I Don't Know Why...) and XIX reflect this story

Thank you for listening,
J. Auer