Last summer, after living across the country from each other for several years, the four members of Anamanaguchi decided to try something new. Their label Polyvinyl had rescued the famed American Football house from potential destruction, so the band took the opportunity to move in and write together. Over the course of a month, Anamanaguchi – pioneers of hyper-melodic 8-bit rock, whose extraordinary ascent has led them to topping charts with a virtual pop star – flipped their typically meticulous digital process on its head. The result is Anyway. Written in the converted living room-turned-practice space, Anamanaguchi walked away with the most personal record of their career. And it’s a rock record for the ages.
“Crazy sounds come from normal-looking houses,“ notes singer/songwriter/guitarist Peter Berkman. “We made the decision to be physically in the same room for nearly every step, writing everything as a group instead of editing and tweaking files over the internet.”
The band brought these demos to Grammy-winning rock producer Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, MGMT, Sleater-Kinney), whose old school approach drove the point home. Once again staying under the same roof – this time at the Fridmann family’s cozy Tarbox Road Studios in western New York – they recorded Anyway straight to tape, uniting around live instruments and lyrics sung by everybody in the band. Fridmann encouraged live tracking and spontaneous performances, which were shaped by Luke Silas’ propulsive drumming. The album’s analog sound comes in part from their search for vintage gear, including an extremely rare set of Marshall guitar cabinet speakers from the late-1960s – previously used on recordings by Jimi Hendrix, Van Halen, Nirvana, and Weezer – that give Berkman and co-guitarist/vocalist Ary Warnaar their distinct sound.
“Every detail came from this need to do it right the first time,” Berkman notes about this significant shift for such consummate tinkerers. Adds bassist/vocalist James DeVito, “This time there was no undo button, no alternate versions. The decisions had to be made before, not after.”
At first, Anamanaguchi aimed to explore rage as the record’s main theme, reflecting the various frustrations of the world. But quickly they found themselves distracted by having fun together, and Anyway instead captures a band creatively and personally energized: the experience of four best friends reviving their connection in a disconnected world. As Anamanaguchi has always been an instrumental band, the decision to sing suddenly confronted them with the question of what the band’s voice would ultimately be. They explore this newfound power in every song, making it their most emotionally resonant work yet.
“The overarching theme of [USA] was about a voice forming and learning how to speak–a kind of artificial one. Anyway is the next step – it’s about discovering the band’s voice,” Berkman explains. “There’s a now-or-never feeling to it, a kind of ‘why not.’ Loss is a part of life, no one is immune to it. There’s that Phil Ochs song ‘When I’m Gone:’ ‘you won’t find me singin’ on this song when I’m gone, my pen won’t pour a lyric line when I’m gone, so I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here.’ We’re making the most of our lives and what we love doing which happens to be writing, playing, and singing music all together.”
Anyway has moments of anger, love, humor, paranoia, and sadness – but the band’s sense of light-heartedness shines through. On “Rage (Kitchen Sink),” the band confront loneliness and boredom, two epidemics of the digital age that seem to be humanity’s only common bond. The anthemic, fuzzed-out “Magnet” is about the surreal attraction that’s possible between two people – a feeling echoed by the combination of such a heavy track with delicate lyrics. The power-pop ballad “Darcie” finds inspiration in small gestures from a local unsung hero, who brightens their lives and allows unforeseen amounts of fun to happen. Taut and dynamic, “Buckwild” is a rock sing-along that serves as the album’s genesis story: a band making an effort to do something new, while accepting the risks that may bring.
Formed in New York in the mid-2000s, Anamanaguchi made their name with emotionally-charged turbo-electric experiments in chiptune. Known for programming their early music on Nintendo cartridges you can actually play, their accomplishments include scoring Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game and launching one of music’s most successful crowdfunded projects to this day with their Kickstarter for their debut album Endless Fantasy. The band’s reputation for innovation grew worldwide, leading them to develop and release their own experimental video game (Capsule Silence XXIV), as well as to officially collaborate and perform with the virtual pop star Hatsune Miku on her hologram tour (their collaborative hit “Miku” is not just her biggest English language song to date, it’s also recently a prominent music fixture of Epic Games’ global smash hit Fortnite). They even launched a pizza into space.
[USA],Anamanaguchi’s critically-acclaimed second album and debut for Polyvinyl, anticipated a crucial cultural shift in moving from escapist, nostalgic fantasy to a more introspective exploration of digital identity. Described by Pitchfork as the band’s “most emotionally grounded record,” [USA] laid the foundation for the openness and honesty that defines Anyway. Where [USA] made sense of life online, their third album Anyway ventures into the world outside the front door.
Anamanaguchi’s greatest strength isn’t their devotion to doing things differently, or their ability to translate net-life into emotionally resonant tunes – though they are incredible at both. It’s the way their actual, enduring friendships have allowed them to evolve together. “We’ve always stretched the limits of what counts as ‘being a band’,” says Warnaar, “but Anyway honors that special glue that’s kept us together all along.”
