Stories from Chernobyl (Girl on Run album)

Stories from Chernobyl is the third album of Japanese sludge metal band Girl on Run. It was the first Girl on Run album to garner them critical acclaim. Released on September 9, 1986, it was the first album the band recorded while signed to a record label, Oiran Japan. After being given $3000 in a budget to record an album, Ayane spent about a month writing the album. It was heavily inspired by the Chernobyl disaster in Pripyat, Ukraine SSR, that happened earlier that year.

The plot follows a woman who wakes in a post-apocalyptic Japan. The mountains are the last hope for humanity, and the plains are deserted. The main character, Raine, and her friends, look for the world's final plant.

The other two bandmates, Azanashi and Osana, were against releasing the album, deeming it too whimsical and too stupid to be released. It was only after hearing her astounding vocal performance on "Head Like a Wave" that they went through with the album.

The album was the first one since their Sapien days to spawn singles, with this one spawning three: "Postman", "Head Like a Wave" and "Drawbridge".

This album noted a slower and more polished production than Girl on Run's previous albums. It gained them notoriety in Japan, and set up Girl on Run for their rise to stardom.

Recording and composition
This album was their first album to be released under a label, this one being the Kyoto-based label, Oiran Japan. Hichigara picked this label for their release of sister band Spin's acclaimed 1985 album "They Call Me Baby". Spin's drummer, Ai Hirasawa, was Girl on Run's manager since shortly after the release of their second album in 1985.

During their tour for Lost in Time, they picked up session guitarist Tsuki Uzaki as their rhythm guitarist. While she was on the every album in the band's discography since then, she wouldn't become an official member of the band until 2020.

Once the tour was finished and the band was tasked with making a new album, Hichigara returned to her native Nakajima for a month and wrote the entire album. She wrote all of the lyrics of the entire album and 10 out of 13 of the songs' music. Osana wrote the other three.

The band then returned to Kyoto to record the album. They tried new methods of recording. For instance, they recorded the bass and drums together, lead guitar and vocals together, and rhythm guitar alone. This gave the rhythm section a more connected feel to the groove. Also, the lead guitar and vocals together, which were both played by Hichigara, gave the solos and singing a more live, raw sound.

They also incorporated solos from every band member, and a more diverse arrays of instruments played. While it was sporadically played before, Ayane's theremin made a comeback on the album, in songs such as "Plant", "Island Lunar" and "Drawbridge". Uzaki and Osana both play baritone guitars tuned a whole step down on "Ocean". Osana's baritone guitar also shows up on "Everything Is Worse Than Where We Started" and "Back to Beginnings".

This album also featured Girl on Run's complex meters in several of their songs. For example, "Postman" is in 6/4, with sections in 4/4 and 7/8 as well. "Man Down" is in 9/8. "Now I've Become" uses 3/4, 4/4, 10/8, and 14/8.

Alternate tunings were also prominent. "Ocean" features both Uzaki and bassist Osana playing baritone guitars, tuned a whole step lower than a standard baritone guitar, to A-D-G-C-E-A tuning. Hichigara's guitar is in D Standard (D-G-C-F-A-D). "Three Matches and Five" is in C-G-C-F-B-D tuning. "Now I've Become" is in D-G-D-G-B-B tuning.

Lyrics
The lyrical content on the album revolves around the perils of nuclear technology. After the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Pripyat, Hichigara was paranoid it would happen in her native Fukushima. The Fukushima Daiichi plant started to be insolvent, with frequent shutdowns covered up by the government throughout the 1980s. The songs follow an arc, with the main character, Raine, awoken in a post-apocalyptic Japan.

Some say the album predicted the future, as in 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi plant suffered a catastrophic meltdown after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

The concept is based from a short story that Hichigara and friend Ai Hirasawa wrote, called Birdcall.

Act I: "Now I've Become", "Island Lunar", and "Postman"
The album begins with "Now I've Become", a 3-minute instrumental. It overdubs a Robert Oppenheimer quote, "Now I've become death, the destroyer of worlds." It has an eerie sound, with sparse guitar and drumming. It also features a theremin solo courtesy of Hichigara.

"Island Lunar" is the first song with vocals. It describes Raine, the main character, waking up in a wasteland, recollecting her memory of before the bomb went off, and being frightened at her surroundings.

"Postman" follows the previous song, and it depicts Raine finding a few people hiding in a post office. She meets Lua, a manically depressed prostitute, and Amy, a hardened war veteran and expectant mother, attempting to find the last plant in the world. They experience acid rain, which endangers their shelter. After the rain ends, they run out into the emptiness.

Act II: "Empty Empty Valley", "Drawbridge", "Back to Beginnings" and "Man Down"
The three of them enter a deserted valley, and "Empty Empty Valley" starts. Throughout the song, they explore the valley for any sort of plant or rubble they can take shelter in. They eventually find an abandoned farm, and they spend the night in the barn. After collecting resources, "Drawbridge" starts and they find a river. After drinking from it, they walk down the river to a destroyed Sendai. As they're heading through the city, the acid rain begins. "Back to Beginnings" starts. They hide under a bridge, but the winds turn against them. This forces them to run through the rain to a building on the street. "Man Down" begins. They run through the corrosive rain, however, Lua is ill from drinking too much river water and can't keep up. After the other two do their best to get Lua to the building, Lua decides she has held back the group for too long, and refuses to let the others help them. She urges the others to press on, and as they attempt to drag Lua through the door, she dies.

Act III: "Everything Is Worse Than When We Started", "Ocean", and "Head Like a Wave"
"Everything Is Worse Than When We Started" starts. After Lua's untimely death, Amy spends the night mourning her only friend. After contemplating suicide, she decides to postpone it until after she locates the plant. Meanwhile, Raine is watching her, wanting to help but is unable to do so. Amy spends the entire night crying. The next morning, the rain has cleared up, and "Ocean" starts. After walking through the empty streets, they reach the seaside. They look up and down the beach, to no avail. They realize the estuary and the marsh surrounding it is very close, and they venture upstream.

"Head Like a Wave" starts. They find the estuary, and Amy begins having contractions. They soon realize Amy is giving birth. Raine and Amy both spend the day at the beach giving birth, only to realize the baby is a stillborn from the radioactive fallout.

Act IV: "As Sun Shines", "Plant", and "Three Matches and Five"
"As Sun Shines" follows Amy. While Raine and her are asleep the following night, Amy holds her stillborn baby and cries. It is implied the baby was a product of rape from her commander. After having several flashbacks, she walks with her dead baby into the water and gets sucked into the undertow. Amy dies.

"Plant" begins. Raine wakes up, alone. She walks into the marsh, sinking to her knees in mud. She eventually makes it to the river and floats down it for a while. After falling unconscious in the water, she floats downstream, and wakes up several hours later, miles downstream. She is badly burned from the acid rain a few nights before, and she struggles to wake up. However, when she does, she sees Lua's corroded body, and out of morbid curiosity, looks under it, and finds two small dandelions. She admires them, and curses God for the world they live in.

"Three Matches and Five" is the outro for the album. Raine breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the listener, stating:"'Thank you for listening to my batshit insane experience. After finding the plant, I stayed in Sendai for years, visiting the plant every day. Lua's body served as fertilizer to help grow the plant and drop the seeds. Soon after, some Norwegians found me, and had a seed vault with every known plant. They gave me a fresh apple for the first time, and it tasted so good. And then I saw him. And I knew he would be mine.""You ever hear that Carl Sagan quote.. what was it? Oh yeah, 'The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.' Well, here we are, ass deep in burning gasoline. All we could do was not burn ourselves alive. I see him in the dancing grass, in the calla lilies, in the roses that bear her name. I see Roald, the sweet man who I married and sired a child with, showing him how to paint, how to read. And I teach him how to cook, how to hunt, how to survive. I went back to Sendai, and a small statue dedicated to Lua. She was the first plant. And because of her, we could piss gasoline and not get burned. Now who has the matches? Maybe it's you. Love, Raine.'"All the while, a quiet bass rendition of the prelude to Bach's Second Cello Suite can be heard. Osana was classically trained as a child, so she could play that suite on bass. About two minutes in, after Raine finishes her letter, Hichigara enters with a melancholy guitar solo. After a while, Azanashi enters, with a light tambourine. About four minutes in, every instrument except for Uzaki on guitar drops out. Uzaki plays a power chord progression: F#5-C#5-C5. As they do, the other three engage a three-part vocal harmony, with Hichigara taking the soprano, Osana taking the alto (middle) parts, and Azanashi taking the bass. This is the first Girl on Run song Azanashi has contributed vocals to. This continues to the end, where Azanashi asks "Can I go home now?" at the very last second.

Critical reception
Most established music critics panned the album. CatalogueJP gave it a 2/5 saying "They cover up their unoriginality and blandness in confusing meters and dissonant sounds. It's muddle instead of music." Are You Listening?, a Saitama-based music critic magazine, gave it a D-, stating "These three certainly have talent as musicians, but as storytellers? They don't stand a chance. Maybe if they stopped taking so many drugs they'd write a decent album."

Most of the reviews praised Hichigara's vocals, with RuRu's Music World 109 saying, "Ayane Hichigara has so much potential in her voice. While Stories from Chernobyl is absolutely unlistenable, her vocal range and expressiveness is astounding". They also praised Osana's bass playing. Bass Boss writes, "Making the best of a bad situation, Ichigo Osana is a versatile bassist, moving from fluid, cerebral lines to aggressive, in your face, brash sounds the likes of which reminds us of Cliff Burton. Ichigo is truly the only thing holding this hodgepodge together."

Snowdrifts LLC., another magazine, wrote the harshest review, stating "Stories from Chernobyl is proof that not everyone should be a musician. How did the conversation go when they pitched the idea to Oiran? This paranoid little girl [Hichigara] needs to grow up, put down the guitar, and find a husband."

However, praise was given to the second single from the album, "Head Like a Wave". Critics described their affinity for what AllMusicJapan calls, "Hichigara's soulful wailing, one can hear the true pain and sorrow in Hichigara's voice. Followed by an uninterrupting, inquisitive bass line, and a soft melodic guitar progression, Ayane's rendition of a woman who has lost everything truly touched us."

While panned by music critics, it garnered the band recognition among the rock scene in Tokyo and Hiroshima, and was loved among Japanese youth. Ayane writes to the Girl on Run fan club in March 1987, "I don't get it. According to the media, we're some dope-nosed hippies who can't write, yet people love the music we write. Aren't critics supposed to be telling us what the people think?"

The dismissal of the album by music critics created an outcry and boycott of Japanese music critics in 1987. From that event, several independent music critique startups began, including People Think, StreetListeners, and 107 Salvations. Their intended mission was to "humanize the music critic industry."

This was the turnaround point of the album's favor. In early 1987, 107 Salvations gave the album an A-, saying "Those who reject the album haven't listened to it well enough. From Ayane Hichigara in the front to Miyako Azanashi in the back, Girl on Run wrote much more than an amazing album, they wrote an amazing story."

Miss Northern, a music magazine catering to Northern Japan, called Hichigara "the greatest person out of Fukushima Prefecture".

The responses within the band itself about the album were mixed as well:

Hichigara: "I love Stories... I think the story was fascinating.. as well as the message I wanted to spread. As a Fukushima girl, the nuclear plant they built about a two hour drive from my town really scared the shit out of me. I don't really think I'm paranoid... or maybe I am, haha!"

Azanashi: "You know when you get drunk at a party, and you completely black out, and you wake up naked in bed with some gross ass dude? That album was the blackout part. Ayane was all "let's do it, let's spread a message". She's all political. What's even the problem with nuclear power, anyway?"

Osana: "It was what it was. I had fun making that album, and I think it is a message we should promote. I'm not the biggest fan of the idea, but it made Ayane happy. So we did it."

Track listing
All lyrics written by Hichigara, all music written by Hichigara except where it's listed.

Personnel

 * Ayane Hichigara - lead guitar, vocals for the character Raine, all vocals on "Head Like a Wave" and "As Sun Shines", theremin
 * Ichigo Osana - bass, baritone guitar on "Back to Beginnings", "Everything Is Worse Than When We Started", and "Ocean", vocals for the character Lua
 * Tsuki Uzaki - rhythm guitar, vocals for the character Amy, except on "Head Like a Wave" and "As Sun Shines", baritone guitar on "Ocean"
 * Miyako Azanashi - drums, vocals on "Three Matches and Five", tambourine, mixing, production
 * Akina Rushizaya - mixing
 * Ai Hirasawa - mixing, management

Stories from Fukushima
In the wake of the 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after the 2011 Tohoku tsunami, Hichigara released Stories from Fukushima, a sort of spin-off or sequel of the original. While neither Azanashi or Uzaki had any input on the album, it was still released under the Girl on Run name.

It follows the daughter of Raine conducting a speech against nuclear power.

Background
After the March 11, 2011 tsunami in Japan, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor suffered a meltdown and spewed toxins into the surroundings.Girl on Run lead singer Ayane Hichigara was born and raised in the Fukushima Prefecture, and was in Hokkaido with bandmate Ichigo Osana when the earthquake struck. Ichigo was injured by a streetlight. Upon returning to her hometown of Nakajima, she heard on the news that the nuclear plant suffered a meltdown.

Appalled by the prospect of having to abandon her prefecture, Ayane and Ichigo decided to record a four-track EP to persuade the Japanese government to abandon funding TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) and outlaw nuclear power.

The EP, and the previous Stories from Chernobyl, was used in the movement to ban nuclear power in Australia.

Maynard James Keenan, of the band Tool, provided drums for the album, and provided vocals on the song "Rain Gun".

"Prepare?"
Twenty-five years after the events of Stories from Chernobyl, there's talk of reviving the nuclear plant in Sendai. Seemingly, most of the people forgot the events of past. In protest, Raine's daughter, Rose, prepares a speech. She stands upon the lot they will rebuild the Sendai plant and questions the motives of the world.

"Quiet World"
A duet between Ayane, playing Rose, and Maynard James Keenan of the band Tool, playing Hiro, the foreman for the project, Rose delivers the speech. It centers around remembering the history of what happened, and remembering the things her mom fought for. Hiro retorts, stating they'll do it different, and it won't be the same.

"Rain Gun"
While her speech impacted the people, the project went through anyways, and they built the nuclear plant in Sendai. Everything seemingly goes off without a hitch. Meanwhile, Rose continues to protest the plant.

"In The Dirt"
Soon later, an earthquake occurs, cause damages to the uranium rods keeping the reactor working. It goes dire, and eventually, it explodes, causing the country to go back to the events of Stories from Chernobyl.