Keita Kobayashi
What music will color the memories of your college years? I’ve found my answer to that question in Hitsujibungaku. A trio hailing from Tokyo, Japan, Hitsujibungaku is a musical act that alchemizes the post-rock of Sigur Rós with the sonic ferocity of The Smashing Pumpkins to create sunset anthems blessed with hope and happiness. The band, currently traversing the West Coast for its first United States tour, performed its opening show at the House of Blues San Diego on Thursday, April 10.
When we entered the venue, opener Jonathan Roy’s versatile set saturated the air and the crowd with an enlivening energy. Even for those unfamiliar with Roy, his charismatic stage presence enraptured the room. The crowd stomped and swayed as Roy performed motown-esque ballads, jazz improvisations, and anthemic pop — all of which left the audience buzzing with glee. Though his sound was vastly different to that of Hitsujibungaku, my friends and I were thoroughly impressed by Roy’s act, leaving us eager for the main event. 40 minutes later, the three women of Hitsujibungaku entered the stage, beginning their odyssey into the night.
The trio hit the ground running with “Countdown,” a song with synchronized clapping rhythms and garage-rock riffs that hearkens back to frenetic 2000s acts like The Strokes and The Pillows. The crowd began to mosh politely, jumping with the beats of the countdown. Within three minutes, the band had filled the venue with internal visions of how it feels to be 19: dusk-laden rendezvous, reckless abandon, and all the tragedy that follows.
I had the immense privilege of interviewing the band through email before the show and asked the members what emotion they intended to evoke with their music. They told me they’ve been chasing a sound that is both “romantic and cool,” and “Countdown” perfectly encapsulated that tone, which they carried forward in the rest of their set.
Hitsujibungaki’s instrumentation and chord progressions have a modern edge, reflected in its crisp guitarwork and unstifled drums that blossom to life when performed live. From bouts of bouncy guitar staccato notes on “Go!!!” to sustained guitar riffs that echo brightly across the night sky in “Eien no Blue,” frontwoman Moeka Shiotsuka blends with bassist Yurika Kasai to create a jubilant rapport and harmonization. Their performance imparted a state of reverie onto the audience — we were drunk on happiness and high on adoration.
For the band members, one of the most exciting things about touring outside their native country is observing how audiences perceive their music. Shiotsuka and Kasai told me they couldn’t even imagine what it felt like for a foreign audience to connect with their songs without lyric translations. For a non-Japanese speaker like myself, the language barrier allows me to redirect my attention to the textural pleasures of Hitsujibungaku’s sound, fully submerging myself within the drowning guitars and propulsive drum breaks.
I found this attentiveness most rewarding during the fifth song in the set, an instrumental coda titled “Yokan,” where every reverberated riff reminded me of the isolation — and freedom — of traversing the Californian desert. The band closed its physical distance, coalescing toward the center of the stage, passionately responding to each others’ notes as if possessed by the ghosts of great musicians past. It was one of the most gorgeous live performances I’ve ever experienced.
The band is also unafraid to venture into harsher sonic territories, incorporating bits of grunge and shoegaze into its songs. Sludgy guitar tones and dissonant soundscapes were constantly contrasting against the more glistening musical passages in its set. These influences ring most prominently in “Burning” and “Addiction,” which are personal favorites for both Shiotsuka and Kasai.
Shiotsuka enjoys the feeling of letting loose and “running wild,” while Kasai’s love for performing these songs is intertwined with her passion for shoegaze as a genre: “Nothing other than shoegaze gives me the sensation of being buried in the sound.”
The most encouraging and enlivening sight at the concert was the phone etiquette. It was refreshing to not just surrender to the experience but watch others do so as well. The one exception was the trio’s performance of “more than words,” an outro theme song to the popular “Jujutsu Kaisen” anime, when more than a few cameras began hovering about.
The most anticipated part of the night came as Hitsujibungaku barreled toward its 10th song, “Hikaru Toki” — the theme song for the 2021 historical anime “Heike Monogatari” and my first experience with the band. In our interview, Shiotsuka and Kasai revealed that they had struggled with the balance of the tune, creating five demos and only managing to complete it a “day before the deadline.”
The fruits of their labor are on display in the song, which is a power ballad with a percussive backing akin to crashing waves. It features violent and blistering strumming that evokes the sound of a traditional Japanese shamisen — fitting for a song that embodies a tale as old as the Heike. Hearing it live, the power and force of the song were spellbinding.
Throughout the show, visions of better days continually flooded my mind. With every song and impassioned delivery, I could feel the wind in my hair — as if tomorrow would sweep me off my feet and beckon me toward a life in bloom. Hitsujibungaku capped off the night with two encore songs: “Mayoiga” and “Inori,” the latter of which culminated in a kaleidoscopic outro that recalled the guitar hooks present in “Hikaru Toki” and “Yokan.” These callbacks bridged the sounds of the past and the ever-looming future, and from there on out, the only direction to look was ahead.
When I asked about the nature of music and memory, Kasai responded:
“When you look back on those [old] days as you listen to the music, you can realize again what is truly precious to you. When you’re in agony, a song can sort out your emotions or give a supportive push to your decisions. By listening to many sounds, I think we are saving the sensation of the process of perception.”
Perhaps, more than anything, what I’ll recall most fondly from the show is not the performances, but the adventures I went on because of it. I bonded with a photographer I highly respect, reconnected with a friend I hadn’t seen in over two years, panicked over several parking garage incidents, and rambled about schoolwork with my friends over tacos and horchata.
What I adore about Hitsujibungaku is the way they weave together a space for me to recollect the beauty and the turbulence of daily life. Though I love the band, not all my memories associated with Hitsujibungaku are positive. For as much as “Hikaru Toki” had comforted me as a wandering 18-year-old, it also reminded me of my academic failures and friends long since lost. The song “more than words” came out at a moment when I had lost grasp of my identity and was scouring vigorously to find it again. Yet, in carrying these memories of beauty and terror and everything in between, I allow myself to internalize these emotions and grow rather than remain numb to the burdens of life.
Hitsujibungaku’s music will continue to resonate deeply with my every step toward the future, regardless of whether I am lost at 21 or 28. So long as I allow myself to remember every feeling deep within my heart, these songs will always be a celebration of a life well-lived.