On 23 July 2014, Tower Records Shibuya and Shinjuku shops and Tower Records Online suddenly started selling CDs by a mysterious music unit called "Women's Club". For more information, see here.
Nozomu Sato, the last trump card of the core pop scene 'Camera = Fountain Pen', produces a new unit! The first produced work is pop art involving housewives living on Sadogashima! FUJIN CLUB" is the cutting-edge fashionable album by the well-known, non-existent art group, Fujin Club.
Rumoured to be a fictional women's idol group, usually living modestly deep in the mountains of Sado Island, the Women's Club made a spectacular debut soon after forming in March with a live performance in Taiwan that could be described as reckless, and was greeted with enthusiastic cheers from the young people in the middle of the protests, and became a secret topic of conversation."
What? Sado? I'd really like to hear about this! The author, who lives on Sado Island, therefore decided to interview him.
Soon after, the unit's producer, Nozomu Sato, found a Twitter account. I sent him a request for an interview, along with an introduction to Niigata Repo...
Thank you for contacting us.
My name is Nozomu Sato and I produce the Women's Club.
Thank you for applying for the interview.
I have read your Niigata Repo.
I would like to introduce the Women's Club to you.
I would be very grateful if you could introduce the Women's Club to us.
Now, there are a few things to note about the interview..,
First of all, the Women's Club is a unit
The members of the Women's Club are really housewives from Sado Island.
However, since they are not usually involved in the CD publishing industry, we are not able to reveal their faces or names.
I can't reveal their faces or their names.
The only profile that is publicly available at the moment is that they are four ladies living on Sado Island.
Therefore, interviews with the ladies are not allowed, and I will handle them instead.
I received a reply saying! I'm glad to hear this, because I was just about to say no.
According to Sato, she lived in the southern district of Sado for a year from June 2013, where she came into contact with Sado's festivals, performing arts and other culture, met various friends, and then left the island. She says that this is why she set up the Women's Club unit to commemorate her time on Sado.
Mr Sato currently lives in Kanagawa Prefecture. Unfortunately, we were unable to meet him in person, but he agreed to be interviewed via email. Let's move on to the interview.
-Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed this time. Well, by the way, the Women's Club is very innovative! I was taken in by the kappo-gi and the mysterious atmosphere of the young ladies living on Sado Island. How did you come up with that style?
Sato: In the beginning, we had a strong focus on farm work, but after some lively discussions, we came up with the pop-sounding unit name 'Women's Club' and adopted it. We wanted a good old-fashioned Showa style, so we asked them to wear kappo-gi. By the way, the unit name that was rejected was "Sobaccha". It was a play on the old persimmon idol 'Kakitsch'.
-I see, it's the town's women's association. It has a very Showa atmosphere. By the way, it looks like there are four members, can you tell us each of their names (stage names)? As I recall, the Women's Club has its own names on Twitter, such as Women A and Women B...
Sato: As I told you earlier, I can't reveal my true identity, so I am Ladies A-D, plus a whistle-blowing black woman.
-All the members are living a normal housewife's life on Sado Island, but what is it really like?
Sato: I can't say who I am, but I usually spend my time doing persimmon work, making rice and making sandals. Basically, I am a housewife.
-So you are only a housewife. But persimmons, rice and sandals? You are not just a housewife. On the jacket of the CD 'FUJIN CLUB', which has just been released, there is a photo by Kotori Kawashima of a woman with a kappa head, who is eating ice cream.
Mystery girl photographed by Kotori Kawashima.
Sato: The girl in the jacket is a Taiwanese high school student. She is not a member of the Women's Club. This girl may be revealed in due course, but at the moment it is a secret.
-Hohoho, in due course, right? I'm looking forward to it. Now let me ask you about the music of the Women's Club. Who writes the lyrics and who does the vocals?
Sato: The lyrics are written by me, Nozomu Sato. The vocals are done by Lady B and Lady D. Lady A and Lady C do the coordination and dance with Bunya dolls.
-Women B and D were the vocalists, weren't they? I didn't know that. Did these women have any musical experience?
Sato: I don't know the details either, but the singing was so good that there was nothing to fix.
-That was a happy miscalculation. When Mr Sato decided to form the Women's Club in the first place, how did you gather the ladies and other members? As I mentioned a little earlier, the artwork was done by Kotori Kawashima of Mirai-chan. Is it all connected to Sado?
Sato: The members are ladies with various special skills who I met during my stay on Sado Island. In a nutshell, the story of how we formed is that we are a group of people who wanted to go on an overseas trip called a Taiwan tour. I was aware of the photo collection 'Mirai-chan', which featured girls from Sado Island, and thought it would be a good fit for the Women's Club, so I asked her to join.
- - Sounds like a lot of fun. By the way, why did you come to Sado Island, Mr Sato?
Sato: I came because I saw an advertisement on the Yamanote Line that said 'Come to Sado'. I was originally working for a music company, but I had just quit my job and wanted to do music production quietly, so I trusted my instincts and moved my life to Sado. My impression of Sado is that it's a big place. I thought it was big enough to walk around in a day, so when I first visited the mountains in the south, I was convinced that it was a training course.
Training, Mr Sato was convinced. Photo taken from his room at the time he lived on Sado Island.
-An advertisement on a train was the catalyst? You are very determined! When you say you thought it was an apprenticeship, does that mean you had a lot of difficulties at first?
Sato: I was born in Kanagawa and had the sea and mountains close by, but at the same time there were many convenient shops such as convenience stores, so I had a direct experience of the countryside where there was really nothing, which was honestly a culture shock. I started working as a persimmon picker right after I arrived on the island, and on my first day of farm work I was so dizzy and tired that I was hallucinating about persimmon trees, and it was really tough because I went from working eight hours a day in an air-conditioned room on a computer to picking persimmons under the hot sun from morning to night, which is the exact opposite of what I was doing. However, being out in nature allowed me to feel the birdsong and the rustling of the trees, which I hadn't been able to hear before, and this had a great influence on my music production. I started to look for things like nature's workings and softness in the music I make on the computer.
-Some sounds you only hear when you live in the countryside. I am currently living on Sado Island too, and I have the faint impression that the Ogi and Hamo areas are somehow bustling with activity! Books Live event at the old Kamo Elementary School gymnasium in Hamo in June - were you involved in that?
Sato: At Hello Books, I was managing the school's in-house broadcasting system and stage manager for Hello Books Live. I usually worked as a sound engineer at Amusement Sado (a multi-purpose hall in Sado City, Sado Central Cultural Centre) from time to time, so I was just called in.
Mr Sato poses with lemon milk ice cream. The Women's Club was actually produced under the name Monsieur Lemon. He is also active as 'Camera = Fountain Pen'.
-I knew it was so. It's a unique event, isn't it? By the way, going back to the Women's Club, you shot this PV in Taiwan, didn't you? Is this connected to the Taiwan tour you mentioned earlier?
Sato: It was exactly connected, and we filmed and edited the video during the trip to Taiwan that led to the formation of the group. As part of our travel policy, we asked the members to wear kappo-gi when walking around town.
-I would have loved to have seen the four ladies striding through the streets of Taiwan in those kappo-gowns in person. Now tell us about the Women's Club's future plans.
Sato: The main activity of the Women's Club is everyday life on Sado Island. The pop concept of the Women's Club is to show young people that real life, coming from the countryside where Japanese sentiment remains, is not just a fashion thing like the recent LOHAS boom or health-consciousness, but a fulfilling human life in the true sense of the word. This release is a suggestion that even a countryside woman can do fashionable things. That's what I'm trying to suggest. There are no plans at the moment for live performances or album production, but as ladies are fickle, I don't know what will happen either.
-That's a story with a lot of implications. Are you saying that it is not just about organic vegetables and traceability, but also about slow food values that aim for local self-reliance by preserving local life, culture and traditions? By the way, you are currently living off-island, how do you keep in touch with the members of the Women's Club?
Sato: Facebook is used for overall communication. We normally email and call individuals.
-Do you plan to return to Sado, Mr Sato?
Sato: I consider Sado to be my second home, so I would like to come to the island anytime after I settle down in Tokyo.
-Please come to Sado again. Thank you very much for your valuable time. I feel that I now know a little more about the Women's Club. I have realised how interesting it is to transmit information from Sado to the world. Do you have any final words to say?
Mr Sato: If you have a lot of eggplants and have no way to eat them. If you make it into jam, it tastes very delicious with a sweetness like apples.
--It was very typical of the ladies of Sado Island. It was just like a lady from Sado. Thank you very much.
The interview with Mr Sato was completed.
The worldview of the Women's Club, which has added another "world from Sado", seems to be based on the antithesis of city life, which is dominated by corporate advertising and overcrowded trains. This may have been what Sato felt when he jumped from the city to the countryside of Sado by himself. Life on Sado, which at first seemed like an apprenticeship, became so irreplaceable for him that he could call it his second home after numerous encounters. In 2014, the Women's Club is about to put on its kappogi and flap its wings from Sado to the world.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the Women's Club CD 'FUJIN CLUB' is only available in shops at Tower Records' Shibuya and Shinjuku shops. To obtain the Women's Club CD in Niigata Prefecture, you can use the following online website.
Women's Club:http://fujinclub.jp
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