situasion have been an issue since just over a year ago when the six-member unit introduced themselves to the world via their debut album, debutante, with the delightfully named lead-off track, “What the fuck is this situasion”. After holding at least one performance per week in 2021, this group that prides itself on creating a uniquely new live experience for its audience just dropped a new digital single on the morning of yesterday’s first one-man live of 2022. That show kicked off a three-gig series of free one-man lives to start the new year dubbed, “Event Horizon”, just like their new English language song:
https://twitter.com/situasion_info/status/1485554429940355072?s=20
This new digital single comes on the heels of their decidedly darker late December release, I would prefer not to. That EP focused entirely on the themes of life and death, kicking off with the instrumental, “embryo”, before growing into the dirty guitar work and English language lyrics of, “The report about darkness”. The third track, the slightly deranged psyche-rock raga, “A sea of trees trip”, sees each member taking turns sustaining the circular lyrical phrase, “RanRanRanRan” as if in a giddy trance. “The Sea of Trees” is, of course, another name for Aokigahara (popularly known in the West as “the suicide forest”) adding to the overall macabre and dangerous feel of the work. The EP’s closing, emo title track, “I would prefer not to” is, quite frankly, one of the most gorgeous alternative idol songs of the past few years.
The EP, as a whole, is a minor masterpiece and places situasion near the top of our “units to watch” list. The overall tone of the group is like an amalgamation of Yukueshirezutsurezure’s joyful alt-rock love affair with anguish and despair mixed with the dream pop electronica of LiLii Kaona and trance EDM of MIGMA SHELTER. situasion’s focus on delivering a unique live experience is also reminiscent of early Tsurezure and their “weakness based theater system”, as the group aspires to create an entirely unforeseen performance style in partnership with their audience.
The cohesive sound of the unit is due to all of the group’s music being created and produced by a single songwriter, Ryo Isono, whose extensive discography includes writing, production and lyric credits for twinpale, BLK LiLiY, TENRIN, Non￢Fiction and HEROINES. As evidenced by situasion’s rapidly growing catalog, Isono P is proficient at artfully merging elements from a wide variety of progressive and alternative rock genres with dream pop and EDM. Expert examples of this stylistic diversity include the dubstep, “I WAS BORN IDOL”, the math rock, “BLOOP”, and “JAPANESE HORROR STORY” which is intended as a tribute to King Crimson.
The group also seems to place a weighty emphasis on their lyrics, having produced lyric videos for many of their songs. They also incorporate an unusually large amount of English language lyrics with multiple songs being entirely in English. Their lyrics are written by Yorokobi, who I could not find much information on or even a discernible digital footprint.
This adds even more intrigue to a unit that is quickly emerging as one of the most interesting projects in the chika idol world. They are definitely a group to watch, and not only because they just started a ten day countdown on their Twitter feed for some reason.
— situasion (@situasion_info) January 26, 2022
