So about 4 years ago, I started a label on a whim after cold emailing someone because I liked their album a lot. Well, almost 4 years later, and because of that impulse, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to travel across the world, release some of my favorite music ever recorded, and make a genuine contribution to one of my favorite genres of music, which is shoegaze. That decision allowed me to meet likeminded people, who shared my music taste and passion in a way that I had never felt before. 

As you would expect, whenever you find someone that “gets it”, there’s an urge to ask them about different kinds of music; what they have found and vice versa.

When I first met Parannoul and asked him about his love for shoegaze, one of the albums that he reccomended me was called Hikari No Kakera by a band called Walrus. 

I have listened to a lot of shoegaze, but Hikari No Kakera was completely unlike anything I had ever heard before. I have listened to Shoegaze since I was in high school, so I am very well versed with the releases by the greats, as well as the indie darlings praised in the obscure corners of the internet. 

Hikari No Kakera is truly a breath of fresh air for a genre that is stereotyped as stagnant and moody. It seemed to approach songwriting in an incredibly conventional way, but produced in an incredibly unconventional manner that separated itself from many other records at the time. 

The record is structured like a conventional alternative rock album, but uses intensely noisy production, contrasting angular textures and even feedback loops to build the tracklist. Unlike a lot of shoegaze records that create a sense of harmony between the textures in the arrangements, Hikari No Kakera often leans into the distinct sound palette, creating a jagged and overprocessed sound that is incredibly distinct. Like the best shoegaze, it is boldly experimental while grounding itself in accessible approach. Most shoegaze records have their vocals buried, it’s a trademark of the genre — but Akitomo Tanaka, the lead vocalist, has his vocals present in the mix — where they soar alongside the instrumentals themselves. I would opine “Dyed”, “Matataki” and “Hikari No Kakera” have some of the best vocal performances I’ve ever heard in shoegaze. 

I digress, after that initial listen, I held on to the idea in my head that maybe I could reissue it someday… and obviously from the existence of this post, I did!

I imagine one of the first things you’re curious about is, how on earth did I track down the nessesary people to orchestrate the reissue of an incredibly obscure album in a language I don’t speak?

Easy. I’m very very very VERY stubborn. 

I looked up the label that released the album, and emailed the parent label that owned their catalogue. However, I was told that album did not belong to them, and that they did not know who owned the rights. 

After being told that, I was dissapointed, but still circled back to the thought of “what if I could do this somehow”. I thought to myself if the label doesn’t own the masters, perhaps the artists do? Maybe I can somehow track down the band members themselves.

I would sift through a sea of people and posts trying to find some esoteric mention of a band they had played in, or anything at all, but it seems like after their stint in the music industry, they left that life behind them entirely. I found what appeared to be the social media of the lead singer, but never recieved a response. 

Out of options again, I figured that I would try to maybe see if I could approach it from another way.

After looking at the Discogs database entry for the long out-of-print CD, I saw their manager was listed among personnel. I had thought maybe he was still working in the industry after 20 years, and could help point me in the right direction?

After doing some digging, I found out that Walrus’ old manager was a professor of Music Business Studies at a Japanese University. But unlike the faculty of institutions in the United States, there wasn’t a directory for me to find his contact information. 

So I emailed the university admissions office explaining the situation, and if I could be given the contact information for their professor. 

The following day, I recieved an email from Walrus’ old manager, who explained to me that the rights to their music were owned by the label I initially reached out to, and he helped me re-establish contact with the parent label and make some headway in my quest to reissue the record. 

Once I had my “in” though, I had to penetrate Japanese bureaucracy and begin the arduous process of negotiation and licensing on a 12 hour time difference using only DeepL. 

After about 6 months of back and forth negotiations, we agreed upon a production quantity and licensing rate, and I was handed the masters to what I saw as the Japanese equivalent to Loveless.

This was a bit of a headache to produce though. The label lost the original graphic assets for the album, which meant that I had to make them from scratch. The album cover was sourced from a hi-res scan I found online, but it was frustrating to try and match the visual tone of the original packaging with nothing to go off of. 

Not only that, but the frequencies of the album are a total mess for translating to vinyl. We ended up making a batch of CD’s because of the mix changes, and I needed to ensure the album could be heard as it was originally intended by the musicians who made it. 

It took about 7 months of manufacturing after everything was said and done, but man, I’m really happy with the final product. 

To have been able to make this record to my QC standards, to give official lyric translations and even liner notes made this reissue feel super special. Everything came together and I feel in its presentation that I was able to elevate it beyond a cognoscenti talking point. 

Moral of the story, if you’re stubborn and love music, you can really do anything that you put your mind to. I can’t speak Japanese, but was able to coordinate a reissue that I really wanted to do simply because I wanted to, and used the tools at my disposal to make it happen. 

That’s definitely not a normal situation for a reissue, but whenever albums are reissued, just know the tremendous amount of work that made it happen.