Voyage Song Breakdown
Ma Cherie vol 1, 1996

I. Yami no Kanata e

G: Please ask Mana.
M: Taking a long road continuing on into Transylvania, flinching in fright of the darkness. The illusion you see with the claps of thunder.
Ko: Gorogorogoro, Pikaddoon, wawwaoon, hihiin, bururuu, pikkara pikkara pikkara kkara kkara *yeah I’ll just…let you deal with that on your own…*
Y: The voices of the children of the night sing sweetly like music…You too ride the horsedrawn carriage towards the darkness…

II. Transylvania

G: First, regarding this song, the very first thing we thought about how people who came to our lives would feel the song when making it. It’s not just listening, not just showing, not just interesting, but making a song in which everything is balanced. An ambiance like you’re watching one scene of a movie, we thought about that while making it so it took an aweful lot of time. The thing that particularly worried us was the nuance of the melody, the echo of the words, and the melody that came out of the mélange of the two.
After, as to why the CD and live are different, at the live you’re listening to the song while watching images, so we use Japanese in the narrative in order to convey the message more freshly, but you can listen to the CD while looking precisely at the lyrics more so than you can at a live, so we use English in the narration instead to bring forth the image.
Actually, the English part is closer to a reenactment of a certain movie, if you know which?
M: This song was made as an attempt at the perfect embodiment of the Dracula story in sound. An eerie intro to make you feel a sense of foreboding, and from there a refined classical phrase. And an advancing dynamic sound. To make the most of the song’s image there is no guitar. A real violin gives it atmosphere.
Ko: A song that crosses the band style framework, pursues anew the gothic feeling that Malice Mizer has been releasing until now, does a grade-up, and goes Super Seiyan. It took a new approach in terms of rendition, and other various facets. This lively sound that stirs things up so much that your chest will crackle and pop, and that cannot be summed up by the word of a rock band alone.
Y: A song with Vampires as the theme. Personally I like it especially. At the lives we continue with old time Romania and do lots of different things. Getting into coffins, biting Gackt, etc.
Ka: Without interfering with the soundtrack and classic elements, I used a bass drom for the low, and a brush snare to keep it classic. I like the timpani etc before the sabi. It really hit me what a great song it is when we were recording it.

III. Tusioku no Kakera

G: Is there anyone who read the title as [Tsuioku no Hahen]? It’s kakera – ka ke ra. I won’t say much about this song, but when I was spiritually repressed, for example extremely lonely, or when things were hard, painful, or sad, there are lots of other times, but I guess these lyrics are talking about the kind of condition I was in during those times. Then I was having hallucinations, wanting someone to be with me really badly, but at the same time it really meant that I wanted to be alone. A lot of stuff happens to people. How about you?
M: This song was made to push the guitars to the front. Please listen to the 2 guitars. Until the phrase we do over and over in the refrain spins round your head… The piano in the CD arrangement really boosted the song and made it dramatic. The beat gradually changes so it might be hard to follow. But it leads to a special atmosphere that can’t be found in normal songs.
Ko: In this song we took a rock band approach and handled it with a guitar, avoiding using the synth as much as possible, so I played the guitar all over the place. The rhythm is doing some complicated interesting thing, and on top of that the twin guitars are doing their intertwining thing so I think it’s interesting because of that. When the recording was done and I listened to it at high volume in the booth I wanted to run off. Run towards the sun…
Y: We do it more up tempo at the lives. Everyone please get onboard with that.
Ka: Up until now when we were fleshing out the finished songs, I did the rhythm, but this time while Mana was playing the guitar I added a rhythm I’d thought up off the top of my head on the rhythm machine and as I thought, the A melody was pretty different in the beginning but I like irregular meters so I thought it over with Gackt and the top part is going 4/4, 5/4, 4/4, but I did 9/8, 10/9 and I think it came out fairly irregular. Then I really like it terms of rhythm with the new approach of 4/3 we took in the big sabi part, but this song was the last one we rhythm dubbed and it ended up pretty power-downed which is too bad….there’s polyrhythm too which I think is pretty interesting.

IV. Premier Amour

G: I think you’ll get to the center of the song more or less if you look up the meaning, but each person has their own first love. When is it first love, when did they start to feel it? Please feel this song thinking of the thoughts in the corners of your memories.
M: This song puts into image the nostalgic gentleness of France. *he’d obviously never been to France* While remembering the time when I was young and knew nothing of love or desire I made these thoughts into sound.
Ko: A sweet, sad, slightly sour lemony taste. If you bite it it’ll pop your top.
Y: It’s a refreshing song. I like it fairly much.
Ka: I wanted to bring out the song’s French-ness and lightness. For the snare I used a diluted snare called a piccolo and I think it went well with the song. I didn’t use any special techniques. The person who wrote it asked that it be simple, so I made it simple.

V. Itsuwari no Musetto

G: There was a lot of background surrounding this song, but it’d get long so maybe I’ll talk about it somewhere else. I am always singing the lyrics from the two perspectives, one of a narrator and one doubling as the main character. Precisely I wrote the lyrics at the same time. Like I was singing at the same time that I was writing the lyrics. I want you to feel the deep meaning of this song.
M: This song has a kind of old time-ish feeling. We play an accordion at the lives. We take care to create an aura that supports melancholy.
K: I like deformed trippy movies, and this song was made from the image of circus sideshows like in “Freaks” and “Elephant Man”. I think the lyrics express the tragic visuals as a result of the deformity splendidly.
Y: The phrase “I tuck your letter away in my pocket…” sticks with me. The melody is nice.
Ka: A 3 beat waltz. It’s my first experience with them so I asked all sorts of things like, “What’s a waltz?” At any rate it was a first, so I went to the riverside again and practiced by myself. I think it’s a new side of Malice Mizer.
VI. N p s N g s

G: Hmm…a little? Fairly? H. If you understand the lyrics please write to me (lol)
M: For Malice it is our first hard-driving song. It’s probably not the kind of song you could imagine from our old image. At the live we use something called metal percussion, and I personally like it. A complex mélange of a sabi that suddenly comes forth only once and twin cembalos.
K: This song has a no fuss, no muss kind of feel, and fired up my metal SOUL while recording it. This is also the kind of hard song that we’ve never done before in Malice Mizer. During the lives too I’m like, “WOAH I FEEL THE FIRE!!” and explode and I like that.
Y: Please go wild at the lives with us.
Ka: This is Malice’s first dance song. I hope you’ll understand the little bit of playfulness surrounding it.

VII. Claire tsuki no shirabe

G: To understand the meaning “I can’t see”, I think there are a whole lot of meanings, but these words are the theme of this song. Everyone has their own emotions but I think this is one of them too. I want this song to become very dear to you. Will it reach you? “I still can’t see you”
M: The sound of a first record, I lonely bossa nova. This song really spread out from the arrangement. The various tones that come through now and then give a feeling of yearning and dearness.
K: I created this a long time ago but wasn’t satisfied, but I did a bunch of tweaks and it ended up as it is now. It has the image of a monochrome silent movie with its clacking film reel, and the words in the lyrics are not straightforward either, and metaphorically it’s grappling with a lot of meanings, so please understand the tale’s visual scene (the melody of the moon on a blind night) from a lot of different angles.
Y: I’m always surprised by Kozi’s songs. When I first heard this and Madrigal I thought, “Hohho, what have we here” lol. They give Malice a breath of fresh air.
K: It’s a Bossa nova melody. When I received the song and asked myelf what it needed, Bossa nova fit in simplest so I added in that rhythm. In the A melody and the solo there are a lot of percussion instruments. I like the mix of the base and rhythm in the sabi after the modulation.

VIII. Madrigal

It’s fairly light, but really it’s not that light of a song. But it’s certainly not a negative song; I wrote it at the instant when I was trying to become a positive person based on certain events. It’s probably something anyone experiences, but I aim to always treat this feeling importantly. This song took a long time at any rate, and I was always concerned even in the midst of recording. It’s a song made from that process, and I feel like it’ll still change bit by bit.
M: When I first heard it, it was a hitherto un-done type of pop song that made me want to dance, with hidden sorrow. At the lives we add castanets and tambourines. I think it goes perfectly.
K: The lyrics are a little different, but it is a pop song based on the image of what happened to the character who had the coup de foudre in “Apres Midi”, and fully brings out the nostalgic melody and retro atmosphere. Anyway there wasn’t time and so I was on the edge of my seat to the very last without seeing it take shape.
Ka: When I got this song I thought it would be most interesting not to do anything and stuck with the same pattern the whole time. On top of that there is a kind of break beat but…at any rate I kept Lenny and Moritaka in mind when hitting the drums. I applied the roll in the Turkish march part. For that I tried using a still snare. I wanted to bring out a kind of high and slightly clanging sound after all…

IX. Shi no Butou

G: This song is something that existed long ago, made from the thoughts of each of the members, and history makes people. Please feel this way.
M: This song is pretty old. We made the tragic heroin Cinderella the theme. “Death comes for all. A dance of many deaths…” The melody of the intertwined twin guitars the sense of openness in the sabi… In this song as well the beat and tempo gradually change and create a unique ambiance.
K: It’s the song we’ve been doing longest on the album and we recorded it without changing much. The two guitars swing L.R. just like in “Tsuioku no Kakera” so please listen to it in detail. Oh Cinderella!
Y: It’s a song we’ve been doing for a long time and I have a lot of memories related to it.
Ka: For the snare I used an MR Classic Maple. It gives a very warm sound quality. We’ve had this song for quite some time and the arrangement hasn’t changed but I think we made good use of the song in bringing out its depth. It’s relatively simple but I think it does something interesting in the fine points. Please listen to the guitar, bass, drum ensemble before the sabi.

X. Zenchou

G: First I want to say thank you to everyone who was involved in making this song. Certainly the degree of completion is not high. But I want you to listen to it innocently with your heart. With the recording too, we took care during the sound recording; it especially took time for the sound of the piano, and I think it got close to the type of sound that I wanted. First, after opening up the piano, I started making noise with it and said no that’s not it and no this isn’t it, and made a fair amount of demands, and drove the piano tuner up the wall. I want you all to feel that the song created from this as an “omen” leading into something to come while you’re listening to it.
M: There’s an old song Rafflesia, and this song was created as a forerunner. The image is a feeling of floating, and an illusion that seems like it will crumble.
K: The piano has an ubernice feel. Voyage ends with this song, so it you can feel something from the melody we added instead of the lyrics I will be happy.
Y: We’d been doing this song for a while too but it became a piano song. I think it is our hidden masterpiece.
Ka: I tried to make it sound omenish.

In Conclusion…
Ka: This time, we did a pretty heavy upgrade in comparison to Memoire. I really like it. Please have your fill of this anything goes side of Malice. In terms of rhythm this time there is Rock, Bossa Nova, Waltz…I learned things from q lot of different fields. From now on I’ll take on lots of new things and at my own inner sound, so please take it in together with me.