Playing With Lightning Part TWO - Anamanaguchi(The Studio Records)
The original art was made by Paul Robertson
“I have this motto stuck in my head, from Marshall McLuhan: ‘if it works, it’s obsolete’” - Peter Berkman(guitarist/songwriter) talking with Billboard
On the last PWL, we went to France and dug into one of the modern Techno and Industrial greats. For our next one we travel back to the [USA], specifically New York. Two college students, Peter Berkman and Ary Warnaar, would join together to start a band. With them as the lead guitarists and songwriters, they would add bassist James DeVito and drummer Luke Silas to the group. “But wait?” you’re probably thinking. This sounds like a regular rock band. What’s electronic about them? Well, the group hacked a Nintendo Entertainment System and used a software called Nerdtracker II to create chiptune electronic sounds and synthlines. They took that and combined it with garage rock and punk. Finally, Berkman then took some gibberish that a friend said in a Jabba The Hutt impression from his previous band, Defective Electric, and used that as his new band’s name. That gibberish was Anamanaguchi, this is Playing With Lightning.[This is also PART ONE, which covers the band’s origins and their main three studio records.]
Before we dive into their main studio records, I want to talk about how they got people’s attention, which includes eleven year old me. Their first couple releases were 2006’s Power Supply and 2009’s Dawn Metropolis, where they would start to gain an internet cult-following. These were strictly instrumental, chiptune rock songs. While both projects are a bit(heh) primitive compared to what comes later, the band captured the unrelenting adventitious spirit similar to the Mega Man or Ducktails soundtracks. Tracks like “Video Challenge,” “Blackout City,” and “Overarrow” really get the bright and fast-paced energy of that era. All of that would lead to them doing their first actual video game soundtrack, which leads us to the mysterious land of Toronto, Canada.
In 2010, the group got a secretive email from Ubisoft. All they asked was for the band to do a game soundtrack, and only stated that it was for a movie adaptation. They then accepted. Cut to later that year, an eleven year old Crimson Mohawk popped in the DVD for said movie, and my eyes and ears were blessed. Blessed with the trailer for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World:The Game. The exaggerated world of Scott Pilgrim is a match made in heaven with Anamanaguchi. While the whole soundtrack pairs perfectly with the game, the big highlights are “Maki Ya,” “Cheap Shop,” “Subboss Theme,” and “Another Winter.” That last one they still perform live today. It’s one of the best game soundtracks of the last twenty years, and while the band goes on to evolve, this soundtrack is really where the boys take off and form a cult-following.
In 2013, we go from “Oh Canada!!!” to the “land” of Kickstarter. This is where the band started up the label, Dream.Hax, and raised the second largest amount of money raised on KS, with $277,399. And what would they do with that money? Well, first of all, they launched a pizza into space. Oh yeah, they would also finally drop their first studio album, Endless Fantasy. With that, we start what I consider a trilogy(at the moment.) While every one of their projects has that distinct 8-bit and 16-bit gooch sound, the main trilogy of albums all go about it differently. Endless Fantasy sounds exactly like the title. It’s one big party from front to back, going full on Dance-Pop(the opening of the album straight up reminds me of “DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love.”) The best example of that is one of the band’s most popular songs, “Prom Night” featuring Bianca Raquel, which is an extremely infectious track. It’s easily the brightest and most optimistic of the records.
Endless Fantasy also feels more fleshed out than their EPs up to this point, with the production feeling more lively and dynamic. For example, songs like “Planet,” “Echobo,” and “Snow Angels” have instrumentation that’s clearer and bouncier. There’s even songs like “Meow” where they really play up the band’s internet based sense of humor(I really like “Meow,” but you’re either going to love it or be super annoyed by it.) The only problem I really have is the runtime. While there’s plenty of great songs, to me, the album starts to feel a little repetitive after a while. Though, the band has gone out and said that rather than spreading the album into smaller projects, they took inspiration from double albums like Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. They wanted to go big, and encapsulate all of their work from the time in one project, rather than spread it out and do regular album cycles.
Despite the album’s length, I think it’s still a really good listen. It seems like most people tend to agree, with the record getting pretty solid reviews. Outside of the massive turnout on Kickstarter, the album would actually make it on multiple Billboard music charts, including the US Dance Albums, where Endless Fantasy would actually hit number 2. Everything in this period seems really good in Guch Land, with there also being quite a few other smaller projects they would put in between the lengthy album gaps(those will be covered in Part Two.)
For their next record, the band returned home (metaphorically). To keep things brief, in the mid-2010s, the band almost got dragged into some drama. I’m not going to talk about Gamergate(you can find countless videos and articles if you don’t know what GG was). The band did not get involved in it. But, it did have an impact on them. Some people accused them of cultural appropriation. Anamanguchi is an American band, but they have heavy inspiration from Japanese culture, and even from first glance, the band’s name doesn’t sound American. On top of that, they saw their mostly internet based fanbase divided. In an interview with Billboard, Berkman said, “We wanted to look at ourselves in our real context, and our audience in its real context.” That takes us to their second studio album, [USA], released in 1776… wait no, released in 2019.
In that same Billboard interview I mentioned earlier, Warnaar said, “We’re always going to have [USA] tied to our name no matter where we’re playing in the world…That’s always going to be the label given to us, regardless of how American or un-American we may feel.” While I wouldn’t say this is a dark album, it’s definitely the band’s most introspective one. [USA] moves away from the fantasy of Endless Fantasy, and grounds it more in reality. There are still songs that fit with the traditional Guchi sound, like the run from “BSX(ft. Hatsune Miku)” to “Up To You(ft. Meesh),” but there’s a lot more atmosphere than previous projects. The record starts with “[U S A]” and “Lorem Ipsum(Arctic Anthem)” which really take their time, and feel a little ominous at parts. Tracks like “The C R T Woods,” “Sunset By Plane(ft. Caroline Lufkin),” and “On My Own(ft. Hana)” cover topics of nostalgia, longing, and individuality, making the whole album feel more diverse than the previous one. And it all sounds great.
One of my favorite things about this album is it’s made for repeat full listens. Most songs transition into one another, and there’s so much going on in the production throughout that you’ll be catching new details with each listen(shoutout to Porter Robinson’s production on “Air On Line”). I think that the group struck a nice balance of the energy the band is known for with a sense of maturity. This is easily my favorite album of the bunch.
Going from the last album, we get a more specific location for their latest record. In 2024, the band would stay at the infamous "American Football House” in Illinois and write their new album there. With previous albums the group would jam out over demos they would send to each other, but for this one, they would be all together for it. And together, the group put out 2025’s Anyway, the most rockcentric and straight-forward of the trilogy. To be upfront, while there’s quite a bit here that could alienate listeners, them Gooch Boys have done it again. They make more creative shifts that really work.
There’s two big things about Anyway. The first is that the band goes back to their rock roots. Endless Fantasy and [USA] dug deep in the electronic side, and while they don’t ditch the 8-bit bleeps and bloops here, they’re not as present. Tracks like “Buckwild”(which was originally based on the movie, Wild Hogs) and lead single “Darcie” feel very much like 90’s alt rock, and “Valley of Silence” has a sound that feels reminiscent of The Cure. Though, despite being in the house that the band American Football lived in(pictured on the cover), they don’t take much inspiration from them here. The second big thing is that these guys sing now. For any of their other records, they would bring on guest vocalists. But, this is the first project where there’s none of that, and what would seem jarring at first actually feels very natural.
The closest this album gets to sounding more like classic Anamanguchi is with songs like “Rage (Kitchen Sink)” and “Lieday,” where the 8-bit synthlines are more prevalent. At the same time, the rest of the album still captures the charm the band is known for. I’d say that it even feels more personal than [USA]. The previous record was more about addressing people being divided, but Anyway is more about bringing people together. It feels like such a nice evolution for the band, and I can’t wait to see where they go next. The good news is that this isn’t just it. While there are their main studio albums, there’s a ton of other projects the band has worked on in between, so, To Be Continued In Part Two…