Five years ago, I wouldn’t have foreseen this happening.
No, I’m not talking about how I would end up spending five years helping to teach English at several public schools in Nagasaki City.
Instead, it all started with the use of a random number generator. I needed any four numbers, all of which would determine the key, scale, mode, and tempo of a song I would be writing and recording on the spot.
The end result of my experiment was the punk rock instrumental “Shinrin’yoku” (roughly translated as “forest bathing”). I distinctly remember wanting to challenge my songwriting by experimenting with song structures, and at the time, I felt that “Shinrin’yoku” had met the brief.
If you’re curious about the entire process, I worked on the drums and rhythm guitar first in order to establish the song structure. After that, I would record lead parts (and an actual guitar solo) over everything, and finish off with the bass.
All in all, it probably took me about two days to do everything by myself.
About three years later, I decided to share the song in the Roseburn Avenue private group Discord server on a bit of a lark. “Shinrin’yoku” ended up resonating with John, and he took it upon himself to make a few minor rearrangements while preserving the core melodies. The rearrangement was then put on hold for a while after that due to personal commitments and a couple of other projects. It was only around the end of 2022 when we decided to revisit the song.
I really have to thank Tessie for setting the lyrical theme of the song, and John for further fleshing it out. When you look at Roseburn Avenue’s original discography as a whole, our fourth single feels a bit like a capstone to an overarching story. It is from this that we decided to rename “Shinrin’yoku”.
This is the definitive summary of how the fourth Roseburn Avenue original single, “Journey’s Reflection”, came to be.