Make Up City

Make Up City is the fourth album and the third studio album by Casiopea released on November 21, 1980.

Description
This album is the first time that all members have contributed songs. Noro had been in charge of most of the compositions for the previous three albums (the only exception being Sakurai's "Sailing Alone"), and Noro had planned to compose most of this album as well, but in the middle of writing the songs, Noro was hospitalized, and the other members suddenly decided to each write one song and bring it in. Mukaiya created an instrumental version of "Reflections Of You," which was featured on Judy Anton's "Smile" released on October 25, 1980. In particular, Jimbo had no prior experience in composing music, but by enthusiastically learning how to compose from Noro while he was in the hospital, he created "Ripple Dance," this was Jimbo's first step as a songwriter.

All songs were performed by Casiopea members only, but Hideki Matsutake fully participated as the synthesizer manipulator.

The album was recorded using 3M's newly developed 32-track digital tape recorder, and was billed as Japan's first digitally recorded album. At that time, the latest model of 3M's DMS (Digital Audio Mastering System), the same one that had been in use since the late 1970s at the studios of American A&M Records, an affiliate of Alfa Records, was used for recording directly under Alfa Records. It was introduced at Studio Alfa, 'A' studio, but coincidentally this album was the first to be used due to recording schedules. Not only does it create a buzz, but it also contributes to the clarity of the sound. However, in a later magazine interview, leader Issei Noro reflected on the sound of those days and said, "The drawback of digital recording was that the sound was flat, so we decided to solve that problem by adding analog processing."

However, this album itself was not Japan's first digital recording work, as the Japanese company DENON had developed and operated the world's first practical PCM recording device, the DN-023R, in the 1970s.

The album title was chosen from the beauty term makeup, with the meaning of "creating a city." The jacket also features an illustration reminiscent of a futuristic city. However, the title literally translates to "Clean up the city." In fact, member Minoru Mukaiya, who was the MC for the tour at the time, said that Harvey Mason, who produced the bands' next album "Eyes of The Mind," said to him, "I was surprised, you guys, are you going to clean up the town?" "Eyes of Mind," which was included in the second song of this work, was also pointed out by Harvey Mason that "Wouldn't it be weird if THE wasn't included?" so it was written as "Eyes of The Mind" from then on.

Track listing
All Arranged by Issei Noro, except "Reflections Of You" by Minoru Mukaiya & Issei Noro.

Personnel
CASIOPEA are
 * Issei Noro - Guitar (YAMAHA SG-2000 & SG-1000 Fretless, Acoustic guitar)
 * Minoru Mukaiya - Keyboards (Fender Rhodes 73, Acoustic Piano, Prophet-5, Mini Moog, YAMAHA SK-20 & CS-30, KORG 800DV, Roland VP-330)
 * Tetsuo Sakurai - Bass (YAMAHA BB-2000 & BB-2000 Fretless, Fender Jazz Bass, Kramer DMZ-6000B)
 * Akira Jimbo - Drums (YAMAHA YD-9000R)


 * Hideki Matsutake - Synthesizer manipulator

Production

 * Executive Producer - Syoro Kawazoe
 * Producer - Shunsuke Miyazumi
 * Engineer - Norio Yoshizawa
 * Assistant Engineers - Atsushi Saito
 * Recorded at Studio "A", Shibaura, Tokyo Japan from July 7 to September 16, 1980 with 3M 32 track digital recorder.
 * Illustrator - Kazuyuki Takimoto
 * Design - Hidetake Awano
 * Cover Coordination - Toshinao Tsukui
 * Liner notes - Jun Takemura
 * Remastering engineer - Kouji Suzuki (2016)