User:Wunkt2/sandbox

Anozaa Hira Hira-Tem Hira-LIVE Hira-Kyoku

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Formation
From 1973 to 1978; guitarist/singer Susumu Hirasawa, keyboardist Yasumi Tanaka (田中　靖美) and drummer Sadatoshi Tainaka (田井中　貞利); aided by Susumu's older brother Yūichi (平沢 裕一) leading a special effects team and rōnin Katsuhiko Akiyama as an occasional roadie, acted as the progressive rock band Mandrake. It gradually accrued a following in the Tokyo prog scene throughout its lifespan, but found differences in worldview towards other bands and the lack of growth prospects frustrating.

Simultaneously, they gradually cottoned to the punk and new wave movements developing in the west. Hirasawa felt new wave was a genre with a meaning behind it, and as he listened to more of it concluded he could make it with the same motivation that led him to prog. Through Akiro Kamio Arishima (有島　神尾　明朗), he joined Electro Sound (エレクトロサウンド), one of the few independent synthesizer-centric studios in Japan at the time; where he worked with the instrument on studio, stage and classrooms as a Yamaha Music Foundation teacher. Besides the hands-on experience Electro Sound's assignments provided, it also allowed Hirasawa and Tanaka to develop a new approach to synths. The two wrote many new wave songs with this new sound, which Hirasawa thought had mainstream potential.

With all their interest in the genre gone, they turned down an offer from Victor Music Industries and chose to end Mandrake with a theatrical 3-hour long show on New Year's Eve 1978, playing their entire prog and new wave repertoires. Hours after performing, the members and Yūichi (who was considered as much part of the band from then on as the musicians themselves) convened at the Hirasawa family house in Kameari to define how they would tackle the new direction. They observed that current music with corporate backing had appeal for non-music fans and worked as entertainment, so they decided to make a complete change that would cultivate an unthreatening image.

Their new sound would be driven by electronic instruments, and the band's name was changed to something that evoked a mass-produced industrial good. They considered many letters of the Latin alphabet, choosing "P" (ピー) because it "sounds ridiculous". Since a live rhythm section was necessary for the punk feeling the group sought, Hirasawa recruited Akiyama to be their bassist, because he had never played the instrument in his life before. Although the band developed such an abrasive sound, Hirasawa thought it had pop appeal, and aimed to "overthrow Pink Lady". With these changes, P-Model was formed on New Year's Day 1979.

P-Model was originally established as a group of equals following a concept, but from the onset ideas and decisions primarily came from the Hirasawa brothers and Tanaka, with Susumu raising issues and coordinating concepts.

1979-1983: from outwards to inwards – In a Model Room, Landsale, Potpourri and Perspective
Hirasawa and Tanaka made a 2-song demo and sent cassette copies to parties that might show interest. A tape reached management company Amuse Inc., which offered employment; staunchly against belonging to a talent firm, the band instead created a self-owned office, Model House. A connection there played the demo to Rockin' f magazine editor Hisaaki Katoh (加藤　久明) who, amazed at the band's sound, helped them get a record deal. As his publication was one of the few covering new wave properly in Hirasawa's view, they trusted him. Accruing attention from eight different labels, P-Model signed with the biggest one, Warner-Pioneer. Interest in—and ultimately responsibility for—the band came from their western division, which already handled a similar act, Devo. The Japanese division was asked to take them but didn't understand what the group was going for.

Cautious to make their debut album due to a lack of communicative know-how, the group sought an experienced producer, hiring Masahide Sakuma (producer) of Plastics, also a prog musician transitioning to new wave, who produced albums as part of Yonin-Bayashi. However, he clashed with the band over their choice of instruments and musicianship; sessions were protracted affairs, taking up around 800 hours to finish. P-Model's intent was to have a techno pop finish, but fought throughout the recordings to maintain the gritty aspect of their sound, which resulted in a techno punk album that did not match the image they had in mind. While the group maintained an amicable relationship with Sakuma, they never worked with an outside producer again.

Their first album In a Model Room came out on 25 August 1979, met with good sales. One of the first Japanese new wave bands to release recordings, P-Model stood out in the mainstream by the combination of its inorganic sound and lyrics critical of modern society. Besides gigs alongside local punk and new wave bands, they played for thousands as the opening act on the Asian leg of Van Halen's World Vacation Tour. The group's growth in popularity led them to play multiple regions of the country for the first time. In an all-night concert at Kanagawa University, they befriended a fellow performer, Kenji Konishi of Dada, also a prog musician who had turned to synth-heavy work.

P-Model started 1980 with their first national tour, which lasted until April. Their second album, Landsale, was recorded between the legs of that tour. Despite the inclusion of new compositional and arrangement styles from Hirasawa, as well as songs by Akiyama, it effectively maintains the same style as In a Model Room. They intended to make it less electronic and closer to how they perform live, which led to a slightly harsher, guitar-oriented direction. The band was pressured by the label to record faster than before; Hirasawa often wrote songs on their day of recording and struggled to at first come up with suitable material that didn't sound like an extension of the previous album, then with writing songs in general. A rejected Akiyama song was quickly finished and recorded on the last day of the sessions as filler.

Landsale was a massive success, receiving a first order of 100,000 copies (most Japanese rock albums of the time generally sold only 30,000); Warner received inquiries to release their albums in the United States and Canada by the end of the year. P-Model found itself in the midst of a techno pop boom, with frequent appearances on TV and the press, billed as one of "The Big Three of Techno" (テクノ御三家) alongside Plastics and Hikashu. Hirasawa found himself in a state of crisis, uncomfortable with the way mass media and enlarging audiences saw the band as idols, a lack of interest in making more music centered around social critique, a prominent unofficial fan club took a militant stance in its interpretation of the band's actions and the realization that they were treated as a fad. P-Model reacted against its position, starting with high-profile episodes of erratic behavior at concerts.

Concurrently, tension grew between Akiyama and the rest of the group, especially Hirasawa. While he shared the others' stance towards the mainstream and could adhere to their musicality, Akiyama stood apart attitude-wise. An unspoken factor behind joining P-Model was that Hirasawa wanted and tried to position him as idolish. Akiyama fulfilled that role on his own but sought a voice both within the band and externally. He presented his own visual style, further in line with his image but opposite to what the other members aimed for. He made attempts to shift away from their pre-established image like the others, which led to clashes with Hirasawa over differing standards and hypocrisy. Hirasawa felt that the gap between them meant forming a unified view became harder for P-Model, so he expelled Akiyama from the band by November. He asked one of his Yamaha school students, 17-year old Tatsuya Kikuchi, to be the band's bassist for a set of already-booked festivals. He had some experience with the band's basslines from heading a dedicated amateur cover band but had to be taught the instrument. Originally intended as a temporary replacement, Kikuchi ended up a full-time member of P-Model.

With their third album Potpourri, P-Model sought to prune its fanbase and find a new methodology to follow. Some compositional and arrangement elements were kept, but mixed with many experimental approaches through a harsher post-punk sound; paired with a drastically different lyrical vein, heavy on subconscious imagery. Hirasawa articulated the intent as a "suicide campaign" album, a collection of love songs from a world incompatible with the "sketchiness, insensitiveness, carelessness, and forgetfulness" of politics and enka; to retreat into their dreams, which to the band was the only way of changing the world while completely ridding it of that incompatible philosophy. This replacement of outwards-facing themes by inwards-facing ones turned out a permanent shift for them. The group's relationship with Warner, already conflict-laden, worsened from the first song recorded. Released on 25 March 1981, the album was ignored by most of the press, their audience shrunk, and P-Model switched labels to Tokuma Music Industries' Japan Record by November of that year.

The experimentation continued beyond recording studios. Some shows were split into two parts, pre-empting conventional repertoire with a set of work-in-progress songs, at times a fully instrumental selection. Susumu explored musical ideas at home, some with self-built instruments; songs that didn't fit the concept of the band's next studio outing or were written to test his instruments were compiled by Yūichi for a 1983 self-released cassette album, Fu Kyoka Kyoku Shū (不許可曲集). Their musical change came in tandem with a mood change in shows: high-tension and blizzard cold feeling; P-Model rarely addressed the audience, which itself sat quietly. This period saw them gig with Tom Robinson and The Jam. Around this time, Konishi formed the new wave band 4-D (band) with fellow Kansai region musicians Shinobu Narita and Tadahiko Yokogawa. Given his friendship with Hirasawa, both bands went on to gig together.

For P-Model's fourth album Perspective, they continued with the dark post-punk direction and sought to wholly replace the inherent dichotomy of new wave with all-original values. With a theme of questioning trust in one's senses, the group aimed to make the sound itself hold meaning over lyrics or interview answers. As such, they were exacting with its production. Although there were issues with Kikuchi's lack of craft and struggles to acquire a satisfying drum sound, they got satisfying results with extravagant techniques. Tanaka felt P-Model had finally figured out what style to follow. Hirasawa felt the goals he vaguely had in mind since In a Model Room were accomplished, but hated how an album he intended as easy to understand was labeled "avant-garde". Virgin France was one of three labels interested in releasing the album in that country, potentially under a different band name, by fall that same year, but Tokuma lost the offered contract; the group first found out about the deal through the press. P-Model continued their experimental shows into 1982, incorporating the audience's cheers into their songs with a homemade sampler.

From Potpourri onwards, Yasumi Tanaka found it harder and harder to come up with material for the band, as well as creating parts and arrangements for the increasing amount of Hirasawa compositions. Feeling that he was holding both himself and the band back, Tanaka suddenly quit P-Model and his career as a musician altogether, performing his last live show on 20 March 1983. Hirasawa found that a massive blow, comparable to losing an arm. He would later say that "P-Model originally ended at that point".

1983-1985: the "One-Man Band" - Another Game, Scuba and Karkador
18-year old Shunichi Miura, friend of the band's manager, took up the keyboardist role, his first show a week after Tanaka's last, chosen for his ability to copy those parts accurately. Like Kikuchi, he covered P-Model songs as a hobby and was meant as a temporary replacement, but ended up a full-time member by the following year. During this era, the changing band dynamics took a definite route: Hirasawa increasingly assumed leadership as time went on, a consolidation of creative control which intensified after Tanaka's departure, as the group's membership changed annually until the end of the decade, and the press took to saying Hirasawa lead a "One-Man Band" (ワンマン・バンド). At the same time, Hirasawa's mental health started deteriorating and he looked for ways to treat it; his interest in psychology, New Age and pseudoscience meant he took unusual means to handle the matter, starting with Silva Mind Control lectures.

Hirasawa faced a creative impasse at this point, determined to not repeat himself but at a loss in how to proceed. P-Model decided to focus on live performances during this time. Conceptual shows continued, but without the experimental edge. They gigged with punk bands and increased its punk audience, while Hirasawa befriended figures from the scene: Shigeki Nishimura (西村　茂樹), vocalist of The Loods and founder of the independent label R.B.F. Records; and Michiro Endo, leader of The Stalin.

In light of these circumstances, P-Model recorded their heaviest and darkest album, Another Game, their only mainline one to lack any songwriting compositions from members other than Hirasawa. He aimed to express "seeing the reality within daily life on one hand while there is no reality in living, no reality in communication between people" through the album, but later called it a half-hearted outing that he remembered little about. Full of bass-centric songs, Kikuchi worked off of parts dictated by Hirasawa but had a lot of say on the material, including lyrics.

It was originally set to be released on 25 October 1983. However, on 21 October, the Recording Industry Association of Japan's Record Creation Standards and Ethics Committee (レコード制作基準倫理委員会 (レコ倫)) submitted a complaint about two words in one line the song "Atom-Siberia". This sudden request, combined with overzealousness and oblique business moves by Tokuma, led the release to be postponed three times, ultimately happening on 25 February 1984. In light of the company's handling of the situation and pre-existing issues with their lack of promotion for the band, P-Model annulled its contract with Tokuma after the album's release.

Hirasawa was exhausted of major label conflicts and wanted to fulfill a long-standing wish of exploring alternatives to the traditional way of launching albums on vinyl. For a little over a year, the group focused their recorded efforts on releases with varying lineups, either self-released or under independent labels. Most were part of the "Another Act" series, a project consisting of sonosheets that highlighted compositions and styles unique to each member. The first, released under the "trademark-free" band name Ikari—which performed live with Mitsuru Hirose (広瀬　充), the band's manager as of summer 1983, as lead singer—was allegedly conceived as an outlet for him to express his anger after clashing with Tokuma. Half were one-offs, but Hirasawa's—which carried the experimental aspect of preceding outings—became a unit of its own, under the name Shun. Techniques and know-how developed in the making of them were brought into the production process of P-Model. Much of the output from this period was recorded in their office, a room turned home studio in an apartment occupied by Kamio's film production company AC Unit.

Hirasawa's mental health deteriorated further as he dealt with the stresses of Another Game's delays, leading a band alone with a lack of money. He contemplated an image change at the time, and by chance, while in a severe state, saw an advert for a psychiatric practice in August. There, he underwent sessions for about a year with a Jungian psychology counselor who, among other things, guided Hirasawa towards interpreting and using his dreams as songwriting material. To aid him, Hirose asked Kikuchi and Tainaka—who had only written one song each—to contribute two and three songs respectively for the band's next album, an arrangement that did not materialize. Kamio felt that P-Model was "pretty far gone" at that point and pushed for a different creative approach without pretensions.

Hirasawa's personal developments significantly shaped P-Model's next project, the book chart-topping Scuba. Due to the anxiety and emptiness he felt at the time, as well as the lack of a creative partner to share responsibility with, Hirasawa felt unable to continue the style the band had developed. The album he made instead was characterized by a shift to pop, built with different technology and songwriting than that of the band's original lineup. Kamio was present throughout the sessions, the start of his tenure as a creative force in its direction. Owing to surrounding circumstances, Hirasawa and Miura are the only P-Model members to appear on the album. Kikuchi had recorded parts for the album, but they went unused; Tainaka, who balanced drumming with a day job in carpentry, felt he was "at the limit of [his] strength" and had been set to leave the band since at least summer that year. Scuba was a watershed production for Hirasawa and provided the fundamental direction of all the works that followed it.

Around the time that Scuba was in the making, Hirose sought to draw talented personnel to the band. He successfully asked Yokogawa—who sensed his career in Kansai was about to fall apart—to be their new bassist. Chosen due to his outstanding skills, Yokogawa was a talented multi-instrumentalist who pushed the band towards new arrangements, had an approach to music similar to Hirasawa's and was willing to share leadership with him. Kikuchi was not informed of this turn of events, and was shocked when Hirose visited his house and said "you are already fired", but felt he could not contest the decision due to his lack of writing contributions.

The Another Game Tour of October 1983 marked another mood shift in P-Model shows towards frenziedness, with songs played at double the tempo and tension of their studio equivalents. Audiences reacted positively, and in Tokyo, gradually increased from 1984 onwards in spite of a lack of promotion. The Scuba Tour started on 28 August, anticipating the album's release on 10 October. It marked the beginning of Yokogawa's tenure in the band; however, he was not available for the 15 September show, where Teruo Nakano instead handled the bass and backing vocals. Nakano was, at the time, a promising young musician who became one of the band's roadies after sending them a tape that summer.

They toured with a variety of gigging partners. Besides the groups Yokogawa was part of (4-D and After Dinner), P-Model picked bands formed by talented newcomers who were also fans as its opening acts: Yasuhiro Araki's Allergy (band), Yoshikazu Takahashi's Room and Hikaru Kotobuki's Mikan Mukku (みかんむくっ). The selection was simultaneously an opportunity for fans to get close to the group and for it to scout for potential members, in line with Hirose's aims. Araki, who was Hirasawa's immediate pick for the band's next drummer, had been approached earlier in the year to join P-Model, an offer he felt he couldn't refuse. Creative differences within Allergy and a sense of inertia led them to separate, playing its final show (supported by an impromptu 2-song set by Shun) on 15 January 1985.

P-Model's fifth lineup, the first with Hirasawa as sole founding member and geared towards proficient performance, started its activities in April 1985, with a final batch of Another Act sonosheets (one of which featured Nakano on bass) as well as sporadic shows, and signed with Alfa Records in July. To avoid issues faced with their previous major labels, they worked under Edge Records—Alfa's musician-centric replacement for the just-dissolved producer-centric ¥en Records imprint—for its good admittance system, newness, and not interfering with the music. Hirasawa also brought Kamio as producer to be an intermediary between band and label.

Hirasawa wanted Karkador to be a return to P-Model making albums with proper concepts backing them, but was unable to due to his poor mental state. He made a loose story based on imagery from his dreams, which the listener would have to piece together on their own, instead. It is matched by a colorful pop sound, supposed to be augmented with lavish production values akin to Perspective's. Intended as a showcase of the new formation's varying interpretations of P-Model, Hirasawa was set to compromise during its creation, but logistical issues between members and with label policy severely hampered the creative process. Another similarity between him and Yokogawa is that both are strict when it comes to others following the concepts they already decided upon, which led them to multiple confrontations. Many concessions were made between the two members, none led to full satisfaction. Both were disappointed with the final result, also citing uncooperative veteran in-house Alfa engineer Mitsuo Koike (小池　光夫) for, in Hirasawa's words, "ruining everything".

One year later, the LaserDisc Corporation commissioned a Fairlight CVI movie for the title track from Australian video artist Peter Callas. Originally made for a promotional LaserDisc magazine commemorating their fifth anniversary, Callas took the video to exhibits and festivals across the globe, and it was aired on American television, marking the first official release of a P-Model recording outside Japan.

The album was released in late October, followed by a tour that lasted until December. Besides Nakano, their road crew featured Kotobuki as of that tour. Throughout the lineup's life, the marked gap in age and skill between Miura and the others led him to develop a huge complex over his performance, on top of general unhappiness with the direction P-Model was taking and inability to become more involved. Both him and Yokogawa were unhappy with touring, the latter also stressed over the band's dynamics, so the two left after the group's final show of the year on 27 December 1985. Yokogawa continued as a member of After Dinner, 4-D disbanded by the end of the year. Miura joined Uchoten, whose members were all around the same age as him, and was lead by singer Keralino "Kera" Sandorovich, a big fan of P-Model and Hirasawa.

1986-1988: the chaotic dawn of the digital-analog world - One Pattern, Monster and "freezing"
To replenish ranks, Hirasawa contacted Takahashi and Nakano, seeking them for their personalities over skill or preferred music type. Both could play bass and keyboards; Nakano could pick whichever position he wanted, ultimately playing basslines on both bass guitar and keyboards. The engineering-oriented Takahashi would be credited with "systems" as he was less accustomed to playing keyboards by hand and the times meant his performance would be just simple switch pressing. He described this period retrospectively as "the chaotic dawn of the digital-analog world, an age where human-powered, machine-style, analog, digital, anything would fly". While the One-Man Band nature of P-Model strengthened, Nakano's tenure and the gear-led style change lent stability to this era. Per Nakano, Hirasawa was excited to work with them, had a different vision for the band from that of the previous formation, and was considering changing its name. As soon as they joined, they were told about the next album, which the sixth lineup recorded, with no time to prepare or preliminary rehearsals, that same winter.

One Pattern, P-Model's first album recorded with digital sequencers, marked a re-embracing of overtly technological sound, as that lost the novelty it had during the band's inception. Its making was marked by tensions. Most of it was recorded over three weeks at a hybrid studio and campsite near Mount Fuji. They only had half an album of songs when recording started. As all members were promoted fans, each wanted to replicate their favorite era, on top of Hirasawa's rigidness over what he wanted P-Model to be. He often kept distant from other members, struggling to write lyrics. Conflicts with Alfa continued. Morale was so low during sessions that Kamio had them shovel snow off the driveway for a refreshing change of pace. The resulting album was, unlike its predecessors, marked by a variety of styles instead of a single consistent one. Hirasawa presented One Pattern in contemporaneous interviews as a self-parody, the band having fun at its struggle to figure out a new direction. Retrospectively he's been open about the issues that surrounded its creation and the lack of planning behind the work, and considers it his least favorite P-Model album.

A video was shot for the song "Another Day", a low-budget affair directed by Kamio done by a crew that participated as a favor. Hirasawa was so unhappy with the results that he decided to make them himself from then on by learning computer animation. Through Hiroshi Moriguchi (守口　寛), a visualist and P-Model fan he met by happenstance in a train, Hirasawa discovered the Amiga line in 1987.

Another One Pattern trait is its unrepresentativeness of P-Model live. All parts programmed into sequencers for the album were played by hand on shows. The lineup—which attracted hundreds-strong crowds—had strong synergy, with the emboldening performances of Nakano and Takahashi, in particular, making concerts more frantic. This new way was matched by more lavish visuals and overall presentation as well. Around this time, Hirose quit, and the manager role went to concert promoter Mitsuo Nagano (長野　光雄).

P-Model started preparations to make their next album, Monster, in February 1987, for release summer of that year. Hirasawa aimed for a loose theme centred on extremely influential era-defining female symbols and timely media topics, inspired by his interest in Jungian psychology and the new age movement. Their sound would be different, and feature more sequenced parts. The group drafted a complete production roadmap for the album which Alfa approved, and managed to record one song with Kamio's assistance during their single day in the studio, but stopped after a phone call from the label indicated they would not pay for studio time, and that the band should wait before proceeding. P-Model terminated its contract that October; Hirasawa—who was heavily invested in the songs and wanted a label that wouldn't treat them sloppily—negotiated with multiple nontraditional record companies, but couldn't secure a deal. Kamio drafted a release plan for the band, where Monster would be a CD compiling the best material from a pre-emptive trio of vinyl maxi-singles. Nakano and Takahashi attempted to write multiple songs for the project in line with the Jungian themes. While the former found some success, the latter felt they were just getting lectured. They ended up writing many songs with bombastic working titles about various forms of spirituality.

While their studio work floundered, their stage work flourished. Under Nagano, the number of gigs increased and attendance numbers stabilized. Multiple conceptual concerts were held, with boosts in technical and visual elaborateness. Among the most unique were two held in 1987 by The Mortal World's Paradise Kameari Eternal One Pattern Band (此岸のパラダイス亀有永遠のワンパターンバンド), a "cover band" that played songs from P-Model's first three albums they rarely did in their shows, that was in fact Kera fronting a unique lineup of the group (Hirasawa, Tainaka, Akiyama and Miura). This period saw P-Model's first concert videos, both self-released: Moire Vision, a low-quality collection of six songs from two different shows available under strictly limited quantities exclusively to official fanclub members; and The Physical Atlas of Three Worlds (三界の人体地図), a professionally-shot recording of almost the entirety of their 29 April 1988 concert, attended by almost seven hundred people.

P-Model saw 1987 through two member changes. Araki left due to "unavoidable circumstances in his private life", his final concert on 14 March featuring a guest appearance by his replacement, seen by Hirasawa as the only choice: Tainaka, who was eager to rejoin. Unhappy with Araki's departure, lack of a record deal and the quality of songs written, Takahashi gave up on Monster and left the band in September. He was replaced by Kotobuki, who impressed Hirasawa with his skill and gave unheeded advice.

Although P-Model survived such shakeups and kept the strong live following, Hirasawa lost enthusiasm at their overall trajectory. He longed for the level of closeness the early lineups had, and since the Scuba Tour fruitlessly chased the feeling of that "golden age". As all other members (except Tanaka, Tainaka and Yokogawa) started as fans wanting to replicate their favorite elements of P-Model, the band's aim shifted away from four people in equal standing creating something greater than themselves towards Hirasawa trying to meet the greatest common divisor of all members' wants. Hirasawa struggled creatively with the rigid framework this setup entailed, financially, and administratively as he took all those decisions alone.

By mid-1988, Hirasawa gave up on P-Model, and prepared for a solo career in secret from the other members. At the same time, there was an attempt to recover with a final trilogy of conceptual shows. Internally, the band was beset by multiple misunderstandings during this crossroads. There was an eventual realization among other members that it would be over. The final concert of the year on 28 December was determined to be P-Model's final in general. Hirasawa didn't want a dramatic or regretful ending, so on the post-show announcement he told concertgoers that P-Model would be "entering cold sleep". After it and the band ended, Hirasawa felt greatly relaxed and refreshed.

1991-1993: Defrosted - P-Model and Big Body
Hirasawa spent the two and a half years following the freeze focused on his solo career. He made his debut in tandem with producing and arranging the first album by The Groovers, a band formed by Nishimura and ex-members of punk group Narumi & the Misters, like drummer Yasuchika Fujii (藤井). In this period he also produced two songs by Akiyama's new band Here is Eden. The backing band he assembled for shows included Kotobuki as a consistent part; with Konishi, Akiyama, Fujii and Yokogawa, among others, as occasional members. His live work at the time also included a guest appearance on a 1991 Soft Ballet gig, the first time he worked with drummer Wataru Kamiryo (上領　亘). Nagano was fired for behavior that "could as well be called treason", and Hirasawa moved from self-run management to an outside office, I3 Promotion, as he was taken by the sincerity of its president, long time fan Yūichi Kenjo (見城　裕一).

By 1990, Hirasawa started considering a return to straightforward techno pop, and felt he needed a brand to accomplish that, of which he already had P-Model. That year saw Error Force, a Hirasawa-produced event with sets by his friends. Among the acts listed was P-Model, but instead of a reunion, it was a de facto third The Mortal World's Paradise Kameari Eternal One Pattern Band show with a slightly different lineup. Hirasawa sang lead on some songs, Miura was replaced by Kotobuki, and some songs had drums by Araki.

P-Model's return was announced on 25 June 1991, through flyers in Hirasawa's handwriting given to attendees of that day's solo concert. Their comeback show was performed on 23 September, featuring old songs with new arrangements by members who were "defrosted": Hirasawa, Akiyama, Kotobuki and Fujii. Hirasawa gave a return offer to help Akiyama, as Here is Eden collapsed after struggling with lack of institutional support.

Songwriting
As Mandrake transitioned to new wave, the 2 writers agreed to only write songs with whole tones; while Tanaka easily wrote bars full of them, Hirasawa was only able to muster one song.

Susumu saw the music as a Jōban Line counterpoint to the urban sophisticated stylish music of the cultureless Tokyo that was being built on top of the place's original culture. P-Model took a "Non-Musician" approach to In a Model Room; they wanted the songs to seem like they came from ordinary people instead of seasoned musicians. Potentially due to short rehearsals, the rhythm section came into that album with a lack of skill. For backing vocals, the band went to a McDonald's and asked three or four high school girls there to sing.

For Potpourri, the songs still maintained a pop sensibility (Tainaka remarked partway through the album's recording that it was turning out less dark than he expected), but the band eschewed most electronics in favor of post-punk centered on guitar and organ. The guitar and rhythm parts have drawn comparisons to ska and reggae, which Hirasawa denies as their intention. On Perspective, P-Model challenged itself to take its four instrument setup as far as possible, and to be minimalist in songwriting (amount of notes played and timbres used). A massive inspiration for Hirasawa during this period was Public Image Ltd, while Kikuchi took cues from Gang of Four.

To Hirasawa, P-Model became a "keyboardist-less band" after Tanaka's departure, as the approach for writing that instrument's parts changed from session-like to programmed. Another Game marks the return of synthesizers as a primary instrument and the introduction of Hirasawa's therapy into music: the album is bookended with biofeedback instructions and alpha wave-inducing oscillations, both of which are promoted by Silva Mind Control.

Some Landsale songs are the first to showcase Hirasawa's "playful, nursery rhyme" writing style, with a different sense of rhythm than conventional pop songs. He explored it in an analysis of compositions that fit the pronunciation of Japanese well and melodies that would sound innocent in the language if sung as rock or pop. Hirasawa revisited it in Scuba, where its the most predominant style. He described his interest in them thus: "Nursery rhymes have parts where they don’t make sense when thinking about them logically. And surrealism is prevalent, but that’s only a big deal to westerners, and for Japanese people I think it’s a lot more common in our consciousness". In Karkador he started displaying a proclivity for "exotic, primitive" phrasings; and in One Pattern symphonic arrangements with heavy emphasis on brass and strings.

Yokogawa feels that African-American music has great power. A big interest when joining P-Model was to turn certain Perspective and Another Game songs into funk. He thought Hirasawa had great rhythm on guitar and sought to expand it to the rest of the band, practicing together with Araki to do so. On Karkador he hoped "to add some raw explosive power to it, and create a kind of funk for [himself]". Araki—who developed an unusual rhythm style in Allergy as the rhythm section were prog fans— brought more complexity to P-Model's drum parts and played with a larger kit than Tainaka, which grew upon the latter's return.

Kamio's primary role on the studio was to "keep the atmosphere" and to be a "wall", both to protect Hirasawa against the outside world and to have ideas thrown at: he's pondered that Hirasawa subconsciously desired to "surprise" or "betray" him, and around the time of Karkador worried that his presence was making Hirasawa too excentric.

Sound
Up until the freeze, Hirasawa prioritized sound over songwriting in P-Model. The band's lack of money greatly influenced how their sound was achieved; per Nakano, "P-Model does its best with whatever technology and materials it has at the time. It’s primitive, it’s outrageous, and it doesn’t question it. That may be what was good about it, though.". With their first stylistic shift, they started making drastic rearrangements of existing songs, at first only available on live shows.

The dry, bleepy sound of P-Model's first lineup was defined by two instruments: the frequently employed Roland CR-68 and CR-78 drum machines, and the Maxi-Korg 800DV synthesizer. The latter was used primarily for the "Musical Stapler" (ミュージカル・ホッチキス), a timbre heavy on noise with short decay, developed by Hirasawa and Tanaka experimenting against the image of synthesizers as meditative sounding instruments during Mandrake. The Yamaha YC-10 combo organ is a constant presence as well, which became central on Potpourri, where synth usage was drastically reduced and kept low on the mix. The overall sound went the opposite direction from before, wet and delay-heavy. The Korg Polysix was a key component of their sound for years, starting with synth pad timbres in Perspective. The One Pattern style shift came with a change in synth usage to near exclusively early digital Casio synths.

John Lydon's performance as the Sex Pistols vocalist influenced Hirasawa's early singing style. All songs up to Another Game, regardless of tempo, had shouted vocals. Kamio thought he had a great voice, so when offered to co-write a song for Scuba, he made the melody and chord progression of "Fish Song", specifically to push Hirasawa into singing naturally. Hirasawa has no affection for the guitar, but once tried to create a playing style of his own—used prominently on Potpourri and Perspective—which he's retrospectively deemed as gimmicky and only interesting in a visual sense. From Scuba onwards he often defaulted to emulating the style of one of his biggest influences, Robert Fripp.

Hirasawa had a proclivity for prominent drum sounds, to him: "The world of songs is built upon phrasings, but with big drums you can create this world through their tone before the phrasing is added. With one large 'boom', it’s easy to create a sort of space… I am very intrigued by it". For much of the '80s, Hirasawa sought that on releases, with the gated reverb of Peter Gabriel's third untitled solo album as reference. Wanting reverb that expands horizontally but not deeply, he tried various different methods and/or recording locations on each album. On Another Game, resistance from Tainaka stopped him. Potpourri and Karkador were marked by disagreements with engineers, the latter a very bitter experience for Hirasawa. Working with The Loods ahead of the album's recording, he met Yoshiaki Kondoh (近藤　祥昭), the first engineer he saw eye-to-eye with. Kondoh was tapped to record drums for Karkador—a satisfactory process for the band—but Koike refused to enact Hirasawa's ideas and reworked the drums in the mix to have what Araki called a "soft and gentle" sound instead. Hirasawa was angered by him to the point of leaving the studio partway through a session. His trust in them lost, for One Pattern Hirasawa went with a young engineer and isolated him as much as possible from the process. The only success was Perspective: like Koike, its engineer insisted on using digital reverb at first, clashing constantly with Hirasawa, to the point of P-Model strategizing their arguments against him in advance to get their way.

"Anothersmell", a sound collage on Potpourri, introduces sampling into P-Model's palette, achieved through a digital delay unit. As samplers "cost as much as a house" at the time, Hirasawa built his own out of a tape delay unit and a synthesizer, the Heavenizer. He wanted to make a Heavenizer-centred album between Perspective and Another Game, but it was mostly used in Shun, figuring only on some P-Model shows and studio recordings. It gradually went into disuse as sampling gear became affordable. Ideas for that album appear in Scuba—which features tape loops and sampling prominently—achieved through another digital delay unit. Going into Karkador, Hirasawa wanted to integrate the stylings as developed by Shun into P-Model. Both it and One Pattern were made with dedicated samplers.

P-Model's implementation of synth triggers live started around the time of Another Game with the "zundoko drums" (ズンドコ・ドラム), attached to the bass and snare. Araki's final concert saw Tainaka guest in a fully electronic kit, the latter using a hybrid kit during his second turn in the band.

Starting on the Scuba Tour, Yokogawa would often switch to playing electric violin, which caused Hirasawa to switch to bass and Miura to guitar. As his tenure went on he expanded the band's avenues of expression further on both stage and studio; also playing fretless bass, cello and ocarina. Nakano kept fretless playing in the band, his way inspired by Mick Karn.

One Pattern marked an increase in essential gimmicks to P-Model's sound, but they did not own a stand-alone sequencer, so live they had to recreate them by other means. Takahashi found himself doing by hand much of the work handled by a sequencer besides playing keyboards, often playing pre-recorded segments off cassettes, intuiting the timing in relation to the rest of the band.

Lyrics
Songs by the first lineup reflected the members' Orwellian sense of hopelessness towards Tokyo. As natives to the metropolis, they felt displaced due to both internal migration to the city, the government's purge of subcultures from the special wards to make them "wholesome"; that it lacked a shared culture and anything interesting or unique to do. Hirasawa retrospectively described himself as holding a lot of faith in words then, and his output that era as "words with background music". A writer described the band's attitude and position at the time thus: "Japan is neither Britain nor America. Therefore there was no reason for punk to form. This country’s new wave is made by the drowning screams that come from the rabble of information and processed products being forced into the mouth and ears. The Plastics did it as a joke. Hikashu did it as a performance. But P-Model was not laughing". Akiyama, who never liked the instigative tone of the band's lyrics at that point, has stated the band never had a thesis underlying its rebellion.

For Potpourri, there was a shift towards dreamlike writing, influenced by Shampoo, an all-female duo formed by students of Hirasawa's Yamaha school class. Some were written as deliberately impossible to convey intent, others still developed from concepts instead of pure absurdism, multiple centred on contrasts. As they wanted listeners to form their outlook on Perspective based on the album's sound, lyrics were kept surrealist and meaning more to the listener's imagination; Hirasawa felt they were structurally worse than his work on the preceding album: "It was a struggle because it was during a time where I was going from being more conceptual to going with whatever I came up with then and there". By Another Game his style became keyword-centric and his approach abstract, trying to bring "what is left behind the more that something is put to words [...] into the character created by words" and emphasize "the nuance that certain words have, and the environment". His desire for listeners to form their own vision of the music was still present, to the point of stating "explanations are a hindrance".

Scuba started another shift in his writing: songs born out of wordplay that showcase a nautically-themed story based on Jungian writings, with the sea treated as a metaphor for the collective unconscious. Its original release was bundled with an 84-page booklet containing a tale also by Hirasawa connecting all songs on the album with an overarching plot. By 1987, Hirasawa felt frustrated at his inability to write songs that genuinely capture femininity, and wanted Jun Togawa—the only Japanese musician that embodied his ideals of femininity—to participate in the making of Monster, something impeded by band strife.

Visual presentation
A strong emphasis on this facet was always present in their work. Mandrake's final show, conceived by Hirasawa as commercialism defeating alchemy, was split into two parts by a skit where Akiyama and Yūichi, dressed as mad scientists, ushered the new wave style by carrying a glowing RGB fetus and running in a treadmill, respectively. Yūichi, who handled much of P-Model's cover art, stage lighting and video work until its freezing, had an idea of what the band would be on conception: "I told them that I thought it would be fun to take nonsensical pop like The Three Stooges, Marx Brothers, Split Enz and religious music such as the gamelan, yodel, and Islamic style and put it in a toy box and shake it around to make something".

The unthreatening image of the first lineup was conveyed through the use of bright colors in album art design, the clothes they wore (they actively avoided photography when wearing their everyday wardrobe in press engagements ) and their instruments (most were painted either light blue, yellow, pink or purple by the band). Hirasawa and Tanaka would perform cartoony gestures on stage, copying Pink Lady and the main character of the comedy manga Gaki Deka. The first three months of shows following Potpourri featured both band and instruments monochrome, while Hirasawa let his hair grow out and dyed it green. Kikuchi was a flamboyant stage presence at this time, he based his performance on Bruce Foxton of The Jam. A notable episode occurred when a Yokohama National University gig supporting The Stalin had suddenly been relocated to a cramped classroom. The band was unhappy with the conditions of the show, and Kikuchi threw his bass at the audience at the end of the first song, followed by all of the members walking out for twelve minutes.

As P-Model transitioned away from its original look, it incorporated some theatricality in its shows. Their set at the "Pop the Hero" festival was punctuated by abstract videos directed by Yūichi, the group shedding its colorful image for a muted getup, Hirasawa squeezing a tube of glue halfway through a song, and the band holding a globe upwards instead of playing the song titled "Globe". For a concert at the Yaneura, a leaflet by the dōjinshi magazine Rock-May-Kan titled "The Point of Coming to a Concert" was distributed while Landsale was looped endlessly through the PA system; they did not play until the concertgoers started an uproar, which later led to a backlash against the band. They ate paper during a song about a goat that ate a letter, and Hirasawa strew birdseed at the audience during a song about a canary. On rare occasions, artists from other careers performed on stage with P-Model. Kayo Muto (武藤　佳世), a student of Hirasawa's Yamaha school class, performed as a geisha on a 1983 show. "Momo-chan of Ginza" (銀座の百々ちゃん), a chindon'ya performer hired by Hirasawa to advertise one of the band's 1986 shows, also partook of the actual event.

Starting in 1986, Hirasawa would play percussion solos and assortments of disparate samples on MIDI guitars for the element of surprise. Audience members did not realize those sounds came from his guitar, and Hirasawa struggled with the differing particularities of the instrument compared to normal guitars, its nascent technology and unreliable functionality. Even after switching to a different model by a different company, these issues persisted, and he dropped the instrument after P-Model's freezing. That same year saw visual elements P-Model had sporadically explored (coordinated outfits, videos and slide projections) become concert stapes, in a scaling up of their shows that reoriented them towards playing more large concert halls over small live houses. The Physical Atlas of Three Worlds was an installment of Fuji AV Live, a series of concerts sponsored by Fujifilm's MagneTape subsidiary, where a music act would perform along to visual accompaniment by a video artist (Moriguchi in P-Model's case), played on hundreds of monitors on stage. Their show was further augmented with sci-fi set decorations, and for the home video release, interspersed with stop motion segments by Yūichi.