Brighton-based art-pop project Fujiya & Myagi has been running for two decades now, so it’s perhaps no surprise that they have a trail of lost ideas and demos around, like a trail of litter stretching back to the beginning. With the onset of Lockdown 1.0 in the UK, David Best and Stephen Lewis realised it might be the perfect time to take a look at what gems they might behold.
This turned up a fragment of an idea that compelled them back to their youth – as seen through the lens of much older men living through isolation. Unable to meet up to work on music, they independently worked on the track, trading ideas back and forth via email, until they had the resulting “Feeling The Effects (Of Saturday Night)”.
The song is charming, groovy, and kind of hilarious. While in sound and execution it is a loungy dance cut that would be suited to a low-lit bar that plays music so loud you have to shout over it, in lyricism it could be read in two ways: either as an ode to the heady days when they would go out and party all night on a Saturday, or as a reference to the heavy hangovers they get as middle aged men from yet another weekend spent locked in with nothing to do but drink.
“No more push ups left to press / no more muscles left to flex,” they begin, harking back to their youth – and perhaps referencing the ways they’ve tried to recapture that fitness in lockdown. At first they seem spry and kind of coy about their wild antics that have left them in such a state, but as “Feeling The Effects” continues, their advanced years start to make themselves known: “no more carbohydrates to digest / 48 hours in your bloodstream / paracetamol still makes you sweat…” A song that simultaneously yearns for a good night out partying, and is also glad that they don’t have to slog through the comedown, “Feeling The Effects (Of Saturday Night)” has no trouble making you groove and laugh simultaneously – especially as they reach the denouement where they repeat “can’t get up off the floor.” We’ve all been there – would we want to do it again? We wouldn’t say no.
“Feeling The Effects (Of Saturday Night)” is released tomorrow via Impossible Objects of Desire, but can be purchased today from Fujiya & Miyagi’s Bandcamp.
You can find the project on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
