I discovered Fishmans a couple of years ago and they quickly became one of my favourite bands.

A lot has been written about them over the years, but the short version is that they started as a reggae group and morphed into a dream pop band with incredible ambition. Singer and primary songwriter Shinji Sato sadly died in 1999 shortly after the live album 98.12.28 Otokotachi no Wakare was recorded. That album is widely considered their masterpiece (and one of the best live albums of all time) but I wanted to pay homage to their penultimate studio album, 1996's Long Season.

Consisting of a single 35-minute long song, it's one of the key points that shows just how far they'd come and what they were capable of. It was designed to be performed differently live every time and several arrangements of it exist on official live albums and bootlegs.

Every Fishmans album has something to offer but this is where I started and it's probably where I'd recommend other people to begin as well. This is hauntingly beautiful, passionate music written by a real one-off artist.

Drawn for the Album Art Collab.

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