Five Nights With Shugo Tokumaru

Hometown: Tokyo
Album: Exit
For fans of: Sigur Rós, Andrew Bird, The Beatles

Tokyo singer/songwriter Shugo Tokumaru’s dazzling third album, Exit, features lyrics based on dreams he’s had, somnambulant wanderings brought to life by his whimsical musicality. (More than 50 instruments appear on the record, and he played almost all of them.) Though we’re fuzzy on the details—Tokumaru sings mostly in Japanese, with flourishes of endearingly wobbly English sprinkled throughout—we wondered what the fruits of his freewheeling subconscious would spark in our own dreams. So we asked Paste assistant editor Rachael Maddux to play the record at night and keep a dream journal of her sleepy-time musings. We thought it would be fun. We weren’t counting on the rat.

Night 1: Played CD on repeat as I was falling asleep. At first, imagined cartoon children flying kites. Around the third song, drifted off thinking of baked beans. Came to when CD player skittered back to the first track, after the last song. Shut off music, fell asleep. Had long dream involving someone siphoning gas out of my grandmother’s car.

Night 2: Again played CD as I was falling asleep, but turned it off before I zonked out. Again had visions of children and kites, but this time was interrupted by the scritch-scratching of a rat behind my oven. Vowed to call landlord in the morning.

Night 3: Gave up and went to sleep after CD player spazzed out halfway through the first song, making weird fluttery noises.

Night 4: Forgot about CD player malfunction until I tried to play CD again. Gave up after one song, again. Dreamt about hanging out with Bradford Cox of Deerhunter. He was really nice!

Night 5: Attempted to listen to album throughout the night. Ripped to iPod to avoid crappy CD malfunctioning. Drifted off, envisioned children with kites. Half-dreamed of some confusing drama transpiring in my apartment, with me dressed like Angelina Jolie in Changeling and standing in my closet, screaming. Woke up with my neck twisted, face smushed into a pillow, mouth agog and the back of my throat dry and prickly. Around the same time, realized the rat was back. Flung off covers, paused Shugo, stomped to kitchen, thwacked oven with Swiffer sweeper, unpaused Shugo, threw self back into bed. Found music difficult to enjoy in competition with rat scratching. Eventually discovered many songs I hadn’t previously heard while conscious. Passed out and had intermittent dreams—one about Mad Men, which I’ve never seen, and another involving a fight with my mom and my sister on a wooded hillside, something about my mom having “knee cancer.” Woke up to rat sounds. Heard frenetic toy piano of “Parachute” bursting through the speakers. Turned off music and passed out for four blissfully silent hours.

Listen to Shugo Tokumaru on his MySpace page.