"Columbia, Houston. UHF. Comm check."
One of the most sensational post-rock/ambience albums
The album was produced based on the catastrophic Columbia Space Shuttle explosion in 2003 and you can feel the emotion of the incident in their sound.
"Taijin Kyofusho" (対人恐怖症) is the social phenomenon of fearing the embarrassment of oneself and displeasing others (anthropophobia) (me). The band never directly stated why they decided to name this song that, but people speculate that the anxiety of taijin kyofusho is as cathartic as the anxiety produced during the incident.
I find it interesting that so many post-rock bands theme themselves or their albums/songs on space.
There's really not much that's more dreadful than the vast expanse of outer space to better fit one of the most depressing genres of music.
As someone who's been deeply fascinated by space for his entire life, I still wouldn't dare to try to see it for myself. Though the incident was caused by human error and faulty engineering, it still shows how a single mistake can cause catastrophe in cosmic matters. We've managed to conquer most of the Earth and bend it to our liking, but we'll always be at the mercy of what lies beyond. If a single larger-than-usual asteroid were to hit us tomorrow, that would be it.
To the seven brave astronauts aboard Columbia, may your souls rest in peace.
