The ON AIR Light Goes Out and Nothing Is Heard for 4.9 Seconds

What arrived today is the CD. The audio has been out for a week.

Onew's 'KAKERA -運命のピース-'. Victor Entertainment lists it as the 'Japan 4th Single', and the title track's audio went out at 6 p.m. on 9 September. It runs 4 minutes 24.6. It isn't on Korean services — this is a Japan-only release.

You Need All Four to Complete the Picture

There are four editions: O盤, N盤, E盤, W盤. Put the initials together and you get ONEW. Each is ¥1,650.

Assemble all four jackets and they form a single picture. The coupling track differs by edition too.

O盤 has 'Tock-Talk', N盤 'Spring Rain', E盤 '明日への手紙', W盤 'エイリアンズ'.

The last two are covers — '明日への手紙' is Aoi Teshima's 2014 song, 'エイリアンズ' is a KIRINJI track from 2000.

And those four songs aren't on digital right now. You have to buy today's CD to hear them.

The Music Video Has a 23-Second Prologue

I pulled the video embedded above and measured it.

The first three seconds are digital silence. The screen shows one line: 「おはようございます。」 Then from 0:04 to 0:22, nineteen seconds of room tone. The song enters at 0:23.4.

The body of the song runs 0:23.4 to 4:47.5, about 264 seconds — which matches the audio's 264.6-second running time to within two seconds. These 23 seconds exist only in the video.

Those 23 seconds are a very narrow sound. Ninety-five per cent of the energy is cut off below 4,440–5,600Hz. The stereo is stranger still — 0:04–0:09 is wide at −3.3dB, then it narrows sharply to −46.9dB by 0:11, and 0:12–0:15 and 0:18–0:25 measure −194 to −210dB. The left and right channels are numerically identical. The side component is zero.

It syncs with the picture. At 0:22–0:25 a woman turns the dial on an old radio by the window, and at 0:26 a mixing console appears.

Everything Opens at Once at 0:27.15

At 0:26.60 the level is −13.7dB with the low end at 0.7%; at 0:27.15 it's −4.5dB with the low end at 31.8%.

At the same point the high-band share jumps to 21.5%, the band limit opens to 9.5kHz, and the stereo returns to −8.1dB. Level, low end, highs and stereo width all open at a single point. The sound switches on as the radio does.

The tempo is about 109BPM. Measuring the low, mid and high bands separately, all three return 108.8BPM as the top candidate.

From 3:35 the Floor Empties for Eight Seconds

The low-end share holds at 8–16% through the song, then falls to 1.7% at 3:35.3 and sits at 0.8–1.5% from 3:36 to 3:42. The level drops to −11.6dB, 4–5dB under the song's average. The mids climb the other way to 47–57%, and the stereo narrows to −13.0dB, its tightest in the song.

The sound gathers to the centre. Then at 3:43.0 the low end is back at 10%, and at 3:44.65 at 31.4%.

And the Last 4.9 Seconds

This is the clearest moment in the video.

Decay starts at 4:40.8 and reaches −101.6dB by 4:47.9. And from 4:48.1 to 4:53.0, 4.9 seconds of complete digital silence.

Against the picture: between 4:44 and 4:47.2 a dark studio holds nothing but a green ON AIR light. At 4:47.4 that light goes out. Seven-tenths of a second later, at 4:48.1, the sound disappears completely. Another 1.1 seconds later, at 4:49.2, 「幸せに、たどり着けましたか。」 — did you make it to happiness — appears in the middle of a black screen. It holds another 3.8 seconds of silence and ends.

The light first, then the sound, then the words. The order is set.

What's Next

22–23 September at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, 3 October in Taipei, 31 October–1 November in Seoul. In Korea, what Onew's agency lists as 'ONEW 1ST SINGLE ALBUM', '착각', arrives at 6 p.m. on 20 October.

Where to Listen

On earphones, with the video. The 23 seconds at the front and the 4.9 at the back are just empty time without the picture. You need to watch the radio dial turn and the ON AIR light go out for those 27 seconds to read as part of the song.

Just give it a listen, trust me. You only have to hold out until 0:27.