the Shiina Ringo thread

I really liked the Death Jazz version over the one that went on the album, myself. Plus it was a digital only single, so I can understand why that did this rehash (though yeah I would probably prefer a new track over it, too).

Anyone know what happened to the Freckle site? It seems to be down.

This is okay on first listen. Okay, not more than that for now.

(And is it or isn't it on the new album? Does anyone here know?)

However, perhaps feminist forcefulness is what mainstream Japanese pop needs. Strong female acts like Shiina Ringo and Yuki have enjoyed huge commercial success and represent a more substantial appreciation of womanhood by Japan's pop-loving masses. What's clear is that, with female-fronted bands continuing to reign supreme, Japan's gender roles are slowly changing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/05/turning-japanese-rock-chick

I hope her name isn't going to become so widely mentioned in the English language music press that I won't be able to complain about the lack of mentions any more.

I agree, it's just okay. Surprising choice, pretty low-key song (and video as well, no Ringo in it at all).

single is not on the album (happily) -- it's the theme song to a new japanese prime time soap opera / drama show called 'smile' which is primed to be a huge hit. the song did grow on me a bit, I like how the last three minutes of the song are basically one long guitar solo that starts out george harrison and then gradually turns david gilmour (a user on EM noted that the video's basically a reference to the pink floyd collage at the end of Zabriskie Point)

album cover art up: http://www.hmv.co.jp/product/detail/3586298

we knew the b-side would be weirder

'superficial gossip' (non-album title track b-side)

we knew the b-side would be weirder

I thought I saw her showing off her scars on one of those Japanese interview shows posted on youtube recently, so that makes more sense now.

And the single is. . . hmmm. I can live with this, but don't have any strong reaction, except I kind of like it best at the end when it's more instrumental. Sounds very international pop if you know what I mean.

Yeah, I kind of follow you there, with the style of that track. I like the B-side, though... and the back image, and how the barcode is just slightly placed underneath the fingertip in that image. That back scar is a provocative image, but I wonder if there's any meaning to it or if it was just time to get around to using it. Thanks for the info, Milton.

Also realizing obviously that the front of the single really prominently features the asymmetrical collarbone, too..

which makes it more like the packaging "Ringo No Uta" than anything else she's done that I've seen, which makes sense if this is a resumption of her solo career. That's more or less what I thought of the scars too, they are part of the SR mystique, part of her identity, so it's almost like "This is not Tokyo Jihen.

It's not looking good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icAOqbUHAUs

(Okay maybe I should wait until I've heard more than a minute and a half, but I am not excited by this sound at all.)

yeah I'd be amazed if I learn to like that one. and the production for the video is so low key. one other song has leaked, and it's another theme song, this time for a kids show. it's better than 'shun', but similar, so at this point I'm just waiting for the record

listening to Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana for the first time in a while, it's one of the pinnacles of the 00s imho. what a fucking album

No argument here.

and i haven't heard many other albums this decade that work so well in a classic album sense; it never feels too long, all of the songs seem of a piece, as if a lot of time an effort when in the sequencing. not that this counts for anything, but i will still be listening in 10, 20, 30 years time.

total time = 50:05

lol @ flesh-colored guitar

Have you heard it Milton?

it's available now. go get it!

I'm seriously broke, so that's not going to happen. I think I want to preview this one before buying it, but even if I thought it was a second KZK, I would not be buying it right now.

... buying?

you are a paragon of virtue RS

I will certainly be buying this when I see a copy, but I didn't hesitate to listen. and it's good. 'Shun' is the least interesting single she could have picked. inverse of Karuki Zamen Kuro No Hana, this is viciously happy music. Probably wouldn't have been into it if this was my first impression of her but I'm way over the fence now. I'll wait for others to listen.

I'm a paragon of stupidity, since I can't seem to find this, at least not in any form I can handle. (And my PC time is about to run out for the day.)

Maybe later this week I will try again.

Okay, I just needed to refine my search I guess. I should be able to listen soon.

my girlfriend goes to japan next week so she'll be picking this up for me (along with the interior and testpattern records, and other hosono-san releated stuff i won on yahoo auction) so can just about resist the download till then but this:

"inverse of Karuki Zamen Kuro No Hana, this is viciously happy music."

you tend to overstate the weirdness of zknh. whichever way you want to read it, it still lies more on the side of happy, uplifting modern pop masterpiece than it does freaky avant-garde masterpiece!

saying that, i suppose an understanding of the lyrics might lean it towards the latter

btw do you guys listen to much jun togawa? i'm surprised she hasn't been mentioned in this thread as she seems in a similar mould to shiina ringo - very pop but constantly flirting with weirdness. the yapoos album keikikaku is just as far out as zknh while managing to stay firmly within the realm of contemporary pop music

KZK sounds haunted to me. And as you say, that's not even getting into the lyrics about ghosts & 'Today, placenta, tomorrow'. New one is the opposite of haunted.

Uh-oh, 'Shun' is growing on me now that I hear it in context in the middle of the record. How does she always do this.

I love all of Jun Togawa's bands, especially once I saw the videos. Guernica probably my favorite but Yapoos is really growing on me. Shiina has never mentioned her or Miharu Koshi as influences, though I wonder (I mention Miharu because there's something very Ringoesque about the way they handle western classical influences & they both cover 'Heidenroslein')

it still lies more on the side of happy, uplifting modern pop masterpiece than it does freaky avant-garde masterpiece!

I can't really agree with this. It's avant-pop, and I agree with Milton's comment about it being haunted.

And "Shun" doesn't bother me so much in context either. It's not so bad.

Overall, the new album is okay. It's not the disaster I was fearing, but it's too soon to know how much better than a disaster I think it is. I like the transitions from track to track, in most cases, especially the abrupt breaks.

Also, I'm glad I got to hear this version of "Marunouchi Sadistic" after all. (I think the album could do without the previous two cuts though.)

It does seem like she's approaching closer and closer to Pizzicato Five territory, and I'm not sure how long that's going to keep me interested (not that I hate them but I don't love them either).

Her English is pretty strong on this, better than it was sounding on most of what came out in 2007.

I also like her singing in general a little more here (than on Variety and HF), I think. Maybe it's just been more studio processed. It doesn't seem like she's doing anything so different, so I can't quite figure out what it is that I'm liking better.

Another thing, I don't agree that it gets better as it goes on (which I read somewhere either in this thread or over on Electric Mole I guess). I think I like the first half better.

I think it's fantastic, though again I wouldn't be giving it a chance if I hadn't heard KZK first. I'd have turned this off ten seconds into the guest rapper's intro on the first track, & I'd have missed out.

definitely some tracks stick out more than others but this flows too well as an album to skip any tracks (unlike Heisei Fuuzoku or Variety). sometimes I play "The Leading Hitter" twice, deranged hyper-Disney. reminds me of Louis Wain paintings of cute cats, but something's really off about it, and then you realize it's not that the cats are playing sports, it's that they all are smiling and have blue fur

I didn't even notice all the English yesterday -- there's a lot of sudden switching to English for just a few lines, and the production is so dense you don't always catch it

xpost agreed on the singing, she sounds wonderful. and agree about the last few tracks, I like them all right but they make it seem like less of an album. it doesn't seem to have an ending.

Definitely like it so far, want to give it more listens before giving a more full opinion. I do agree about her English having improved measurably.

Interesting, I was thinking of P5 too - it falls alongside Yasuharu Konishi as curator of vintage Western music. The sound resembles late Shibuya-kei in the hodge-podge of reference points (jazz, funk, showtunes, Brazil, France) & in the slightly airless production w/ all that thick brass and organ. A different model - music chops & a lot less detachment (Shiina & Maki Nomiya are opposites in performance-style) - but the frame is very close. The vocal harmony bits also reminded me of Cornelius/Fantastic Plastic Machine & their Beach Boys fixation (or less charitably, J-boy-band Da Pump).

SG actually sounds like a continuation of Utaite Myouri which is probably one of her less appreciated moments. Enthusiasm for capital M conventional Music w/ a playful approach to the baubles and arrangements (in contrast to something more overtly straddling avant-garde). The stature of Motown & Ella Fitzgerald will always come before Stockhausen & drum & bass. And maybe I just know more about her collaborators than I used to, but their involvement feels more significant this time from track to track (they're also lined up to somewhat match the symmetry scheme, so you work inward to the busy Soil & Pimp to the busier Saito Neko, pause for Shun, & reverse back out). It's like a big assured music genius party.

Of course, I probably still prefer haunted KZK tones or Shouso Strip's more nascent visions of pop. But I embarrassingly end up liking everything, b-sides, covers, unofficial soundtrack music, whatever, so I don't know what it would take to count as a betrayal.

I think the accordion one functions as a proper ending track. Then the one rock track on the album feels like some sort of relief (which I like a lot). The MS EXPO has a devil may care bonus track thing going on.

But I embarrassingly end up liking everything

^^

I noticed the tracks are all very strongly paired up this time... KZK did that as well, but this time it's sonically obvious, so it makes sense that the collaborations are symmetrical. all the overtly strange production is cordoned off in tracks 4 <> 10, who did those?

The MS EXPO has a devil may care bonus track thing going on.

it breaks symmetry but it is so shamelessly good

4 and 10 are by Nobuhiko Nakayama who does synth programming for lots of bigtime J-pop (inc. Shouso Strip).
5 and 9 are Soil & pimp.
6 and 8 are Saito Neko.

I wonder what percentage of the rest of ILM is even aware that there is a new Shiina Ringo album. (That's just an observation on the existence of sub-cultures here, without an implied value judgment of them.)

if you live in Japan, you've known there's a new Shiina Ringo album coming for the last four weeks, she's on more magazine covers this month than she's been since Jihen, and there's an ad campaign on television made from outtakes from 'Shun'

my hopes were up for a US Jihen tour, since 'Spa and Treatment' was a scaled back production, but now that she's returned to solo stadium-scale shows I've kind of given up on her ever touring here

there's also this to keep track of. haven't heard it yet.

Toridori, A New Album by Rie Tomosaka - On sale Wed., June 24

Contributions
Track 2 – Tokai no Manaa (“City Manners”) - Music and lyrics by Sheena Ringo - Arranged by Tokyo Incidents
Track 3 – Mezame (“Waking Up”) - Music, lyrics and arrangement by Ukigumo
Track 4 – Talins - Music, lyrics and arrangement by Ichiyo Izawa
Track 7 – Kodomo no Jokei (“Childhood Scene”) - Music, lyrics and arrangement by Sheena Ringo

4 and 10 are by Nobuhiko Nakayama

I would have sworn that 4 <>10 were the two tracks where Inoue Uni really got to go off. his composition / editing on "Ringo Catalogue" is still in many ways what makes it my favorite Ringo song. "Bakeneko Killer" (Goblin Cat Killer) (aka the 'producers' of KZK = him & Shiina

interesting list of her admitted influences

wikipedia page on KZK has really fleshed out since the last time I looked - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalk_Samen_Kuri_No_Hana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGO1P3tyRrY

Rie Tomosaka doing a waaay too mellow version of "Aozora".

Randomly googled this by accident - I guess it's the full version of the cover photo for the Ariamaru Tomi single. Didn't notice it before, but what is up with the fake mole? I guess the fake necklace sort of fits the song's theme.
http://i44.tinypic.com/1zwcc9g.jpg

Is she really blind in one eye?

What? Haven't heard that one before.

Just joking based on her line:

I shed a tear from one blind eye

I'm not sure what this is saying but I can kind of get the gist of it (scroll down for SR content):

http://www.soundsblog.it/post/7683/album-piu-venduti-mondo-agg-03-luglio-09

Babel fish says that "Album più venduti" means "Sold egg whites more!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYQoxTJ4edg

video for '都合のいい身体 / Tsugou no Ii Karada' (The Leading Hitter), one of maybe three songs that's holding up for me on the new album

early Tokyo Jihen records made such a negative first impression on me, but I couldn't stop listening to them. this new album seemed like a solid quality effort at first, but I'm not spending that much time with it. buying a copy didn't help, the cover / booklet, there's something off

Cute video. Don't share your opinion on the album though... Is it in her top tier of work? Probably not, but I'd still consider it a solid fun record (and that song isn't even one of my favorites off of it). My expectations for the album were already muted since I didn't love her last solo one, so maybe that helped.