the Shiina Ringo thread

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.

I'm still enjoying it, but I still don't rate it all that highly. I find the detective movie lytics here and there a bit boring after a while. There's some great instrumental work throughout, especially the trumpet blaze on Mayakashi Yasaotoko." I'm liking her English here less than I did at first.

I only normally listen to tracks 1-11.

being in a self-conscious group like Jihen allowed her to frame herself formally as an entertainer rather than... whatever KZK was, both a cipher and a confessional, that album really radiates both a personal and a historical identity. it is not just about the collapse of a relationship, it's about what has been happening to Japan over the last century. so the sudden turn away from that into a glossy pop group, to album packaging framed as fake advertisements for glamour products, vamping up the cabaret outfits & covers -- all that Vegas had a satirical edge to it in the context of Jihen.

but it comes across very differently now that she's still doing it as a solo act, the album title isn't really satire, it's descriptive. the booklet's a bunch of disgustingly airbrushed shots of her body lounging in satin, fondling a guitar and looking vacant, and I get the same kind of feeling about the music, it is beautiful but only surface?

of course I am overthinking, but KZK set the bar that high, and this really is her first solo album since then (Heisei Fuuzoku was not a solo album). I still like it, certainly listening to this more than any other album this year outside of things like hour long CDs of tibetan singing bowl drones or Georgian choral music or Violeta Parra comps etc.

Anything new and special on the Violeta Parra front?

I suspect that KZK may not be the "real" Shiina Ringo any more than anything else she has put out (not that you are exactly saying that). I mean, it's like it's something that happened via her, but whether it's the truest expression of her vision or whatever, I don't know.

Yeah, as much as I do appreciate KZK I have to lean more on RS's side there. As artful and self-indulgent as it was, I don't consider it more essential than several of her other albums.

I most of her music, but KZK is my favorite pop record of the decade

nothing new on the Violeta Parra front, just discovered her via an old Santiago Alvarez documentary with her song 'Arauco' on the soundtrack and I realized that's one of my favorite songs on the Robert Wyatt covers album. I just have 'Antología' which is mostly solo voice & guitar and I'm looking for good albums of her with full backing band now

Put SG on while doing the dishes the other day & was surprised to find that I remembered how a lot of the tunes went. It's possible that I've just internalized her songwriting style. I agree about it being an entertainment show - big spotlight on maximal consolidation of all the music bits & pieces through TJ & everything else. As such, it lacks... maybe narrative purpose, or formal contingency, or surprise (the red herring promises of KZK, perhaps)? Maybe she's in a suit of armor now.

Blindfold tested Rie Tomosaka's latest &, well, it was not entirely difficult to single out the Shiina contributions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ftyLNv0_LE

I do consider KZK more essential than any of her other albums, just not more a representation of Shiina Ringo's essence (if there is such a thing). (I think we've all sort of gone in this circle before at least a couple times anyway.)

I'm kind of amazed that lots of people over on Electric Mole seem to prefer Sanmon Gossip to Adult (which I think they underestimate seriously).

Milton, I'm not sure it's a matter of the flashy diva thing not being interesting any more, for me anyway. I think Adult was better musically, in addition to having the advantage of that whole image still being relatively fresh.

I should probably comment over there about it, but I'm not interested enough to argue the point.

i got sanmon gossip like a month ago, but it was one of those late-night acquisitions in the middle of a bunch of other stuff so i filed it away and totally forgot i had until last week. been listening a lot, i like it a lot. agree more or less with the consensus here i guess, it's a solid and entertaining pop record, more immediately accessible in a lot of ways than KZK but also not as detailed or surprising or interesting.

but hell i even liked (most of) variety so whatever. i'm a fan.

http://sadisticgossip.blogspot.com/2009/06/shiina-ringo-2009-tower-records.html

Question #26
Q: Was there a aim or intention behind Sanmon Gossip?
A: The intention was "no concept".

Q: If you could be born again, who (what) would you like to become? (It's ok if it's not real)
A: Any creature with a penis.

no concept! i do wonder why bother with the symmetry, but i guess it was just for fun after all (or trivial as the interview says... the answers are so short, though, i wonder if it's edited or just a quick blow-off)

For the benefit of those who can listen (I can't really, as I'm at work):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E20IgVKIoY&feature=player_embedded#

That's the new Tokyo Jihen single, though that should be obvious enough once you click on it.

thanks for the info

Sanmon Gossip left my rotation pretty immediately, so here's hoping there is gold to mine in a new Tokyo Jihen disc.

Aces thanks!

Sanmon Gossip stayed in my rotation for a while, but it's now left rather definitively, and I find it really difficult to bring myself to listen to it.

Oh crap, I was just listening to the embedded video and the video as displayed on youtube, and didn't realize they were both going, and thought, wow, this sounds pretty good and more adventurous than I expected. I'm afraid it will be slightly less interesting one at a time.

Playing it again the straight way and it still sounds good.

I think I like it.

Where have I seen those arm movements before (the way she flicks her wrist as her hand approaches the mic)? (I think to myself half-consciously)--ah, the video for the last Tokyo Jihen single (I can nenver remember the name). Maybe they aren't exactly the same, but it definitely reminds me of it.

And Kameda is going to town.

But why is she tormenting her band in the video?

Immediate reactions: Background vocals brought to the fore! Moonwalking! Also far too similar to the material on Variety, by which I mean it's indistinguishable pop. Man, I miss the Kyoiku era something fierce.

yeah I dunno

oh wait, now I remember: http://sadisticgossip.blogspot.com/2009/09/shiina-ringo-20070700-sannin-kichisa.html

actually, just downloaded the Soil & Pimp Sessions album that 'Foolish Heart' track is from, '6' -- less wild but tighter than the one previous album of theirs I'd heard, I'm going to have to pick up a copy of this. and the Shiina song sounds perfect in the context of the album.

Dug the S&P song, actually! The new Jihen single is OK. Too much moonwalking, though it is kind of funny when she throws the rose bouquet at the keyboardist for no reason. I was a fan of Variety, though, it grew on me more quickly than it did for others, I guess.

This S&P song makes me think: she really is no jazz singer.

I find it really hard to care about that song at all.

Listening to "Frustration" for the first time right now, and I like it so far. Haha, oh the guys doing the chorus thing is pretty good. Her singing here reminds me of Shouso Strip for better or worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zNHE6LGZ9o

I could be happy with an album that sounds approximately like these two songs, I think.

Her singing here reminds me of Shouso Strip

As the song progresses, not immediately.

On the other hand, the drumming (or maybe the rhythm section in general) is very TJ and reminds me a bit of "Killer Tune" in the faux Latin section (at least that's how I'm naming it at the moment).

I think this will surprise some of you. It's definitely not more smooth jazz funk glamor pop.

Maybe this will be the western crossover album haha. . . Probably never going to happen unless they actually market it here.

And actually, there's a lot of very interesting discussion (including translations of some sort of SR or TJ interview) relating to what they are up to now. Guess I am going to move over there in a moment.

new song is hilariously good and hey wow big surprise I totally love '3 minutes' now

Yeah, good stuff.

Definitely go check out the interview article kuro_neko translated. There's some good stuff in it about TJ's creative process, with SR being almost Ra-esque in the exercises she comes up with for the band.

Could you point me to that?

It's part of this thread here:

http://forums.electricmole.net/showthread.php?p=65240#post65240

It looks like some of the info. is from liner notes (from the single?) and some is from some sort of interview.