#3 Nihon no Ringo

Feature: Shiina Ringo



















If there's one musician who I will never get enough of, it's Shiina Ringo. It's a shame that she has such a small following in the US, and most of it is among fans of typical J-pop. It's rare to find an artist who can successfully reinvent themselves every album, and even harder to find one who can morph between songs like a chameleon. Aside from providing both, she creates song arrangements that are endlessly beautiful if not brilliant as well. Never have I heard violins sound so right with an electronic beat, only to be drowned out by an organ. In the course of an album there is usually an underlying jazz or radio pop, often blended with anything from funk to techno, to metal to avant garde pop or math rock, Shiina Ringo is a master of all genres and sounds. While most Japanese pop stars only sing songs written for them, Ringo has always been the driving force in songwriting when not fully responsible.
Though her sound is much different (usually) Shiina Ringo's fame in Japan can be compared to that of Bjorks in America. While she is known among her fans for her true genius and raw emotion, to the rest of the public she is just a kind of spectacle that people know but may disregard as a little strange. Where Bjork has the swan dress, Shiina has the nurse outfit that turned so many heads in Japan. The uniform was used in the video for Honnou (Instinct) where Shiina seduces a female patient while singing about "pushing deeper" and "(emotional) climax". While she has turned heads in Japan with vocals occasionally harsher than Alanis Morrisette and sexier lyrics than Madonna, she offers much more substance than either American counterpart. Though almost always in Japanese, making her music difficult to market in the US, lyric translations prove to a Western crowd that Shiina is a creative and witty and often tragic poet with real meaning behind her words. From one of the KZK's more popular (and radio friendly) songs Yattsuke Shigoto (A Half-Assed Job) Shiina sings behind the contrast of an ironic cartoony pop song in the first verse "Nothing can hold my interest/Not much upsets me/What day was today anyway?/It's not really an issue. ...Ah I just wanna be hurt." Only to contradict it in the next verse that ends "Ah I just wanna be a machine". The song ends with Ringo repeating "Tell me what it means to love, I can't remember"

Muzai Moratorium
This album was a breakthrough pop album, nothing earth shattering, but full of the solid songwriting talent that's become a trademark of Ringo. It's a feel good album with some great tunes, but nothing nearly as deep or beautiful as her later work. The album sold millions in Japan and is probably the best for a fan of typical J-pop or J-Rock.

Marunouchi Sadistic
Mayonaka wa Junketsu (b-side)

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Shouso Strip
This is where Shiina first started getting experimental with her sound. While Yokushitsu provides techno beats, a killer bass line, and dreamy vocals (see download), Identity rocks pretty hard. There are jumps between radio friendly and pleasant noise often within the same song. The album doesn't flow like KZK but makes up for it in substance and variety. The songs are still very much pop, but anything but typical. Shiina's vocals may be hard to swallow at first but what at first may pierce the senses later pierces the soul.

Yokushitsu

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Karuki Zaamen Kuri no Hana
The peak of Shiina's career, Karuki Zaamen Kuri no Hana (which translates to Chalk, Semen, Chestnut Flower) is an ultimate masterpiece that defies genre in ways you have to hear to understand. This could be the closest thing that the world will ever see to the "next Beatles" that so many people have been looking for as far as innovation, reinvention, and brilliant songwriting go. I make no exaggeration when I say that this may be one of the greatest pop album as well as the most underrated album of all time. The two aspects where Shiina outdoes almost anyone is in her beautiful emotion-filled vocal melodies and the combination of catchy and intelligent in songwriting. With much more introspective lyrics and music, the album flows perfectly, each song having a symmetrical counterpart (1 and 11 relate, 2 and 10 etc.), centered around the hauntingly bitter-sweet Kuki. Over 30 instruments were used for this album, and not once does it seem forced. While listening to Odaijini (Take care of yourself), it's easy to form a mental image of Ringo singing her heart out to no one, while the TV gently goes about it's business until she can't sing anymore. Every song on this album is great, but the closing song, Souretsu (Funeral Procession), has yet to fail at giving me goose bumps. Saying more about this album is pointless. Hear it, it's worth it.

Mesai
Odaijini
Ringo No Uta (b-side/single)

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Other Ringo

After KZK Ringo ended her solo career with the Ringo No Uta single (I consider it an EP) which features a title track (see above for link), as well as Ringo Catalogue, which is a combination of pieces from almost every single Shiina Ringo song, creating a completely new sounding song (listen to this track once you've experienced everything else). Shiina Ringo also has a GREAT collection of B-sides, a cover album, and much different versions of a few songs. She is currently fronting the jazz-rock band Tokyo Jihen. Their second album, Otona (Adult), was released January.

Shiina Ringo's (unofficial) Myspace
Shiina Ringo Fansite
Lyric Translations
Tokyo Jihen's Official Site

"I wanted to start taking [piano] lessons even earlier than that, but my mother decided that four was plenty early enough"

#2 You can't run from good music

Feature: The Sound of Animals Fighting






















Once you get out of "The Scene" you never want to look back. Well I know a lot of you won't trust me on this, but The Sound of Animals Fighting makes "scene" bands cool again. One of the best things about this band is that they manage to blend together many styles. Not all that innovative I guess, but TSOAF explore progressive and experimental electronicd without disregarding such forbidden genres as emo and pop punk. The band is made up of various members of different bands, conspiring secretly under animal aliases to avoid trouble from record label contracts. Behind it all is Rich Balling, a former member of RX bandits, and a hell of a performer. My first RX Bandits show, Septermber 15 2001 he spent about 3 minutes on the floor pulsating with the music and I've loved live music ever since Since then, Rich has been involved with a few projects, including Cowboy Communist (whatever happened to this band?), and a collection of punk rocker poems called Revolutions on Canvas. Balling was certainly raised in the "scene" but unlike most, he is clearly an artist, While the identity of the other "animals" are supposedly a secret, the band is said to feature current members of RX Bandits including Matt Embee and Chris Tsagakis (who could mistake those drums?), Anthony Green (Saosin, Circa Survive) and members of Finch, Chiodos, and Atreyu as well as others.


The Tiger and The Duke
This debut album, surprisingly, was made with some of the animals never meeting before, and some sources say that they never heard tracks other than their own (except Balling). I imagine they heard some kind of demo of what the song was going to sound like...is that really possible otherwise? Four real songs (called "Acts") and Five interludes of "experimental sound", this album is definitely epic, and if it was really put together that way, it is beyond impressive. There is no better song, they all fit the same mood but do not sound the same, nor do they get stale. The album has a slight apocalyptic feel which always draws me in. While fusing genres is not something new, it has never been done with such forbidden genres equally represented. While it is a product of "the scene" it completely adult and intelligent.

Act IV: You Don't Need a Witness
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Lover, the Lord has Left us
Now even if this is not the end of the world, what a title! Apparently it came from the lyrics of a not-yet-released Planes Mistaken For Stars song. After The Tiger and the Duke, the band formed into something a little more coherent. This album was not entirely improvised, although it should be much less rock and a lot more everything else as the song Skullflower indicates. After hearing the Tiger and the Duke, I could imagine someone being surprised by this album. Some parts almost sound like MIA. The raging guitars are still present but very minimal. Lover, the Lord has Left us should be something to look forward to.

Skullflower
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Lover, the Lord has Left us, Out May 16

Official Website
Purevolume - Check every tuesday for a new clip

#1 Excited boy grows up

Feature: Patrick Wolf

What a funny white boy. Funny means unique here, and British of course. I hear a faint similarity to Jeff Buckley and Bjork but there's little indication that he was going for either sound: this music is original; something unique and still very very listenable. At 18 years old, this multi-instrumentalists first album was released in the UK and a year later the US and UK.

Lycanthropy- Something you good Christian children may not want to hear, but this is DEFINETLY for the priests out there, with songs about such wholesome topics as castration and child molestation. The lyrics are surprisingly poetic for such topics. This album has been self-described (by the man, not the album) as a somewhat manic way for him to express everything that he had learned up to that point. Manic it is. The beats are pretty frantic, though catchy as all hell, and there's a bit of a signature shriek he makes that I find very lovable. This album is a raw and honest self-exploration characterized by heavy beats, folk-sounds, and occasional shrieking.

The Childcatcher
To The Lighthouse
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Wind in the Wires- Did he have that great voice when he was singing about total chaos in his first album?! I suppose he did, but it definitely stands out more in this album. It only took 2 years for this boy to grow up. This album is a huge step forward. Has Patrick calmed down in his old age of 21? As the song "Tristan" suggests ("My name is Tristan, and I am alive"), he is still very capable of being the manic Patrick of Lycanthropy, but slowed down and much more beautiful, it seems like Patrick Wolf has become a bit more jaded and much more well-rounded. From the Song "The Gypsy King" : "I recall when I was younger There was a fire To travel the world And shine with a passion But as ambition shoots blank....I see a small house Built on the sea I could live there alone With a horse and a ukulele " If that's not jaded, I don't know what is.

The Libertine
This Weather

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Patrick Wolf's 3rd album, "The Magic Position" will be out Summer 2006


"A lot of people have asked me "Why aren't you doing so much electronic stuff?" To me, there's never been a difference between electronic and acoustic. I've always had this idea that electricity is another element like wind or fire or water. There's lightning, for god's sake! An electronic instrument is just harboring a natural element the same way that a guitar is harboring an acoustic element. It's all nature, really."

"There's a lot of humor on the first record. I think a lot of people thought I was quite ridiculous when I first came out, especially in England, and it freaked me out because what I was doing was so from my blood, from my guts. Part of being human is having a sense of humor, you know?"

www.patrickwolf.com
http://www.myspace.com/officialpatrickwolf


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Other song's to get people away from mainstream radio and MTV:

The Eels - "Sound of Fear" ~ this song is lemonade on a hot summer afternoon. :-D

Rx Bandits - Only for the night ~ Ska kids grow up sometimes too. One of my favorite bands; they are always progressing. This song hopefully does not characterize the album, though it is good.

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