Ringo Sheena

Japan, the land of great contrasts, of the most uncompromising and iconoclastic noise-rock and of the most serene ambient music. The homeland of eleki, of city pop, of visual kei, and also the homeland of great rock songwriters, male and female, capable of imposing themselves on the national imagination (and often going well beyond it), riding success with output that is both popular and eccentric, respectful of pop communication yet driven by far more singular musical and compositional impulses. Names? There are plenty to mention: Gackt, Nanase Aikawa, Tak Matsumoto, Tomoko Kawase, and on through Yuki Isoya and Cocco - the Japanese music market is full of figures who have made rock languages their own and bent them to the most disparate needs, carving out paths of real personality. Yet very few have had the fullness of vision, the visionary force of Yumiko "Ringo" ("apple" in Japanese) Sheena, or Sheena Ringo, if one prefers the Japanese name order. In being an anti-diva while still reaching a vast audience, in conceiving a compositional universe where punk, prog, traditional music, grunge and pop melodicism coexist in the rarest harmony, the musician from Fukuoka intercepted from a very young age the extremes of a wholly unique code, one that with "Shouso Strip" reached its peak of popularity and influence. So let's go back to the year 2000, and let ourselves be swept up by the endless energy of a twenty-one-year-old with the clearest of ideas.

Emi's record executives had already figured out that the girl, fresh out of high school, wasn't just another starlette to be molded into the next idol. After all, when you're dealing with a songwriter so dissatisfied with the very single that made her famous ("Koufukuron", a sugary midtempo fuzz-pop number) that she completely reworks its arrangement into a noise-punk blast for her debut album, you know you're dealing with a musician possessing the vision and courage not to be reined in by anyone, least of all by label executives. And when that kind of nerve is matched by public acclaim, there's no argument left to make. Helped further by a "Koko de kiss shite" that cemented her name even further with its blend of raw attitude and romanticism, "Muzai Muratorium" rockets past a million copies sold, placing the artist among the new stars of a pop boom capable of numbers that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier. Everything, in short, pointed to the musician becoming a name of the very first rank. "Shouso Strip" would end up representing far more than that.

Turnaround times in the Japanese music industry have always been fast, all the more so for those who reach the upper tiers of the charts. Once an album is out, it's already time to think about the next one, and with it the whole process leading up to its production and release. As is standard practice in the Land of the Rising Sun, a new record is preceded by a cycle of singles (two, three, four, depending on circumstances) that sketches out the overall sound and, naturally, keeps fans occupied while they wait for the full course. In a moment of extraordinary enthusiasm for domestic pop, singles too were built to last: these, after all, were the years when the likes of Hikaru Utada, Ayumi Hamasaki, Misia and Mai Kuraki churned out future classics one after another, an era in which the language and possibilities of recombination seemed inexhaustible. As a prelude to her second album, the menu Sheena offers up is a particularly hearty one. And to think how much could have gone wrong.

An illness: that's all it takes to derail plans, to bring even the strongest to their knees. Sometimes, though, it can be a chance to rethink strategy, to recalibrate one's center of gravity. And so, during her convalescence, the musician decides that instead of "Gips", a song already showcased on the tour supporting "Muzai Moratorium", it will be "Honnō" (trans. "instinct, intuition") that gets launched as the lead single of the new cycle. As if the title itself revealed a deeper impulse, a gut feeling to be embraced without reservation, the decision proves to be a winning one: aided by a video as striking as it is stripped-down, in which she plays a nurse intent on smashing panes of glass and seducing sedated patients, Sheena lands another hit, her biggest and most enduring one yet (sales hover just under a million copies), a turning point for a career that from here on will reclaim several of its essential traits.

It's not that her debut lacked theatrical allure, but from here it becomes far more explicit, both in the much more vivid use of her voice (still capable of ringing high notes, but now steered toward markedly more pronounced drama) and in the recovery of lyrical/aesthetic subtexts that fuse archaic and contemporary Japanese, from the use of obsolete kanji to elaborate textual metaphors. Combined with a confident embrace of jazz idioms, tailored of course to pop-rock structures, it all points clearly to the leap forward the musician had made, the total broadening of her perspective.

Thanks to a fan mail-bombing campaign aimed at the label to secure separate distribution for the second track, the already mentioned "Gips" and "Tsumi to batsu" (a fine, Dostoevsky-esque "Crime and Punishment") were both released on January 26, 2000, rounding out an intricate trio of singles that perfectly encapsulates the sureness of touch Sheena had by then displayed. On one hand, we get one of the most imposing power ballads ever, the perfect chance for the songwriter to try her hand at an anthemic melody. Regret and longing become tightly bound to the tragedy of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love (explicitly named in the lyrics), in a mounting tension that, over a bubbling drum machine and piano, brushes against baroque-pop phrasing before exploding into a chorus that is nothing short of a release; it's the affirmation of a feeling lived to the fullest, yet one whose much darker sides remain visible. When the "I wanna be with you" shouted in the refrain is written as "I ㉠8 Β wiθ U", with the kanji read as "wana" ("trap"), plenty of subtext finds its proper outlet. That this turned into yet another success for Sheena (double platinum and over 800,000 copies sold overall) comes as little surprise; the supposed loss of freshness did nothing to dent the results.

"Tsumi to batsu" doesn't lag too far behind either. Smoky makeup, a lost gaze, a now-useless Mercedes fittingly cut in half: it's another aesthetic transformation within the space of a few months, for a video that carries the weight of the most aching disorientation, the night left to send the mind wandering with no apparent logic. If there was ever a track built for a hefty dose of organ and sultry jazz-rock treatment, this was the ideal choice: even trailing behind "Gips", it effortlessly clears half a million copies sold. Everything, in short, showcases the musician's breakneck maturation, the confidence of a songwriter able to juggle contrasting registers and let them coexist in perfect harmony. It's simply a matter of confirming what had already been hinted at, of giving full voice to her own inspiration. A matter of just two months' wait.

Fifty-five minutes and 55 seconds, split into thirteen songs symmetrically linked to one another, whether by the number of kanji making up their titles ("Tsuki ni makeinu" and "Yame ni furu ame"), by the use of foreign terms ("Identity" and "Stoicism"), by conceptual echoes (the opening and closing tracks, both centered on mental illness), and so on, right down to "Tsumi to batsu" placed strategically at the album's center. Sheena leaves nothing to chance: for her second album she wants a listen that is both visceral and conceptual at once, one offering multiple layers to be uncovered gradually, like the most moving collection of poems. And she pulls it off, never sacrificing the strength of her pop communication or her melodic drive.

Written entirely by her and co-arranged with Seiji Kameda, the bassist she had already worked with on her previous record, "Shouso Strip" ("the winning streak", roughly) is an album packed with irreconcilable contrasts and unimaginable resolutions, extreme sophistication and unreserved fury, yin and yang conceiving a sort of Taoist manual in rock form. Too much? Well, for those seeking subtlety at all costs, this isn't the right place. Better to look elsewhere: here energy reigns supreme, the unstoppable creativity of a twenty-one-year-old at the peak of her career, with an entire country ready to embrace her every move. And she delivers, without a shred of fear. The oddities, if we want to call them that, are simply the necessary seasoning, the pepper that keeps the concentration sharp.

Why deny herself, after all? Take the opening of "Kyogenshou" ("I'm a liar"), with its bursting bass and programmed flute swirling like a folk dance: this is exactly the right attitude, proof of a personality determined to announce itself from the very first minute, then build, more and more, toward its due conclusion. Sheena isn't afraid to overdo it; she has such control that she can comfortably ride over sparkling string arrangements, psychedelia-tinged guitars and funky flourishes without ever losing sight of melodic clarity. She thus keeps a firm grip on a delivery that's part capricious, part grandiose, with her perfectly rolled r's and dramatic accents carrying all the necessary pathos. What follows? Just as gripping. A vocal fragment sent into a loop, a beat that even seems to hint at a dance track, and "Yokushitsu" ("Bathroom") follows the initial assault without missing a beat. The structure keeps delivering surprises in the best prog tradition, the piano translates jazz cues amid noisy guitar accents, sly harps slip in here and there lending an unusual lightness, which the lyrics – a random fragment of a life spent between self-harm and tea rooms – certainly do nothing to soften. For the conceptual sister of "Honnō", the words couldn't hit any harder.

The contrasts keep coming undeterred, a perfect showcase of a volcanic creativity able to range freely without ever losing its bearings: "Yame ni furu ame" ("Rain in the night") has a touch of Bartók about it, starting with a bravura opening reminiscent of old folk dances, though it takes the track no time at all to reveal its eccentric nature, dressing itself in glitch bursts and hip-hop flourishes, before Indian inserts and gnarled guitars bring it back to the central theme.

In its own way the missing link between the first and second albums, "Identity" unleashes the most energetic of existential crises, a barrage of questions fired off with the force of the best punk, never once offering an easy answer. "Stoicism", conversely, is a radio gone haywire, signals coming and going without ever truly settling, a children's melody spewing out words with total abandon, in the manner of an even more unhinged Jun Togawa. Smoky like the best soundtrack for a noir, yet capable of incorporating the full weight of a rock band, "Sakana" ("Fish") is a bold metaphor for discovery and transformation, handled with just the right touch of a kayokyoku singer, before it cuts off abruptly and the blast of "Byoushou Public" ("Sick public") tells a story of prostitution, putting voice and drums through a hardcore-tinged shredding.

Closing with "Izonshou" ("I'm an addict"), with its long instrumental tail and its desperate cry of accusation against a present that never seems to move forward, is the perfect counterweight to an opening that tackles anything but easy themes, shaped with great poetic sensibility.

Too complex? Too free of preconceptions? Too bold in its structure? The 2.3 million copies sold, enough to make it the third best-selling album of 2000 (trailing only two other j-pop super-classics, Mai Kuraki's "Delicious Way" and Ayumi Hamasaki's "Duty") speak of a public far from put off by Sheena's proposition, if anything galvanized by a songwriter who had found the perfect balance between melodic accessibility and compositional personality, lyrical character and expressive skill. A public that would hand the album's legacy down to the next generation: whether through the countless covers of "Honnō" and "Gips" (even deep cuts like "Tsuki ni makeinu" enjoy similar treatment), or through the remarkable success achieved by the musicians involved as arrangers and producers (Seiji Kameda would go on to produce albums across the entire j-pop system), the record wasted no time becoming one of the crown jewels of Japanese rock songwriting, the path toward an authorship free of formulas, wanting only to follow its own inspiration and its own poetic voice. If many songwriters (from Mai Hoshimura to Yasuha Kominami, by way of Yui and Chihiro Onitsuka) would go on to find a more personal path and a more subversive approach to their art, "Shouso Strip" was the first to point the way, becoming, more or less deliberately, a model to return to.

Disillusionment with the star system would soon follow, along with the desire to escape the gaze of an audience wanting to see her as a scathing rock diva, leading to a third solo album (the stunning "Kalk zamen kuri no hana") that would push her research and experimentation even further, alienating a huge chunk of her fanbase. Then would come the suspension of her solo career, initially thought to be permanent, in order to fully embrace her passion for jazz through the founding of Tokyo Jihen. Then would come the gradual discovery of her catalogue by Western audiences, who would come to recognize in Sheena Ringo – the transliteration of her name – one of the most sensational figures in world rock of the past 20 years. But without a "Shouso Strip" to serve as the watershed moment, it's hard to imagine history taking the same turn. Twenty-three years after its release, its legacy is more alive than ever.

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02/07/2023