Ringo Sheena
photo: space shower network · cc by-sa 2.0 ↗Ringo Sheena (Shiina Ringo) is a Japanese singer-songwriter and producer whose late-1990s solo albums fused jazz, punk, kayōkyoku (retro Japanese pop), and classical piano training into some of J-pop's most maximalist, meticulously arranged records. A commercial and critical force since her 1998 debut single, she later co-founded the band Tokyo Jihen and became one of Japanese pop's most influential arranger-producers.
Sheena grew up on her father's rock and jazz records and has cited listening closely to the Beatles' White Album; the sprawling genre-hopping and studio-collage instincts of that record are audible in how freely she jumps between styles within a single song.
listen forThe Beatles' 'Happiness Is a Warm Gun' lurches through several distinct musical sections inside one song; Sheena's 'Gips' does something similar at a more compressed scale, swinging from a delicate verse into a squalling, distorted midsection and back.
Sheena has cited the Sex Pistols among the records she worshipped growing up, and the confrontational snarl and raw production of her earliest singles carry a clear punk residue beneath the jazz chords and orchestration.
listen forThe Sex Pistols' 'Anarchy in the U.K.' snarls with barely controlled aggression; Sheena's debut single 'Kabukichō no Joō' channels a similar confrontational sneer into its vocal, even as the arrangement stays closer to torch-song noir than punk.
Sheena has named Todd Rundgren among the artists she immersed herself in after high school; his reputation as a one-man studio auteur who wrote, played, and produced dense, layered records parallels her own hands-on role arranging and producing her early albums.
listen forRundgren's 'I Saw the Light' piles up multi-tracked harmonies and ornate arrangement inside a tight pop song; Sheena's 'Honnō' works a similar trick, layering strings, guitar, and vocal harmony into a dense, maximalist single that never loses its pop shape.