In which your editor immediately listened to Kalk Samen Kuri No Hana, expecting Jesus and fireworks. Will report back.
[Video][Website]
[6.50]
Patrick St. Michel: Ten years ago, Shiina Ringo released Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana. It’s considered by a lot of folks in Japan the best Japanese album of the 2000s and probably on the shortlist for best Japanese album ever. It’s worthy of all the hype, an eccentric set of songs that stands with any of the arty classics that came out over the last decade. That album was also the last time Ringo was really daring — after that, she embraced more traditional rock sounds with her band Tokyo Jihen and solo. “Irohanihoheto” is another good-but-not-great Ringo single, a driving number that recalls her work in Tokyo Jihen except decked out in the strings that defined most of her solo work. She finds just the right balance between energetic and dramatic.
[7]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana, Ringo’s masterpiece, is an album of tumultuous emotion, perfectionist compositions and staggering musical shifts; I once read someone claiming it contained the universe, and boy were they right. On “Irohanihoheto”, Ringo continues to explore her recent strain of dramatic John Barry-esque sonics, which is to say that stretching herself is off the agenda. As an artist who once lent a wild sense of adventure to her music, Ringo’s decision to firmly stay in her comfort zone is bewildering and a little disappointing, but hearing her stretch that idiosyncratic coo over dizzy orchestral swerves still has the ability to thrill. Lyrically, she’s as cryptic and direct as she wants to be: referencing a Heian era poem about shifting tides through the title, adamantly saying she will not be fooled again come the chorus. It’s pretentious and inscrutable, but somehow shot through with pop nuance. Even in her comfort zone, she still operates on a level nobody can emulate.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: Glorious prog-pop excess modified by two things: the skank of the electric guitar in the right channel whenever it’s not widdling; and Shiina’s unpompous, perfectly sweet vocals.
[7]
Alfred Soto: The summit meeting between acoustic and electric guitars, harpsichords and unhinged female vocals recalls Fleetwood Mac. It’s a striking sound. It’s one of the few times I wished I could understand the words instead of forcing the vocals to signify on their own.
[5]
Anthony Easton: Can that be a harpsichord? For all its roaring and retreating, the ice cream artificiality of this, that it might be embedded into something that sounds very much like a harpsichord is the most delightful surprise.
[8]
Brad Shoup: Muscled baroque-pop that hits a number of marks quite well. Its service as a TV theme will help it considerably; it will accumulate drama quickly.
[5]
Iain Mew: With its harpsichords and strings and guitar rattle and bits of melody surging off in all directions, “Irohanihoheto” feels a bit like Ringo has forced several different songs into a small space and left them to sort themselves out. Confusion reigns for the most part, but the power she wields when she finally assembles everything in unison behind her is kind of worth it.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Approximately what you’d get if you locked three musicians in separate, semi-soundproof rooms and told them to play off one another: one being a bright kid with a MIDI sequencer set to harpsichord, one being a surf-rock guitar hero who wandered into the experiment thinking it was a Quentin Tarantino session; and one being Ariel Rechtshaid. The conclusion: music can coalesce out of anything, dammit.
[7]