And so on the 11th of January 2012, Tokyo Jihen announced that they will spit up.

It’s hard to say how I feel about this. It is the band fronted by Shiina Ringo after all and she is, in my opinion, one of the greatest singer/songwriters around today. The whole band is extremely talented at what they do but it feels like the group has become less than the sum of its parts.

From their release of Variety, the band’s third album, Ringo loosened her grip on the song writing duties and allowed the other members to have a crack at it. The result was three largely unfocused albums with a few excellent songs (on necessarily the ones written by Ringo) and some songs elevated to greatness when performed live. Perhaps she chose to do this because two of the original members left after their first album, not content to be in Ringo’s shadow.

Ultimately it was Ringo’s decision to end it and I hope that this means that she has something fantastic planned for us. The track she wrote for an upcoming film is wonderful and though it is an instrumental, it has shades of the old, badass Shiina Ringo about it. Looking at it the other way though, she may take this as an opportunity to retire, only to dabble in producing and writing for others. She has been doing this for some time now and so far it has been with people with an nth of her talent.

For the other members though, it frees them up to concentrate on their own bands. Of these other members however, it has only ever been HZM, one of the aforementioned early splitters, that I have ever had any in real interest in. His band, Pe’z, are simply a wonderful Jazz band. Kameda is simply a music producer at heart, although he will probably continue to play the bass for Ringo, as he has always done. Ukigumo is perhaps the only other member I’ll keep an eye on. Songs like Meisai, OSCA and sa_i_ta show that he is a great writer but the lad just can’t sing, which puts me off a bit.

Anyhow, for good or for bad this is the end of Tokyo Jihen all we have left to look forward to from them is a farewell tour and a couple of live releases. RIP Tokyo Jihen but long live Shiina Ringo (and the others I guess).

As I have pointed out before there are three different alphabets used in Japanese. One of which is called katakana and is generally used to emphasise words and to write words of foreign origin. There are many, many words that Japanese people say which come from English but unfortunately these can be difficult to understand. This is because the Japanese pronunciation is often very different from the original word and this has a tendency to fry English speakers brains. It is probably better to treat such things as new completely separate Japanese words.

This katakana problem inspired one of my house-mates to think up a Katakana: Does it work? game. He thought that due to the fact there are less vowel sounds in Japanese, words written in Katakana can be impossible to read and work out what they refer to. For example, you can take a word like バン, it might represent ban or a van or maybe even a bun.

This leads to this little word:

This word is the title of the first Tokyo Jihen song in the video above and without context it is impossible to romanise. It could mean either lamp or ramp. Is Little Miss Ringo singing about light fittings or skating? When I first heard the song many years ago, I didn’t have enough Japanese knowledge to realise which it was.

The reason for this problem is that not only is there no ‘l’ sound in Japanese but no ‘r’ sound either. The closest sound the Japanese make is somewhere between the two. A ‘lr’ sound, if you will. This sound is VERY HARD for English speakers to say, if you want to attempt it here is Koichi of Tofugu fame to teach you. For the same reason when Japanese speakers talk in English this half ‘lr’ sound rears its ugly head in all sorts of ways (probably where that old ‘egg flied lice’ joke comes from). So the problem isn’t that Japanese speakers aren’t just mixing up their ‘l’s and ‘r’s but also saying neither and English speakers simply can’t comprehend the sound they are saying and our brain processes it into one or the other.

So back to that song and as I said without context it is impossible to translate its title. Due to the very handy cheat sheet below I have managed to work out that Ringo is using a lot of car vocabulary: windscreens, wipers, motorways, indicators and the like. Therefore ランプ must refer to the off ramp of a motorway.

Unless, of course, she is talking about the car’s headlamps.

Gah…

It turns out that in translation, context is everything and even then it can still be confusing.

Here is an 11+ style verbal reasoning problem:

If Variety is to Spa & Treatment
as Sports is to Ultra C
then Discovery is to ?????????

Before I let you know the answer please let me get something off my chest that I have been meaning to say for a long time.

Shiina Ringo isn’t the greatest pop musician on the planet.

A conclusion that I have been putting off reaching for a while and maybe I can avoid coughing up too much blood by qualifying the statement with the words ‘any more’.

Tokyo Jihen’s last three albums have simply been disappointments. These albums, named Variety, Sports and Discovery respectively, have all had their stand out tracks on them. On each there have perhaps been 2 or 3 songs I really liked but for an album by a woman who consistently knocked my socks off with almost everything she did as a solo artist, it just isn’t good enough.

Maybe there are many reasons for this, Tokyo Jihen are not the same ‘dream ensemble band’ she created in 2004 as two of this members have moved on since it’s inception. Also she is not the sole creative force in the band any more, since those two original members left after only one album, she writes much less of the songs present on their CDs than she used to. It may also be that she simply isn’t the hungry, rebellious yet ultimately shy girl that she was 10 years ago.

Whatever the reason, it is the live performances this band pulls out of the hat that allow me to keep the faith. The amount of energy present in these shows is nothing short of revelatory. This is strange because the 2 newer musicians in the band don’t have half the stage presence as the people they replaced. Despite this though, the versions of the songs present in their concerts are more immediate to me. It’s strange but once I hear their songs performed live, I acquire a greater appreciation for the studio versions and start enjoying them immensely.

Spa & Treatment, the tour that accompanied Variety, gave me so much love for their most maligned (a least by their international fan base) album. I actually attended Ultra C, the tour which supported with the release of Sports, and despite having crappy seats (which no one used by the way, we all stood up) I enjoyed so much. That feeling was only magnified upon watching the DVD. It was truly a great performance that night, perhaps their best since those other 2 members (beginning to sound like a broken record now) left.

This brings me to the answer to my little quiz at the top of this post and Jihen’s latest album, Discovery. As I said before I was disappointed with this release, I felt it was largely spoilt by the order the songs on the disc if anything. The tone of the album is all over the place and I actually realised (discovered if you will) that it is better to play this album in shuffle mode. And what of the associated tour? Well, I shall be in attendance on 2nd December, then I will find out if they can knock this songs out of the park again or if Discovery is the first Shiina Ringo CD I consign to the dustbin.

And the name of this new tour? It is known as LIVE TOUR 2011 DISCOVERY.

Bit of a disappointment really…..

Learn about a drink where opening it is half the fun.

As I said in the last post, many people have clubbed together to do their own little bit for those most affected by the quake and tsunami. Famous people from all over the world are helping too. Some have been finding ways to raise cash, such as Yoshiki of X Japan fame who sold his piano and Eiji Kawashima who auctioned off his Asian Cup winning gloves. Others have simply offered words of encouragement, such as Tom Cruise’s mate, Ken Watanabe and all the F1 drivers.

Shiina Ringo, a woman I am in complete and utter awe of, chose to do what she does best, sing a song. With Tokyo Jihen she covered an old song from the 60s called Yoake no Uta (Daybreak Song). As with most things she does, I instantly fell in love with it. I tried to find a translation but my googling skills failed me, upon looking at the Japanese lyrics however I noticed that the song is actually very simple. So I got out my dictionary and thought I would have a go at translating it myself.

——

夜明けのうたよ
yoake no uta yo
Oh Daybreak Song,

私の心の きのうの悲しみ 流しておくれ
watashi no kokoro no  kinou no kanashimi  nagashiteokure
Wash away yesterday’s sadness from my heart.

夜明けのうたよ
yoake no uta yo
Oh Daybreak Song,

私の心に 若い力を満たしておくれ
watashi no kokoro ni  wakai chikara wo mitashideokure
Fill my heart with the vigour of youth.

夜明けのうたよ
yoake no uta yo
Oh Daybreak Song,

私の心の あふれる想いを 判っておくれ
watashi no kokoro no afureru omoi wo   wakatteokure
Flood my mind with understanding.

夜明けのうたよ
yoake no uta yo
Oh Daybreak Song,

私の心に おおきな望みを 抱かせておくれ
watashi no kokoro ni  ookina nozomi wo   dakaseteokure
Grant my biggest wish and inspire me.

夜明けのうたよ
yoake no uta yo
Oh Daybreak Song,

私の心の 小さな倖せ 守っておくれ
watashi no kokoro no  chisana shiawase  mamotteokure
Protect the small amount of happiness in my heart.

夜明けのうたよ
yoake no uta yo
Oh Daybreak Song,

私の心に 思い出させる ふるさとの空
watashi no kokoro ni  omoidasaseru  furusato no sora
You remind me of the sky of my birthplace.

After the movie was uploaded on YouTube Ringo posted this message on her official website:

Born in 1978, I’d never heard this song sung, not even once. But the music was in a songbook I looked at constantly when I was young. At my house we were only allowed to play out loud for a short time, so I ended up spending much more time just silently looking at the notes. There was a kind of great sadness I went through until I remembered this song buried deep in my memory.

I just now performed the song with my friends. But really, I would like everyone to sing it quietly to themselves. As a prayer to the people who tragically lost their lives. And with the greatest respect for the two wonderful songwriters who secretly gave all of us living today this gift.

(I was going to try and translate this message myself but it turned out that the
official website had already done it, so I used that translation instead, sorry Ringo)

Translating things is really hard. I’m not sure about much of this and took a few liberties. If anyone disagrees with the translation I posted here or has suggestions feel free to correct me in the comments, this is all a big learning expirience.

Oh and just in case, this song was by Izumi Taku and Tokiko Iwatani and performed by Tokyo Jihen. It is copyright whoever copyrighted it.