Описание
椎名林檎 (Shiina Ringo, also sometimes spelled "Sheena Ringo" or "Shéna Ringö"), born November 25, 1978 in Saitama and raised in Fukuoka, is a Japanese singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist. Her family name is Shiina (椎名) and she chose to perform as Ringo instead of her birth name Yumiko (裕美子) because - as a shy child - her cheeks would blush red like an apple (the fruit being 'ringo' in Japanese).
After quitting school to enter a musical contest, Shiina was quickly signed to EMI, then promptly left Japan to avoid the trappings of contract work. After returning, she quickly released a series of singles and albums, all self-penned (a relative rarity for Japanese pop artists), and all meeting with great success on the Japanese charts. A hiatus to start a family followed, itself followed (after a divorce) by both a new album and a new side project, the band 東京事変. (Tokyo Jihen - or Tokyo Incidents)
After more success with the band, Shiina returned to a solo career in 2006 as the Music Director for the film 「さくらん」(Sakuran), quickly taking the number one slot on the Oricon charts with the album Heisei Fuuzoku released in tandem with a major soundtrack project. Following was a B-sides album which peaked quickly at the number one Oricon slot. In the years proceeding this, she spent most of her time dedicated to Tokyo Jihen occasionally revisiting her solo work.
Despite being involved in the main Japanese pop scene, Shiina has created a niche for herself based on a much wider musical range than most artists. Where most pop singers develop a basic sound based on contemporary pop aesthetics and throwaway lyrical matter, Shiina builds on a base of jazz, rock, Motown, and even French chanson equally well (the chanson works especially well with her trademark nasal delivery), infusing her projects with a very different aesthetic, and gaining a fan base separate from the core constituents of the Japanese pop apparatus.
Tokyo Jihen (東京事変) or the 'Tokyo Incidents' was a Japanese band formed and fronted by the popular rock singer 椎名林檎 (Ringo Shiina). As hinted by its name, the band has a running theme modeled on '60s Japanese pulp fiction. The band debuted in September 2004 with the song 群青日和. Since their inception, Tokyo Jihen has released five studio albums, of which three peaked at number 1 on the Oricon charts.
Shiina had always wished to work with a band, and selected its members while working on her third solo album, 加爾基 精液 栗ノ花. The band, comprised of guitarist ヒラマミキオ (Mikio Hirama), PE'Z keyboardist H ZETT M, drummer 畑利樹 (Toshiki Hata), and music producer 亀田誠治 (Seiji Kameda) as bassist, was first introduced as Tokyo Jihen during Shiina's Sugoroku Ecstasy tour. Being part of a band allowed Shiina to both share the songwriting process as well as tone down her public image.
In July 2005, H ZETT M and Hirama left the band. H ZETT M returned to his duties as pianist for PE'Z and Hirama returned to his solo career. Two months later, あっぱ pianist and vocalist 伊澤一葉 (Ichiyo Izawa) and 浮雲 (Ukigumo) joined Tokyo Jihen as the replacement keyboardist and guitarist, respectively.
On January 11th 2012 Shiina Ringo announced the band's breakup on their official website.
