Shiina Ringo - Sanmon Gossip

Here is my long-overdue review of the new full length from 椎名林檎 (Shiina Ringo) called 「三文ゴシップ」 (Sanmon Gossip). For the full review, please visit my blog. For now, here is an excerpt.

First let's talk about the title. 「三」means "three" of course, and 「文」is an old skool unit of Japanese currency equal to 1/1000 of a 貫 ("kan"). This comes from a historical period when money was measured in weight, which makes sense since "kan" also refers to an old unit of weight measurement equal to about 3.75 grams. You can see some money like this in old Samurai movies and on images of 招き猫 (Maneki Neko / "Lucky Cat"). SO, "Sanmon Gossip," loosely-translated into English, might be "3-penny Gossip."

Moving on to the topic I really want to discuss, the music! What can I say? This CD is SO AWESOME! Shiina Ringo seems to have an endless well of creativity, skill and musicianship within that mind of hers and once again I am really impressed. With no recent offerings from her other well-known project, 東京事変 (Tokyo Jihen / "The Tokyo Incidents"), Ringo-chan seems to have combined the two projects into a single effort instead, focusing the best of both into a fantastic solo project. This, combined with her standard, extremely-high production value, makes this an incredible CD! All this, and I haven't even mentioned Shiina Ringo's trademark style of Japanese word-play-creation that makes all of her song titles so kool and interesting!