May 27 marks the 15th anniversary of the debut of Shiina Ringo, an artist who has released a few classic albums and has had a huge impact on a generation of Japanese music fans. To celebrate, she’s releasing a new single on that day and…it presumably hit the Internet sometime today. It’s called “Irohanihoheto” and it’s a refined number. It moves at the pace of her earliest songs, but done up in the string flourishes that glazed her later albums…and her last single, which wasn’t that long ago. This isn’t Shiina Ringo emerging on the anniversary of her debut to reveal a(nother) new form, but rather her reminding the Japanese music landscape that she’s still here doing her thing wonderfully.
And hey, let’s talk about that chorus. She adds in dramatic spikes…see the new set of strings that rise up the second time around…and manages to wring a whole lot of tension out of this song as a whole. It’s her best single in quite some time…and that’s including Tokyo Jihen…and a nice reminder of what one of Japan’s best is capable of. Listen here.