The career arc of Shiina Ringo isn’t like your typical artist’s. Ringo started her career as a solo musician, crafting some of the early 2000’s most forward thinking and best albums (of anywhere in the world). Yet she then decided she wanted to be part of a band and formed Tokyo Jihen who, despite having plenty of good songs, seemed far more safe than anything she conceived on her own. Ringo never really abandoned her solo career – she released one other full-length, and earlier this year put out a new single – but Tokyo Jihen took up the majority of her attention. Now that her band called it quits last year, Ringo has started getting the urge to collaborate again. Last month, she teamed up with Soil & “Pimp” sessions for a swinging number that’s plenty catchy, although it’s definitely she could have thought up on her own or even with Tokyo Jihen.
More intriguing is her newest collaboration, with dance-music-maker (and member of Deee-Lite) Towa Tei. Tei himself tends to shine when given someone to work with – let’s jump back to 2011’s “The Burning Plain” or, heck, this new song from three weeks ago – and putting him with someone like Ringo doesn’t disappoint. “Apple” – which, let’s just point the pun out now, translates to “ringo” in Japanese – is a sparser recording from Tei, allowing plenty of space for Ringo to sing lines like “who the hell is an apple.” It’s an easygoing song, the only drama coming from cinematic strings, but a good one from two of Japan’s most respected artists.