''Ongaku'' (音楽; literally ''Music'') is the sixth studio album by Japanese rock band

Tokyo Jihen , also known as Tokyo Incidents, is a Japanese rock band formed by Ringo Sheena, after leaving her solo career. The band's debut single " Gunjō Biyori" was released in September 2004, and they ended activities in February 2012. The band sold 2. ...

, released on 9 June 2021 through

EMI Records EMI Records (formerly EMI Records Ltd.) is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company of the same name in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the succ ...

. The album was produced by the band and

recording engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, ...

Uni Inoue.

Background

Tokyo Jihen had dissolved in 2012 and had only briefly unofficially reunited on December 31, 2016, as

Shiina Ringo , known by her stage name , is a Japanese singer, songwriter and musician. She is also the founder and lead vocalist of the band Tokyo Jihen. She describes herself as "". She was ranked number 36 in a list of Japan's top 100 musicians compiled ...

's backing band in the ''67th NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen''. On January 1, 2020, Tokyo Jihen released a surprise digital single, "Erabarezaru Kokumin''"'', and announced a tour of Japan titled "Live Tour 2020 News Flash", beginning February 29. In February, the band announced their 5-song EP ''

News News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...

'' would be released on April 8, 2020. On April 23, 2021, it was announced that the band would release their first full album after resuming activities on June 9, which is "Rock Day". At the same time, the album art and new artist photos of the band members were released, and a special site for the album was opened. On May 13, the music video of "Ryokushu", which was pre-distributed at the end of March, was released on YouTube. On June 3, as the album's release was approaching, a teaser video of the album was released.

Recording

The recording of the album itself started in 2018, before the announcement of the band's reunion, and "Ryokushu" and "Aka no dōmei" were completed first. Recording continued intermittently after that until the band announced their reunion on January 1, 2020. Shiina wrote the lyrics for the new songs from January to March 2021, and recorded the songs to finish the whole thing. This album includes various genres such as hip-hop, funk, soul, and rock. Additionally, Shiina said the album's chord work as "may be more jazz than funk", citing

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

and

Roy Hargrove Roy Anthony Hargrove (October 16, 1969 – November 2, 2018) was an American jazz musician and composer whose principal instruments were the trumpet and flugelhorn. He achieved worldwide acclaim after winning two Grammy Awards for differing styles ...

as similarities. As with previous releases by the band and Shiina Ringo, the track listing has certain symmetries. Tracks 6 ("青のID", ''"Blue Period"'') and 8 ("赤の同盟", ''"Red Alliance"'') are both named after colors, while odd-number songs all feature male vocalists.

Chart performance

In the first week of its release, the album reached the second place in CD sales (43,599 copies) and the 1st place in digital downloads (4,363) at

Billboard Japan ''Billboard Japan'' is a sister organization of the U.S.-based music magazine ''Billboard''. It is operated by the Japanese Osaka-based company Hanshin Contents Link (a subsidiary of Hanshin Electric Railway), holding an exclusive licence from ''Bi ...

and its comprehensive "Hot Albums" chart. In addition, according to the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in Nov ...

"Weekly Album Ranking", ''Ongaku'' sold 42,904 copies in the first week, and made its debut in 2nd place. It also made its debut in 2nd place on "Oricon Combined Albums" with 49,886 points.

Track listing

References

{{Tokyo Jihen 2021 albums Tokyo Jihen albums EMI Records albums