, also known as ''The Acme Collection'', is an EP by Japanese singer and songwriter

Ringo Sheena , 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 ...

. Composed of both live and studio recordings, it was released on September 13, 2000 by

Toshiba EMI , formerly , was one of Japan's leading music companies. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of British music company EMI Group Ltd. on June 30, 2007, after Toshiba sold off its previous 45% stake. Its CEO and president was Kazuhiko Koike. Whe ...

Virgin Music Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldw ...

. The

RIAJ The is an industry trade group composed of Japanese corporations involved in the music industry. It was founded in 1942 as the Japan Phonogram Record Cultural Association, and adopted its current name in 1969. The RIAJ's activities include p ...

certified ''Ze-Chyou Syuu'' as a gold certified album for 200,000 copies shipped.

Background

After releasing her debut album ''

Muzai Moratorium , also known as ''Innocence Moratorium'', is the debut studio album by Japanese singer and songwriter Ringo Sheena, released on February 24, 1999 by Toshiba EMI. The album debuted at #2 and has sold over 1,433,000 copies. The album was certified t ...

'' in February 1999, she toured the album on her six-date ''Senkō Ecstasy'' tour in April 1999, with her band Gyakutai Glykogen. After finishing the tour, Sheena recorded her second album ''

Shōso Strip , also known as ''Winning Strip'', is the second studio album by Japanese singer and songwriter Ringo Sheena, released on March 31, 2000, by Toshiba EMI. The limited edition version includes a special booklet and case. The album debuted at #1 and ...

''. After the recording sessions were finished, Sheena embarked on the four date ''Manabiya Ecstasy'' tour performed with Tensai Präparat in November, in which Sheena toured university campuses:

Tokai University is a private non-sectarian higher education institution located in Tokyo, Japan. It was founded by Dr. Shigeyoshi Matsumae. It was accredited under Japan's old educational system in 1946 and under the new system in 1950. In 2008, Tokai Un ...

's Shonan Capus in

Hiratsuka, Kanagawa 260px, Hiratsuka City Hall is a city located in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 257,316 and a population density of 3800 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Hiratsuka is located in t ...

Showa Women's University is a women's private university in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan. The university has undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs and five research institutes. It also contains affiliated schools that span from kindergarten to high school. Aside fr ...

in Tokyo,

Seinan Gakuin University is a Baptist Christian university in Fukuoka, Japan. History It was founded in 1916 as an academy for boys by Rev. C. K. Dozier, a Baptist missionary from the United States. Naoko Sakamoto５月１５日は西南学院大学の創立記念日 ...

in Fukuoka and

Ritsumeikan University is a private university in Kyoto, Japan, that traces its origin to 1869. With the Kinugasa Campus (KIC) in Kyoto, and Kyoto Prefecture, the university also has a satellite called Biwako-Kusatsu Campus (BKC) and Osaka-Ibaraki Campus (OIC). Tod ...

in Kyoto. After the singles " Honnō" (1999), " Gips" (2000) and "

Tsumi to Batsu is Japanese singer Ringo Sheena's 6th single and it was released on January 26, 2000, by Toshiba EMI / Virgin Music. It was certified double platinum by the RIAJ for 545,730 copies shipped to stores. Background "Tsumi to Batsu" is taken fro ...

" (2000), Sheena released ''Shōso Strip'' on March 31, 2000. It was a great success, being certified for two million copies shipped to stores by the

. From April to June, Sheena embarked on her 16 date third national tour, '' Gekokujō Xstasy'', starting in

Utsunomiya, Tochigi is the prefectural capital city of Tochigi Prefecture in the northern Kantō region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 519,223, and a population density of . The total area of the city is . Utsunomiya is famous for its ''gyoza'' ...

and finishing in

Morioka, Iwate is the capital city of Iwate Prefecture located in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan. On 1 February 2021, the city had an estimated population of 290,700 in 132,719 households, and a population density of . The total area of the city is . G ...

. In June and July, Sheena quickly toured again, with a band called

Hatsuiku Status "" is the secret rock bar tour which Shiina Ringo performed in a band in 2000, or is the live video with the same title as this tour by Shiina Ringo released on December 7, 2000. This video was released with the video of "". The distributor is ...

. The band performed secret lives and they were not widely publicised. "So Cold", "Mellow" and "Fukō Jiman" were first performed at November 2, 1999 at Tokai University's Shonan Campus. "Yattsuke Shigoto" and "Gamble" were first performed on April 17, 2000 on the first date of the ''Gekokujō Xstasy'' tour. "Onaji Yoru", a song originally appearing on ''Muzai Moratorium'' (1999), was first performed on April 1, 1999, on the first date of her ''Senkō Ecstasy'' tour in Fukuoka. The Hatsuiku Status songs were all brand new, and had not been performed before their June and July 2000 tour.

Concept

The box set was created to look like a medicine case. As the set was composed of 8 cm singles, Sheena thought back to the 1980s, the era of 8 cm singles and thought of idol

Hiroko Mita is a Japanese actress and former idol singer. Mita debuted as an idol singer in 1982, the same year as Kyōko Koizumi and Akina Nakamori. Her first single, "Kakete Kita Otome" reached number 21 on the Oricon Singles Chart., and her second sin ...

, who had appeared on many posters for medical products, acting as if her stomach or head hurt. So for the promotional posters, Sheena stood with her head or stomach in pain, with the ''Ze-Chyou Syuu'' case advertised on top, as if it were medicine. The set is composed of three 8 cm CDs, each featuring a performance from a different band. Disc 1 features performances by Gyakutai Glykogen from '' Gekokujō Xstasy''. Disc 2 is a collection of studio recordings with Tensai Präparat. Sheena intended for these to be live recordings from their ''Manabiya Tour'', but as the sound quality was not what she wanted, she decided to re-record them. Disc 3 contains three songs from the ''Hatsuiku Status: Gokiritsu Japon'' tour. Two of the songs were given

mojibake Mojibake ( ja, 文字化け; , "character transformation") is the garbled text that is the result of text being decoded using an unintended character encoding. The result is a systematic replacement of symbols with completely unrelated ones, ofte ...

titles in the ''Ze-Chyou Syuu'' booklet: "Onaji Yoru" was written as , and "So Cold" as .

Promotion

"Yattsuke Shigoto" from given a music video to promote the release. It was shot on the day of the

dress rehearsal A rehearsal is an activity in the performing arts that occurs as preparation for a performance in music, theatre, dance and related arts, such as opera, musical theatre and film production. It is undertaken as a form of practising, to ens ...

of the one-night stand live '' Zazen Ecstasy'' performed at ''Kaho Theater'' of Iizuka-shi, Fukuoka in 2000. All extras playing spectators in the theater were her fans, and they were chosen from her fans who drew a blank in the lottery of the live ticket. The parody of the news report of the various countries in the world at the beginning is used as the introduction part of the music of different arrangement recorded in her third album ''

Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana , also known as ''Kalk Samen Chestnut Flower'' and ''Chlorine Semen Chestnut Flower'', is the third studio album by Japanese singer-songwriter Ringo Sheena, released on February 23, 2003, on Toshiba EMI / Virgin Music. The album's lead single was ...

'' (2003). In 2006, "Yattsuke Shigoto" was covered by Kera and the Synthesizers on their third album ''Tonari no Onna''.

Track listing

Credits and personnel

Disc1: * Ringo Sheena -

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

: * Junji Yayoshi (Sheena’s ex-husband) - electric guitar *

Seiji Kameda is a Japanese music producer, arranger and bass guitarist. He has worked extensively with Ringo Shiina, serving as her producer and touring bassist for many years, including his tenure with their band Tokyo Jihen from 2005 to 2012. Biography ...

electric bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

* Makoto Minagawa (from Thinners, Sparky) -

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

keyboard instrument A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers which are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital piano ...

* Masayuki Muraishi -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

Disc2: * Ringo Sheena - vocals, electric guitar * Makoto Totani (from Milk Crown, Thinners) - electric guitar * Eikichi Iwai - electric bass guitar,

theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...

* Hisashi Nishikawa (he is Sheena’s friend and an amateur) - Drums Disc3: * Ringo Sheena - vocals, electric bass guitar * Junko Murata (from Hachioji Gulliver) - electric bass guitar *

Hisako Tabuchi Hisako is a Japanese name for females. Although written romanized the same way, the kanji can be different. ''Hisako'' may refer to: * Hisako Arakaki (born 1977), J-pop singer *Hisako Hibi (born 1907), Japanese painter * Hisako Higuchi (born 1945 ...

(from

Number Girl was a rock band formed in Fukuoka, Japan in August, 1995 by guitarist and vocalist Shutoku Mukai. They first disbanded in 2002 following bassist Kentaro Nakao's departure from the band. Number Girl played fast, guitar-driven rock similar to th ...

, toddle,

Bloodthirsty Butchers Bloodthirsty Butchers was a long-running indie rock and punk rock band from Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan. Although little-known in the West, they have contributed to two compilations on the Olympia, Washington based Yoyo label. The band has also rel ...

)- electric guitar * Yasunobu Torii (from Panicsmile, Gaji) - electric bass guitar * Yuka Yoshimura (of Catsuomaticdeath,

Metalchicks Metalchicks are a Japanese rock duo supergroup. Their second album, ''St. Wonder,'' was the soundtrack to the 2006 film ''Warau Michael'' (distributed internationally as ''Arch Angels''). Metalchicks also composed the soundtrack of anime series ''He ...

, ex-

DMBQ DMBQ is a Japanese rock band from Tokyo, whose name stands for Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet. They are influenced by British and American rock music of the early 1970s, especially bands like The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Deep Purple, and Led ...

, ex-Hydro-Guru, ex-

OOIOO OOIOO is a Japanese experimental rock band. The four-piece ensemble was founded by Yoshimi P-We (also known as Yoshimio), the drummer and occasional trumpeter for Boredoms. The band's origin lie in a photo shoot that Yoshimi was asked to do for a ...

, ex-Mensu) - Drums

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zetchoshu Ringo Sheena albums 2000 EPs