While we have traveled, musically speaking, to Europe and Australia quite often, Japan has been a much rarer trip, and we've never revisited an album that wasn't primarily recorded in English. Until now. Thanks to a patron selection, we're checking out the 2000 album Shōso Strip by Ringo Sheena. It's hard to nail down the sound or style of Ringo Sheena on her second album, which bounces from electronic pop to metallic distortion to cabaret swing, all backed by a talented band and produced to the nth degree, using every studio trick in the book. For a pop record, there is almost no western comparison. The better comparisons are trailblazing iconoclasts Bjork or Tori Amos, but even that fails to truly capture the twisted and wild ride that is Shōso Strip.

Intro - I Am A Liar

7:30 - Instinct

14:47 - Excuse Debussy

25:37 - Sickbed Public

32:31 - A Broken Man and Midnight

38:27 - Stoicism

Outro - Bathroom