Mr. Shoji, Single


It’s sad to admit, but I buy vynils only for the sake of collecting and showing them off (plus they look great on the wall of any college kid) One thing is for sure, labels never send promotional vynils because that’s what’s hot right now, but you need some friends from La Madre Patria so they can send you the goodies, because unlike any other country in Iberoamerica, the Spaniard labels are on top of the business offering vynils to the market. In some cases, such as Anntona’s En La Cama Con Anntona, the album is given for free as a digital release and they produce a limited number of copies to sell to those people, who like me, want to have the physical thing but will be hearing the songs on the iPod.

Well, there’s that, I received Single’s latest 7’’ titled “Mr. Shijou” but never listened to it, although the artwork cover always intrigued me. But then yesterday, Rulo from Reactor tweeted that the song was the best he had heard this month and maybe the whole year, and he’s not kidding, it is one of the songs to keep in this 2009. For those not aware of this band, this is the project by Teresa Iturrioz and Ibon Errazkin, whose previous works have been featured on our now gone Rocolas. They’re everything Fangoria isn’t, and that’s why I like them so much, don’t get me wrong Fangoria is had its interesting time but now I find them boring? Teresa has a thing for birds, they’re always present and although this time the cover doesn’t feature this animal, you’ll hear plenty of them as they are the soul of this track.

Who is Mr. Shoji? He’s a Japanese DJ who has collaborated with the act on previous albums. “Yo y Mr. Shoji tenemos un asunto” the band explains the reason behind creating the track, they have an issue to resolve, it’s a well-kept secret but seems like they always wanted to do this song and finally got the chance to do it, that’s the easy/lazy interpretation. The song ask for exaggerated guesses, I’d like to think it’s a combat between a man in a horse (Mr. Shoji) and the girl surrounded by birds (Teresa), kind of a dazzling fight a la Kill Bill.