(I'll wait for confirmation before reacting)

I'm guessing the fanclub newsletter just went out because all of these rumours seemed to gush from 2ch/JP's bowels in the last few days. So whatever it is, there IS news of some kind.

WAIT WAIT it gets better

so I'm doing my own research thanks to google.co.jp and I'm finding a lot of confirmation that Jihen is in fact releaseing this single on 12.02 and they will embark on an 18 city 22 show tour afterwards. I don't see any more information on a "new band" or people from "SONGS" or a "dome tour" so I'm guessing that is 2ch embellishing, but since it has been confirmed (at least according to japanese wikipedia) as of 10.01 that izawa will not be appearing with jihen at countdown japan this year me wonders if Ringo is rebooting Jihen, keeping the name and having a few lineup changes, releases a new single, and take them on a huge tour next year, hence the "new band" on wiki. they say "shin bando" which literally means "new band" so it is possibly some of the members of jihen are leaving and being replaced by faces we've seen before, like on songs? this would create a new band and it would also still be Tokyo Jihen? They could be releasing their first single, playing Countdown, then going on a huge tour

I also see that a new album is in lineup too according to multiple sources.

so, what is it? Phase 3 a reality? And if Izawa is leaving I hope he takes Uki with him...

Do they actually say 'new band' on wikipedia, or are those the 2chites talking?

It'd be funny if the line-up changes ended up being everyone but Ukigumo. If they're toting Countdown as Tokyo Jihen's return, then it would be strange that Izawa wouldn't be there because he's, you know, part of the band. And the Izawa-leaving-Jihen comments started around a month or two ago.

Something interesting better come out of all this :D. It better.

Oh Nagoshi you're so near yet so far....

I'd be upset if it was just Izawa being replaced. But if he really is leaving if I were Shiina at this point I'd just say fuck it and start over

the new band is stuff they are saying on 2ch. the only thing wiki has picked up is izawa isn't performing at countdown japan, which is confirmed as of 10/01 they say. it should be noted izawa was a touring pianist for the HIATUS who is also playing Countdown Japan same night as Jihen, so there is the possibility that he has prior commitments with them and he is unable to do both sets (at countdown there are about 5 stages and at any given time all 5 have shows. since jihen will be a headliner it is possibly izawa cannot play with both bands if they are scheduled around the same time. since he was working with the hiatus in the place of their pianist, who couldn't tour, during SG, he might have already promised this show to them...)

there were rumors about Uki leaving TJ a few months ago too, before SG. I can't see Kameda or Hata going anywhere. Hata has juggled side projects with Jihen for a while and Kameda is pretty much the growth on Ringo's ass for all purposes, he has been there since her teens and they are so close I can't imagine him not being involved in one way or another. If she is retooling Jihen and people are leaving I could forsee Uki and Izawa leaving and maybe picking up two new members to release the new single with. People on 2ch says the new band will be comprised of people we saw on Songs (that has to be a rumor, who could possibly know that?) but that it won't include HZM.

at any rate something was in the e-mails and the news will probably make it to official channels like kronekodow in a matter of days, I'd imagine. It is already less than 2 months to the release of the single and it will show up on cdjapan or kronekodow soon.

appropriate title too...innocence moratorium, kind of like, DON'T BLAME ME FOR VARIETY, IT WAS UKI AND IZAWA, I SWEAR

Heh. If the rumour about a SONGS style set-up is true, then their debut album cover would probably look something like that...

But this is just a fantasy. Life doesn't work out this way. Phase 2 will be Shiina's band until her retirement. =P

I wouldn't be surprised if the Izawa-leaving chitchat started from the HIATUS news. They probably sounded like me on a bad day (today?)
Izawa joining HIATUS = Izawa out of Jihen! kind of overspeculation. But yeah, whatever.

I reaaaally hope that new project (Shiina Funkadelic) was indeed reported in the newsletter, though! Exciting.

I want this to be confirmed so that I can bump the Phase 3 line-up speculation thread!

scribble, today is not a bad day, far from it. i'm so glad you PMed me and we got this thread going. first of all, this forum has been a ghost town recently, and any news, even rumors, of activity are a delight. secondly, it looks like there are truths to some of these speculations posted on 2ch and had you not alerted me I wouldn't have known since I don't make it a habit of reading through the 2ch threads. more and more it looks like we are getting a new single and a new jihen lineup.

edit: I guess I should note too that Izawa didn't join the HIATUS. they have a permanent pianist. He just filled in this guys role for a bunch of tour dates because the pianist was unable to perform (not sure why), so in reality Izawa was just a touring pianist for them while Ringo was off in solo SG land. No different than Hata being all over the place with side projects, really.

Thanks for filling us non 2ch browsers in. :) Waiting to see where this goes...hopefully it's somewhere interesting.

I hope so, kuro. Sounds waaaaaaaaaay too good to be true. Fans of other musicianswhomayormaynothavedeclined don't get this lucky =P

I'm browsing Ringo's 2ch and I don't even know Japanese. Mark David Chapman =/