Rising
The Yoshida Brothers play on a Tugaru Shamisen, an ancient Japanese Instrument, and they Rock! To me this seems the right thing to do. I mean: this instrument sounds as if it was to made to perform a rock-solo. Go ahead and buy a traditional shamisen album. After hearing this, it shouldn’t be too much of a culture-clash.
Man I love the sound of the Shamisen.
And I love it when people take these extremely traditional instruments and make a whole lot different sort of music than it is usually used to make. A very good example of this is the Finnish band named Apocalyptica. They use cellos to make metal music. Here is a little sample of what they have done
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM4qMuhEgeA
And as a side note the drummer in this song is Dave Lombardo.
So yes the Finnish can make something else than just “humppa” 🙂
One other Japanese instrument that I love is the Shakuhachi. It’s a flute made of bamboo. And usually I dont really care for the sound of a flute, because it is usually so high pitched. But the Shakuhachi has a beatiful sort of soft and air filled sound.
here is a sample of what the Shakuhachi sounds like. Not the same type of music as your clip but it gives a good example of what the instrument sounds like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkkEx7AUzyM
Whewh! That was a lot of text! Got a bit carried away 🙂