Two Japanese brothers from Hokkaido (the northern-most island of Japan), at the ages of 25 and 27. They perform in traditional kimonos and play the shamisen, a very traditional Japanese instrument (three string banjo-kind-of-instrument with a long neck), but their songs are really nothing but traditional. I think they are really unbelievable.
They use their shamisens in an unbelieveable way, and also mix the unique-kind-of-sound of the shamisen with so many styles of music - latino, electronic, and many others I can't readily identify. The only thing I am pretty sure about is that they intermix music from many places and styles around the world...
There is a mix of slow and fast songs, different rhytms, different instruments... I can't really find words to describe them.
More information about the Yoshida Brothers can be found at their official site at yoshidabrothers.com as wel as in this article about them (courtesy of Chris):
http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=3892
Will we have time to turn our attention to Japan?
Posted by djalalievp at March 17, 2005 12:20 AMPeter has very nicely ripped the brother's 2nd CD and it can be found @ 128 kps under K:\diamonds in the dust. I'm fishing around for their other stuff.
Another more indepth article on the bros.
Posted by: Chris at March 17, 2005 12:48 AMShould be hard to miss, but there’s some more world/shamisen music in the Yoshida folder by Agatsuma, which is in a similar vein. My post comes back to haunt me.
Posted by: Chris at March 17, 2005 02:35 AM