Unique fusion of music from Japanese duo

THE Island Music Club presents a unique performance next week when it welcomes a Japanese acoustic duo to The Highway in Crusheen.
Kuri, plus special guests, will perform at the North Clare venue on Sunday, July 14 at 9pm, where they will bring together traditional sounds from Japan, infused with music from different cultures they encountered on their travels.

The group is made up of Katsu and Miho, two multi-instrumentalists who will make this rare concert appearance in Ireland. Their music is dedicated to the land of the mountains in Japan, where they live, as well as the landscapes they have encountered in their world travels. Their love of ethnic musical instruments is expressed throughout their set. Each have their own passion for particular instruments and as well as singing vocals, Katsu plays Greek bouzouki, Irish bouzouki guitar, bodhran, percussion and Jew’s harp.

Katsu’s sound journey started with an exploration into folk, rock and experimental noise music. In the early 1990s, he started to become more interested in the resonance of ethnic instruments and his travels around Europe and Asia taught him many things about music and sound. He found that despite the diverse differences in style between genres and music of the East and West, this music can cross borders.

He came to the understanding that making music and exploring musical instruments are universal among people of all ages and cultures. He leads workshops teaching people how to make simple instruments out of bamboo and play them. Most recently, he has been incorporating poetry and storytelling with music and is exploring further possibilities with sound.

Miho also sings vocals but plays tin whistle, low whistle, ocarina, melodeon, bamboo flute, Tibetan bells and percussion. Her interest in music started from the age of 11 but developed in university when she felt something was missing. She decided to travel to the West and stopped playing music for a while because the way she had been playing up until then felt very limiting. When she went to Ireland this changed and she met musicians who played ‘from the heart-music’ connected to the land.

While in Ireland, Miho felt she wanted to get back in touch with her own roots to make music informed by her Japanese blood and yet infused with some of the places she’d visited and music heard along the way. Katsu joined Miho while in Ireland to form Kuri.