Lost Property Arts Collective CIC present: OKI (Sold Out)
Bar from 5:00pm. Doors 7:30pm – 10:30pm
Tickets sold out original link : www.ticketsource.co.uk
OKI – Born on the Japanese island of Hokkaido in 1957, OKI is a contemporary of the likes of Haroumi Hosono and Midori Takada, an explorative folk musician who blends indigenous Ainu folk music with international influences and who is without question the most influential living Ainu musician.
One of Japan’s most respected heritage artists he is the world’s leading player of the tonkori, a fivestringed Ainu harp, which is the pulse of his music and the force that unifies the disparate sounds his music encompasses whether that’s reggae, dub, throat singing, African grooves or music from Central Asia.
On stage OKI is joined by his wife Rumiko Kano (vocals, tonkori), son Manaw Kano (drums, tonkori) + long-time collaborator Takashi Nakajo (bass) for a journey into Ainu music as ancient vocal chants move into intense mouth-harp acapellas and meditative solo tonkori pieces morph into psychedelic dub-heavy workouts.
Their 2022 tour saw them perform at LeGuessWho?, Bongo Joe (Geneva) and a UK tour with three sold out shows at London’s Café Oto, Glasgow’s Glad Café and Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, as well as live sessions for Gilles Peterson’s WWFM and two at Radio 3 for Late Junction and Music Planet
———————————
“The tonkori is (OKI’s) anchor and he comes at it with both a grounding in its history but also a rootless neophyte innocence”.
– The Wire
“With OKI, we see some of the last players of the indigenous Japanese Ainu five-stringed harp the tonkori, where the family act together to celebrate.
their common cultural identity”
– Clash Magazine
