Man playing the shakuhachi

In readiness for some very long train rides next week, I was just uploading music and podcasts to the ipod I’m borrowing for my trip. One of the few songs I have bought through iTunes was Principles Of Lust: Sadeness from Enigma’s MCMXC A.D.album.  Back in 1991 the song managed to bring Gregorian chanting and French rapping to both the top 40 chart and the dance floors of Europe.  Another interesting thing about the song, and the reason I bought the track, was that the main instrument used is a shakuhachi or Japanese end-blown flute. I happened to meet the man in the picture above at Nagoya’s Honensai festival last year. I asked him what the name of his musical instrument was, as it sounded vaguely familiar. A quick google search revealed why I recognized it, not only was it used by Enigma it was also used in the Peter Gabriel’s fantastic song Sledgehammer. More recently it was even used by Linkin Park for the rap/rock track Nobody’s Listening on their album Meteora.  Of course, the shakuhachi has been used many times in movies to produce evocative background music for samurai movies, the  equivalent of bagpipes in Braveheart or Rob Roy.  The shakuhachi, a simple piece of bamboo and a Japanese musical icon.