Even if you never get near the carpark of the Black Box on the Monday evening (July 13th), rest assured you'll hear the battering tattoo of the Kodo drummers from a long way off, as they blast open the festival. There is great subtlety to their music: the harmonies of the story-telling songs; the melodies tweedled out on the shinobue, the reedy little Japanese flute; or the rhythm patterns used in instruments such as finger-cymbals, woodblocks or temple gongs. But prepare to be deafened: these finer features are often drowned in the all-out assault on drums ranging from the shimedaiko (the little, tight, tick-tock drum, used in Noh and Kabuki theatre) to the odaiko, the 400 kilo mother of all drums, which is normally trundled onstage on a lantern-hung truck.
Too large to be transported by plane, the odaiko will have just arrived in Galway after a three-day race by road and ferry from Kodo's previous gig in Turkey.
Another member of the family of taut cowhide miyadaiko (shrine-drums) is the barrel-sized chudaiko, which is either mounted on a stand and punished from both ends by two drummers or it is hooked in the ankles and played from a sit-ups position, seemingly designed to rip stomach muscles. Apart from the little shimedaiko, all drums are played with hachi, large, blunt, heavy, untapered sticks. The drums are made from single blocks of a deepgrained kiln-dried keyaki wood, but as the latter is prohibitively expensive, the big odaiko is made of bubinga wood imported from Africa.
Originally, the taiko was a rural village drum, used for festive and ritual occasions, and although Kodo makes great play of the religious/folkloric provenance of the drums (from the period before the introduction of Buddhism in the 8th century), you'll get the strong impression of more warlike origins. In Japan, Kodo's style wouldn't be seen as traditional, and indeed you'll find a lot of African, and western influences in the rhythm patterns. I saw them at a sit-down gig in Zurich recently, where they played one very sophisticated composition by Maki Ishii called Monoprism, a beautiful collision of cross-cutting, overlapping rhythmic phases using the natural bounce of the drumsticks (something like Steve Reich's 18 Musicians) which they adapted a few years back for a recording with the Berlin Philharmonic.
Apart from the flute and drum pieces (which, you'll find, sometimes uncannily evoke the fife and Lambeg) and the unaccompanied lament-singing (which ties in so closely with sean nos), Kodo's drumming is a big, almost abstract form of music which, at first, challenges the Western attention span. But you'll feel it in your chest, as the crescendoes build from the rapid hailshot of the smaller drums to the juggernaut of the bludgeoning Kodo orchestra in full flight; each successive shockwave of sound smacking off nearby walls, and leaving your baffled ears hallucinating melodies in the hypnotic headspace of the rhythm.
There's a lot of jokes about drummers doing the rounds, but it's hard to imagine them even raising a smirk amongst the Kodo guys, so solemn is their almost frightening commitment to their discipline. Even if a guy is just slamming a hachi down on a drum every two seconds, you can see the assurance and style of each stroke; the concentration on precision and maximum impact. Although there are no physical giants among the troupe, they are fit as fiddles, and it's very much a macho, martial-arts affair. Three ladies, wives of various drummers, do take to the stage in silk kimonos, beating little drums with ribboned, pompom sticks and finger-bells. But it's really all about the athletic feats of the men, clad only in sweatbands and loin cloths. One highlight is the gritted teeth and sweat-glistening torso of 49-year-old founder-member, Yoshikazu Fujimoto, not a pick of fat on him, getting stuck into a crazed, mortal battle with the big odaiko drum hoisted above him.
I must say, I was surprised to learn that rather deafening piece was designed to evoke a baby dropping off into a peaceful slumber. But once you tune into the rest of the music, the emotions behind it are plain enough: the remembrance of the dead, the rhythmic chants of the working songs, the thundering battle pieces, the joyful call-and-answer of rhythmic phrases being tossed around among the drummers.
The Japanese character for Kodo, apparently, can be read as both "heartbeat" and "children of the drum". The origins of the group lie in the late 1960s when a bunch of people, spurning the materialism of Japanese cities, converged on the island of Sado to pursue the spartan lifetyle of miyadaiko, the shrine-drum. Originally, they formed a drumming troupe called Ondekoza, but the Kodo website contains an unforgiving reminder that the Ondekoza boss, a certain Mr Den, disappeared with all the instruments, furniture and rights to the name in 1981. Kodo was immediately founded under its current director, Yoshiaki Oi.
The island, originally a stop-over on the northern trading route, was traditionally a place of political exile, as well as a melting pot for Japanese forms of storytelling, song and theatre. After more than a decade living in a converted schoolhouse, Kodo managed to buy 25 acres in a thickly forested area on the Ogi peninsula of the island, in the heart of a rural farming community. There they built Kodo Village in 1988, a regimented complex of timber buildings, including communal cooking, dining and dormitory areas, a library devoted to global roots music, a studio and an open-air performance stage. Kodo members have also built family homes on surrounding land.
Outside Kodo Village, they have two Apprentice Centres in Iwakubi Ryotsu-city and Daisho Mano-town, which run workshops throughout the year. The routine is monastic, involving training "both in body and spirit". Apprentice drummers spend at least two years training, six days a week, starting with a 10-kilometre run, and three solid hours drumming a day. After that comes a probationary membership period of at least a year, and only then, if successful, do apprentices become full Kodo members. The starting requirements are simple: "Males or females of any nationality, aged 18-25. Previous schooling, musical and work experience are of no concern."
The troupe travelling to Ireland amounts to 20 performers, 14 drummers and six singer/dancers. It's Kodo's first visit here and, although you mightn't have heard of them (Kodo don't quite produce classichits radio material), they have taken Europe by storm on the festival gig circuit. They spend two thirds of the year on the road, touring regularly to 34 countries. Kodo are well-known for collaborating with other roots musician from other parts of the world (from the Burundi Drummers to jazzman Elvin Jones), and after opening the Galway Arts Festival they are the centrepiece of the Global gathering in the RDS in Dublin the following night (Tuesday 14th). There, they'll play a 45-minute set before launching into a big session with the Donal Lunny Band, which will be given maximum exposure by Philip King's videocameras. Lunny himself chanced into Sado in 1996 with a 10-piece band, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that Yoshiaki Oi had a sizeable collection of early Bothy Band and Planxty records. Infectious, as Irish music can be, the Lunny band proved to be the most popular gig on Sado in years, and they were invited back last year.
So check it out. Kodo is one of those bizarre manifestations of cult and culture which would lead to believe that, at bottom, humans beings are stone mad. However, if you're keen to enlist, you'll find all the relevant information at: www.sme.co.jp./ Music/Info/KODO)
The Kodo Drummers play at the Black Box car park, Dyke Road, on Monday, July 13th at 9 p.m. They play with the Donal Lunny Band at the RDS on July 14th, at 7.30 p.m.
