Geinoh Yamashirogumi

Geinoh Yamashirogumi is a Japanese musical collective founded in 1974 by Shoji Yamashiro, consisting of hundreds of people from all walks of life: journalists, doctors, engineers, students, businessmen, etc. This array of talents and ideas brings a peerless degree of creativity to their work, which is known for a skillful fusion of traditional music with high technology. For example, in the 1980s, MIDI digital synthesizers could not handle the tuning systems of traditional gamelan music, so the group had to start from scratch, teaching themselves how to program in order to modify their equipment. This was while they were working on what would become their most well-known work, the soundtrack of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira.

Geinoh Yamashirogumi has faithfully and accurately reproduced over eighty different styles of traditional music and performances from around the world, but despite having performed internationally to a high degree of critical acclaim, they remain relatively unknown.

It has been said that Yamashiro took his inspiration from a postwar 1950s group of similar character that lived as a commune, but this could be apocryphal.

External Links

• Geinoh Yamashirogumi's website (in Japanese) (http://www.yamashirogumi.gr.jp/)