Following Pilgrimage Steps of Ancient Japan

This video is a short introduction to our journey...

...but first you need to ask, what is Ethnopunk & how did it start?

Ethnopunk is a project that started in early 2020 in Japan, Kamakura and is now based in Mie Prefecture, in Odai-cho. It was created by two founding members Kurokawa Hari and MK at the same time as the Coronavirus appeared and began to spread around the world. Hari and MK had just successfully finished EUROPE TOUR with The Jugalbandi Project in Oct/Nov 2019, and had big plans for 2020 and music tours in Central Asia with their new creation Ethnopunk.

In February 2020, while they were on the boat to Hokkaido to collaborate with the Ainu Art Project, the Coronavirus crisis started to really shake the world and all the plans were stopped.

The Ethnopunk Project took a new path and instead of traveling the world, Hari and MK set off on an adventure through Japan, experiencing and learning about the culture, creating new connections and friendships. Spreading and enjoying their music, ideas and concepts with the people they met.

They called the project: Ethnopunk Journey - Following Pilgrimage Steps of Ancient Japan.

But before we start talking about Ethnopunk journey I would like to tell you a little bit more about the concept of Ethnopunk.

Ethnopunk is the evolution of ethnic music. We focus on learning about traditional art, studying and mastering musical systems, but rather than representing and preserving the tradition, skills and techniques are used to search for new authentic expressions. Ethnopunk is creating ethnic music of the present and not presenting the music of the past.

We intend to present the Ethnopunk cultural movement to music related communities and artists. Hopefully we will inspire their own artistic development and together start creating new exciting projects.

The best way the describe and understand the Ethnopunk ideas is through the Ethnopunk logo.

Ethnopunk logo is based on an ancient Slavic symbol for "Tree of Life", where the roots represent the ancient knowledge, the tradition. The roots need to be strong and deep, that's why we study the ancient knowledge as deep as possible, but at the same time we need to work on creativity in order to discover unique personal ways of artistic expression. The branches of the tree all grow independently but somehow as one whole unified thing together searching its own paths. Three lines represent the shamisen strings on the left and MK on the right.

We have written a manifesto with more detailed thoughts on the creative tradition of Ethnopunk.
Please refer to Ethnopunk Manifesto which can find here: https://blog.ethnopunk.jp

Q: Ethnopunk Journey? Where did the idea come from? And what is the plan? A: It was influenced by pilgrim roads in Europe the Santiago de Compostela and Kumano Kodo in Wakayama as well as traveling shamisen players of the past. Goze and Bosama tradition walking through villages of Tohoku region and Hokkaido as well as other parts of Japan.

Hari and MK carried two huge backpacks with shamisen, flutes and video equipment and walked from Kamakura, through Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Aichi, Mie, and ended up in Wakayama prefecture in a town called Hongu. They took a break then, because of relocation of the main headquarters from Kamakura to Odai-cho and setting up NPO. They also worked on new music, videos, events, various other activities as well as preparing for the next part of the journey, continuing through Nara, Kyoto, Hiroshima, all the way to Kyushu.

But we will talk about the journey, stories and other projects later in more detail.

Q: What is the journey about? A:

Ethnopunk journey is about discovery, learning process and improvement. It is about Japan and its beautiful, unique and refined culture. It is about music, old traditional music, as well as new creative music. It is about connecting the old world with the new, and the new world with the old. It is about people, new relations, friendships and creation of unforgettable stories.

One of the main purposes of the journey is also to create and record an Ethnopunk Album called “7 Lucky Gods“, “Shichifukujin”. The album is inspired by the stories, places and encounters MK and Hari go through. The journey strongly influences the musical ideas and creative process. The full album will be released when the journey is completed.

Join & follow our official fan club https://ethnopunk.jp and you will get access to special content from the Journey as well as news from all our social network platforms in one place!