178: The Gate, by Joji Hirota

Joji Hirota (Japan)
The Gate (1999)
9 tracks, 61 minutes
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A performance of taiko drumming is a sight – and sound – to behold. These Japanese drums range in size from large to downright immense, and the noise they create is similarly massive, a huge intertwining thunder of weaving rhythms. It’s easy to understand why the taiko drums were once used to scare enemies before battle. Often paired with breathtaking choreography, a performance of taiko drumming is bombastic, thrilling and chest-pounding.

Joji Hirota is most well-known for his mastery of the taiko, having led his own taiko troupe across Europe since the 1980s. When I first got my hands on the only record he made for Real World Records, 1999’s The Gate, I was expecting to be assaulted by a wall of drumming power as soon as I stuck it in the machine. What actually came out of the speakers, though, was different.

The Gate is not at all like those theatrical taiko performances. The very first track is a gentle and sombre string quintet with the breathy tones of the Japanese bamboo flute, the shahkuhachi. It turns out that as well as a master drummer, Hirota is also a shahkuhachi player, singer and composer, and he stretches each of those limbs on this album.

Out of the album’s nine tracks, three are led by percussion, four are with the string quintet and two are songs backed with harps and synth strings. Despite there being quite a range of different styles on offer, then, the album works really well as a set, as each of the pieces regardless of the instruments at play, all share a connection of atmosphere. The whole album is thoughtful, sincere and slightly melancholy; not all of it is gentle, but it is all calm. Every aspect is considered and deliberate, giving it all an extremely satisfying and accomplished feel.

It’s so interesting when an artist you have put in one box in your head turns around and throws something completely different at you, and is amazing at that too. Joji Hirota is undoubtedly a world-class taiko player, but with The Gate, he proves that that is just the beginning of his musical talents.