Sukiyaki and Chips - The Japanese Sounds of Music

"Japanese culture, especially the popular music, can be a surprising, often disorienting mixture of ancient traditions, futuristic experimental music, and glitzy pop. This program moves from the superheated world of teenyboppers to the austere, highly disciplined world of master shakuhachi players and zen monks. Along the way stops are made in the last remaining old-line music hall variety shows featuring traditional Noh Theater performances and new style erotic theater, as well as noted progressive composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Encapsulating the seeming contradictions of the contemporary music scene is Tadanobu Tsunoda, a Japanese researcher who claims to have demonstrated that Japanese hear with a different side of their brain than Westerners. This program includes an interview with him in his laboratory where he discusses varying perceptions of shakuhachi music East and West."