Incorporating traditional Asian musical styles and instruments into a rock setting is usually a bad idea; too often it comes across as gimmicky or forced. But rock band Soul Flower Union has managed to pull that off, using instruments such as the "sanshin" (three-stringed Okinawan lute), Korean drums and even the quirky sounds of the "chindonya" (old-fashioned Japanese street musicians) to spice up their sound: call it ethno-psychedelia. SFU was formed in 1993 through the merger...

Incorporating traditional Asian musical styles and instruments into a rock setting is usually a bad idea; too often it comes across as gimmicky or forced. But rock band Soul Flower Union has managed to pull that off, using instruments such as the "sanshin" (three-stringed Okinawan lute), Korean drums and even the quirky sounds of the "chindonya" (old-fashioned Japanese street musicians) to spice up their sound: call it ethno-psychedelia. SFU was formed in 1993 through the merger of two bands: Newest Model (who members were all male) and all-female band Mescaline Drive. The leaders of those two bands were, respectively, Takeshi Nakagawa and Hideko Itami, and they remain the core members of SFU. Nakagawa, with his glaringly intense gaze and powerful, raspy voice, possesses a mesmerizing charisma, as well as being a brilliant songwriter. Take, for example, "Mangetsu no Yube (A Full Moon Evening)", an achingly beautiful ballad Nakagawa wrote in collaboration with Hiroshi Yamaguchi of Heat Wave - it's a classic right up there with as "Ue O Muite Aruko (aka Sukiyaki)". The band played the song in Kobe right after the 1995 earthquake there under the moniker of Soul Mononoke Summit, an "unplugged" version of SFU that played in the streets of Kobe to console victims of the quake. Reflecting their interest in "ethnic" music, Nakagawa and SFU have collaborated on various projects with Irish musician Donal Lunny and Irish bands Altan and Kila. In 1998 SFU released a joint album with Lunny called Winds Fairground. The band had a falling-out with Sony when they wanted to record a song criticizing the Japanese government for its slow response to the Kobe earthquake, and SFU is once again an indie band.