“Oki, the performing name of Oki Kano, plays folk of the most urgent kind – music from a critically endangered culture. The language in which he performs and his cultural ancestry is Ainu; both have been suppressed through the centuries by the Japanese. Oki’s instrument is Ainu, too: a five-stringed ancient harp, the tonkori, with a bewitchingly woody, stark, hollow sound.
After working in New Yor”
