It’s no surprise that Kíla’s Rónán Ó Snodaigh and Oki, a musician who hails from the ancient Ainu culture, Japan’s original inhabitants, immediately hit it off when they first met in a Tokyo bar last year.
One look at Rónán and Oki laughing together in a quiet corner of the bar in Dublin’s Central Hotel and you can tell they’re soul brothers, cut from the same cloth – and reflecting a similar light despite the geographical distance. The same empathy can be heard on the record Kila and Oki have made together called, with lyrical brevity, Kila Oki.
The parallels are remarkable. Both musicians are highly respected on the world stage as international ambassadors for the living face of ancient indigenous cultures. Respectively, they have bravely reinvigorated the Irish and the Ainu musical and language traditions, to create a distinctly contemporary sound.
They mirror each other in other ways, too. Spiritually and artistically, Rónán and Oki are both strongly rooted in nature. They embody a similar tribal elder/shamanic trance vibe (anyone who’s seen Kíla perform live will know what I’m talking about). Finally, both are very funny and exceptionally hairy.
Oki, who developed a network with other indigenous artists through his participation in the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations, has made world music fans around the globe sit up and take notice, with some dazzling collaborative works.
It’s fascinating to hear him describe his culture, of which I’d been entirely ignorant until now.
“Most people in this world believe that in Japan, there’s only Japanese people,” says Oki. “But the Ainu culture was there before, and is completely different, and much older. The government didn’t allow us to speak the Ainu language, the same as Ireland – we share the same kind of history.”
The Ainu had been living in what’s now known as Japan since ancient times. Hairy and wide-eyed, not only did the Ainu look different to the Japanese colonisers, they spoke a different language and had a hunter-gatherer society.
Predictably, the colonisers saw the Ainu as savages, despite the sophisticated and lyrical nature of their oral culture. The history of the Ainu is, therefore, a story of generations of suffering and marginalisation.
In the late 19th century, Oki explains that the Japanese government upped the anti against the Ainu people, encouraging Japanese immigration to their island home, kicking the Ainu out of their traditional lands and clearing the forests that were their hunting grounds.
“The Ainu were forced to hide their identity,” he says. “We were persecuted and treated like second-class citizens. We nearly lost every vestige of our cultural identity and our native language almost died out.”
Fortunately, Ainu elders eventually negotiated a level of recognition and respect from the government, and the Ainu are now recognised as the original people of Japan whose culture deserves to be revitalised and promoted.
Despite centuries of oppression, it’s estimated that roughly 150,000 people of Ainu origin still live in Japan, concentrated mainly in the island of Hokkaido, which is about the same size as Ireland with a similar population – though much colder and mountainous, with temperatures plummeting to minus 30 degrees centigrade in the winter.
“Our culture is getting stronger than before,” says Oki, who has personally played a major role in this resurgence. “Young people are starting to learn the Ainu language, and more people speak Ainu now as their first language than they did 30 years ago.”
Oki worked primarily in special effects for film in New York and Tokyo before rediscovering and returning to his Ainu roots, devoting himself to the study of Ainu music and heritage and then bringing that culture to the world.
“I had a different life before I started music,” reflects. “But one day the Ainu ancestor whispered to me, you should walk on Ainu culture. I finally found my destiny. Ancestor told me I should do that.”
And do you know the name of the ancestor who spoke in your dream?
“I don’t know who he is,” says Oki. “Many hundreds, thousands of ancestors. Sometimes in the darkness I see lots of elders, a gathering, and they’re singing. It’s beautiful.”
“That’s handy, isn’t it?” laughs Rónán. “Someone coming up and telling you what you should be doing.”
It must be great, I agree, to know that you have these pals rooting for you …
“Big hairy lads as well,” says Rónán. “Am I right?”
“You’re right,” says Oki.
“Beautiful!” Rónán exclaims. “I saw photographs from the 1920s of some Ainu, and they weren’t afraid to grow a beard.”
The focal point of Oki’s music is the tonkori, a long, skinny, flat, stringed instrument carved from wood with an unfretted soundboard that produces mysterious overtones.
While we chat, Oki plays gently on a beautiful carved tonkori, one of about 20 he's made himself down the years. The sound is wistful and haunting, somewhat similar to the African kora but uniquely its own.
It is clear why Kila would be drawn to Oki's music. But what has attracted the Ainu virtuoso to the Irish traditional sound?
“It’s a bit crazy,” opines Oki of Kila's wicked groove. “Crazy music, that’s why I like it. In my imagination Kíla’s music is like a spiral [he twirls his hands upwards]. A very thick sound.”
We all agree that ‘spiralling’ is a great way to describe Kíla’s music. “Because it’s cyclical,” I suggest.
“Well, it can be,” says Rónán. “A lot of the tunes aren’t, but you can see that many are leading to that place at some point. The idea was you create it enough so that it actually spins.”
I ask Rónán to elaborate on what he’s up to musically right now.
“Kíla recorded another album before Christmas, called Sushi, to me a very beautiful record, deliberately mellow. It’s sitting there waiting to go out. And we’ve started recording another album called Cardinal Knowledge, and that’s for dancing. In August we’re going to record a lot of these tunes that we play live, stuff that people go mad to, which we just haven’t recorded yet.
“Then there’s a re-mix album coming out next month which is handy, because we haven’t had to do a thing on it. It’s a Japanese project, Oki’s special mix. There’s different DJs for every song, and I’m gauging from the lads over there that it’ll come across quite ambient.”
He's also got a solo record under wraps.
“It's called The Last Mile Home. It's an interesting album. So there's a lot going on and I'm excited about all of it.”
Does it make a difference to Kíla now that – on top of being busy with a load of different projects – the band live across several different counties and have expanding families?
“It does make a difference," Ronan acknowledges. "I think that’s why I feel it’s so urgent all this stuff gets recorded. I want to make sure it all gets done while we’re still actively engaged with each other. Because life is quite bad. Babies, different countries – wow! It can be hard to project into that space with everyone.”
Somehow I don’t think productivity is something we need worry about with an amazingly talented, ever-evolving and multi-faceted band like Kíla. And with plans afoot for a tour with Oki next year, there’s yet another new live Kíla experience just around the corner.