ShuHaRi

Japanese throat singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Posuposu Otani returns to 33-33 with ShuHaRi, the follow-up to his acclaimed self-titled debut. Moving between mountain life and inner space, folk song and altered consciousness, ecological unease and the strange assumptions around which contemporary life is organised, ShuHaRi expands the singular musical world introduced on Otani’s first internationally released album. The title comes from the old Japanese concept of Shu-Ha-Ri, describing the stages through which a learner moves towards freedom. In Otani’s words: Shu — Follow or obey. Follow the rules. Ha — Break or detach. Break the rules. Ri — Leave or transcend. Be the rules. First comes tradition and imitation; then departure from it; finally a point at which the rules have been absorbed so completely that they no longer need to be consciously followed or resisted. The idea feels particularly fitting for Otani. His debut introduced a musical language developed quietly over decades: open-tuned guitar, Kohkin jaw harp, throat singing and deceptively simple songs built around rhythm, overtones and timbre. Boomkat called the record “a revelation,” describing its music as “low-slung, hallucinogenic psych-folk,” while Metal Magazine described his first performance outside Japan at Rewire Festival as “trance-like and transportive.” Born in Kamakura in 1972, Otani began making music in his twenties through punk and home recording on four-track cassette. Time spent in San Francisco’s skateboarding scene and later travels through India and the Republic of Sakha — where encounters with throat singing and the Kohkin became part of his developing musical vocabulary — eventually fed into an approach to songwriting that now feels entirely his own.