Artery. A podcast on art, authorship and anthropology · Artery. A podcast on art, authorship and anthropology

寂空 (Jack) Shamisenist with Robert Simpkins

·41 min·2 clips

Jack divides musicians into two kinds and says his band trusts him to lead.

The conversation starts at home. Robert Simpkins visits Jakku in Yokohama after Jakku has come back from three months in India, so the interview has a just-landed, thinking-it-through feel. Jakku speaks in Japanese, and Oscar Wren carries that into English. That translation gives the episode a second pulse instead of turning it into a clean transcript. Music enters through the life story. Before twenty, Jakku says shamisen was barely part of his listening. UK rock and J-pop were closer to hand. That gap is useful: his shamisen playing does not treat pop and rock as decoration, it lets their shapes tug at an instrument with a different order. When he calls the sound a journey, he means the route a musician takes toward a form, including the influences picked up on the way. The band material is the liveliest part. With The Shamisenists, writing often means leaving normal routines for a cabin in the countryside for days, sometimes a week. The quiet does not make everything peaceful. It gives the arguments room. Jakku says their strongest music comes from pushback, from the kind of back-and-forth that will not settle too quickly. He loves making music so much that sleep can start to feel optional. Yuji and Kyohei, sensibly, remind him it is half past one in the morning and tomorrow still exists. The moment lands funny, then turns serious: a shared sound has to survive stamina, opinion, friendship, and fatigue. Teaching brings the same idea closer to the body. Jakku compares music with sport, where someone may become a better teacher than performer. When students handle the shamisen badly or pick up rough habits, he looks first at what he has passed on. The episode ends with him watching his influence, not just in how he plays, but in how others learn to hold the instrument.

As heard by us

A calm interview about shamisen, pop structure, and the responsibilities that come with teaching.

Robert Simpkins and Jakku keep the focus on how a shamisen player borrows from pop structure, classical tradition, and the give and take of making music with other people.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want shamisen shaped by pop structure, band debate, and reflection.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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