Enchanting electronic folksongs from Okinawa featuring one of the island's most prominent voices.Plantinga's fascination with the rich musical life of the Okinawan islands led to the collaboration with Keiko Kina. As a daughter of Shoei Kina, perhaps the greatest of all Okinawan minyo singers and sanshin players, and sister of Shoukichi Kina, the most famous star to emerge from the Ryukyu Islands, Keiko has a lifelong tradition in indigenous Okinawan music. Here she performs two local classics, embedded in lush electronic arrangements.

Unit featuring sanshin player Geren Oshima, formelry of Tingara, and guitarist Jun Kashihara who used to play with Sadao Watanabe. Brazilian and other styles added to Okinawan flavoured songs.

Claudia Oshiro was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Okinawan immigrant parents. She moved to Tokyo in 2003, and toured with Kazufumi Miyuazawa and his band Ganga Zumba. This is her album of Okinawan minyo, performed in a traditional style. Includes the title track Kuishi Argentina, sung by Rinsho Kadekaru for Okinawan immigrants in Argentina.

New album from the wonderful Peruvian born Okinawan female singer Lucy. Upbeat Okinawan music, mostly traditional renditions with three modern and retro arrangements with surf guitar and other elements. Hugely enjoyable.

Mizuki Nakamura and Marica are a wonderful female duo from Amami who play traditional Amami music in a modern style. On their new album, for the first time they've decided to play sanshin, the main instrument of Amami shimauta. They had previously wanted to maximise the potential of Amami shimauta without the sanshin, but this time decided to make the sound more rootsy, with a dynamic ensemble of musicians.

Joint album by one of Okinawa's greatest ever female singers Misako Oshiro with one of the brightest young stars and her student, Kanako Horiuchi. Horiuchi, originally from Hokkaido, used to work in Tokyo and moved to Okinawa eleven years ago to study with Oshiro. They sing Okinawan minyo in duet form and include two newly written songs specially for this album, track 6 by Toru Yonaha and track 13 by Hirokazu Matsuda.

First solo album for eight years by Yukito Ara, best known as singer and sanshin with Parsha Club, togehther with Yuko Sato, a jazz pianist based in Okinawa. They perform various Okinawan folk songs, including some of Yukito Ara's own compositions that he recorded with Parsha Club, such as the opening track.

Second mini album from young neo Okinawan pop female trio, who released their first mini-album in February 2011. Produced by Masaaki Kamichi of Parsha Club and Kazunari Kamichi (Shakari). High quality Okinawan folk pop.

Cafe Style Okinawan music compilation- laid back, wistful sounds. Mostly compiled from the excellent Takara Records with artists such as Sanshin Cafe Orchestra, Lucy, Moriken, plus DJ Sasa & Yurika Oyama, Kazutoshi Matsuda.

New best of compilation from the Okinawan legend. All the expected songs (Hana, Haisai Ojisan) and a few unexpected ones.

Compilation album of some of the best known Okinawan shima uta (island songs). All songs come with a karaoke version played by Columbia Orchestra. 2 CDs.

Compilation album of popular kachashii (dance) and iwai (celebration) songs.

Produced by Okinawa DJ-Sasa (of Ska Lovers) with covers of songs from Studio Ghibli films done Okinawa style. Gentle pop, reggae, ska. Hugely enjoyable.

Shoei Uehara is a 75 year old Jazz drummer who has been playing jazz on the island for 54 years, with his own quartet, a big combo and with a string quartet. Produced by Okinawan jazz trombone player Eiki Maesato. Pure jazz, not too many Okinawan influences apart fro the bonus track Juku no Haru featuring the sanshin.

Fourteen old, rare 78 records by female singer Otojo Nakayama (1891-1970) from Amami. She was 'discovered' by Shomu Nobori, a scholar of Russian literature from Amami who loved the island of Amami, and made an effort to get the island back from the USA. The fourteen 78 records came from Nobori's private collection, are rare recordings, especially Otojo Nakayama's young beautiful voice from the early Showa period of the 1920s-1930s. 2 CDs 28 tracks.

Following the untimely death of Yoshie Uno in 2009, Akemi Mochida (vocals and sanshin) is joined by new member Chiaki Hirasawa (vocals, sanshin, fue) and two musicians from Matahari Boys, Hiroki Narumi (hayashi backing vocals, cow herding voices and Masashi Suzuki (hayashi, cow herding, rappa). Guest musicians are Wataru Okuma (clarinet, bass clarinet, piano, percussion), Hiroshi Kawamura (Soul Flower Union-guitar, shimadaikio, hayashi), Karahara Ma (djembe) and Naoki Kumakura (shimadaiko, hayashi). Rather wonderful mini-album, up to the standards of previous Shisas albums, with inventive arrangements of Okinawan tunes. Biriken, by the way, is a statue of the god of happiness which was orginally created by an American artist and introduced into Japan in the early 1900s. It is believed that you can be happy if you scratch his feet.

Second edition of the book written by John Potter. Guide to the music of Okinawa, with sections on the history of the music, features on some of the major stars of the roots scene and recommended listening, all of the CDs still in print available on this web site. The second addition has been revised and updated and includes some new interviews with Toru Yonaha, Keith Gordon of Ryukyu Underground and Tatsumi Chibana.

Latest album from Makoto Kubota's Blue Asia project. This album focuses on the music of Miyako island, Okinawa. Kubota became fascinated with the ancient prayer music that he found, sung by 80 something year old grandmothers. These singers and musicians are combined with the ever tasteful electonic sounds and effects of Kubota and his Blue Asia pals.