A good while ago someone asked me, “Why did you name your radio show: Digging Deep?” I replied back with something to the effect of, “Because I’m endlessly curious.” Whether a blessing or a curse, I find some joy out of combing through record shelves, digging deep through collections, poring over releases others might barely give a chance to. If Robert Caro famously said, “turn every page,” I’d say, “turn over every album.” I feel that there’s always something worthwhile, something like Isam Kanki’s Alto Paraiso, waiting to be discovered, if you’re open to receiving it.
It was during my last trip to Japan, on quite literally my last day of record shopping, that I took a trip to Eiji’s Revelation Time record store. I’ll spare you all the details, but after spending a long while combing through his store, speaking with Eiji and choosing what I’d like to buy, just as I was at the counter to pay for my order, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the spine of Alto Paraiso, a hazy quasi-psychedelic bit of design, quietly peeking out from a stack of CDs, and asked Eiji if I could look at the album.
From what I remember, I turned the CD around and spotted Isam’s self-assured pose and warm smile. I felt if someone exuded this kind of demeanor, their music must meet his vibes. When I asked Eiji more about the album, so new was this album to Eiji’s inventory that he didn’t have sound samples that I could listen to nor much of any info to share with me. What Eiji was kind enough to do, though, was take the CD and play it through the store’s stereo system, auditioning its music for the first time to anyone (including himself). Together, we heard the opening track of Alto Paraiso, “Requiem,” its otherworldly boom of fourth world music coming through the speakers, and we were instantly bowled over. “Requiem” sounded familiar (in a way I couldn’t quite place), and Alto Paraiso turned out to be my final purchase.
Back then, there was no story to tell. I’d had to wait until I got home to place some story on this album. In the meantime, all I kept thinking about was how tenuous history is. It’s something that eats me up. What would have happened if we hadn’t taken the time to put on this album? How long would Isam’s story be left untold, if ever? How many more Isams are there out there?
Isam Kanki was born Isamu Kanki on January 4, 1947, in Yokohama to a mother trained under one of Japan’s most influential piano teaches of the 20th century, one Motonari Iguchi, who gave rise to Japanese “modern music”. Originally, Isamu was supposed to follow in her studied footsteps, attending Tokyo’s prestigious Toho High School, learning the clarinet, immersing himself in classical music. It wasn’t until he enrolled in Saitama’s Shobi Gakuen and fell in love with folk and traditional music that he shifted his focus to percussion, a passion that would take him elsewhere in life.
Throughout the ’70s, Isamu would appear as a band member or collaborator in various bands that touched Japan’s underground experimental rock and jazz scenes. Isamu’s Facebook page namechecks bands like Los Flamingos and The Sunrise, and mentions working with musicians like Fujio Yamaguchi, guitarist for an early version of Les Rallizes Dénudés, and big names like blues-rocker George Yanagi of “Rainy Wednesday” fame. Anyone from Tokyo Kid Brothers, Japan’s famous psychedelic theater troupe, to Hiromi Go, a huge J-Idol, Isamu had the pleasure of playing with.
After indulging in Japan’s counterculture lifestyle, Isamu had a spiritual awakening and became a devoted follower of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, taking sannyas in 1982 as a disciple of the Osho movement, under the name Swami Deva Akamo. From that time onward Isamu became known professionally as Isam.
Through the milieu of characters, musicians, and people he met during his Osho studies, Isam was able to expand his percussion vocabulary by working with a cluster of West African musicians like Wagane N’Diaye Rose, Karamoko Camara, and others like bassists Yoichi Yahiro and Kiichiro Komobuchi, who had their ears to a larger world of music. It was one Brazilian percussionist, Alyrio Lima — famously of Weather Report and someone Isam played with — who joined Osho and founded an eco-commune in Alto Paraíso de Goiás, Brazil. Known as “Nivedano” in the Osho community, it’s his drums that would signal the change in a dynamic form of meditation. In the end, it’s his inspiration which would eventually lead to what became Alto Paraiso, Isam’s own take Osho-inspired music.
But before he got there, as part of that Osho music multiverse, Isam’s gift as a musician would lead him to perform on Osho-branded records like 1990’s Rehabilual’s New Child with fellow friends and disciples like Mishio Ogawa, Yuko Watanabe, and Kitaro (to name a precious few). It’s his percussion you can hear playing on Rehabilual’s “Nataraji Bengawan Solo,” the meditative “Child Kundarini,” and the fiery, tantric closer, “Mizu -Water-.” It wouldn’t be until a decade later, in 2001, that Isam found the footing to spirit through his own vision, something he’d have to self-release.
Isam’s current Facebook page reveals clues to his creative vision. A favorite quote of his, “和して同ぜず” (or “Harmonize, but do not conform”), a bit of Confucian thought, speaks to Isam’s spirited need to follow his own journey even in the path laid down by others. So as one listens to Alto Paraiso, one can internalize just how much of what he plays is driven by this desire to facilitate a certain kind of dynamic meditation in others.
Album opener, “Requiem,” a solo work, features unmoored overdubbed percussion instruments that appear after a brief bit of sample rain. In Isam’s hands, scrapers, claves, and other forms of metal and wooden instruments appear less tied to any given ethnic tradition, reaching instead towards a freer form of music. The bird song of “Alto Paraiso” gives way to the multi-layered, polyrhythmic hand drummed and gamelan-led atmosphere that’s as untethered to its ground as it is hanging from the branches of universal jungle music. In Isam’s hands this kind of music feels of the spirit found in the parallel “mind music” of the Mkwaju Ensemble.
Although this CD is dedicated to Osho’s vision, it’s Isam’s ability to let others into his world to expand his palette that allows Alto Paraiso to really take flight. You hear this joyful interchange in songs like “Innocent Children” with friend and bassist Masayoshi Kabe and Hiroki Okano on flute, who bring their own lively vibrations to the music, letting Isam update his take on his earlier, esoteric leanings.
Other impressive tracks on this album, like “光彩陸離 (Kousairikuri) ～Requiem (そよ風 Soyokaze II),” introduce new contours to Isam’s music, fusing contemporary synths and melismatic singing from another Osho devotee, Neera, with his unplaceable percussive talents, landing on his own kind of impressive Japanese healing music. Char (aka Hisato Takenaka), another Osho disciple, settles in on “巡礼 (Junrei)” on electric sitar to lay down gorgeous, spare drones that roll down this long, languid track perfect for drifting off.
The album begins to wind down with “Child Kundalini,” Isam’s reimagining of his earlier work with a newfound collection of ideas drawn from so many worldly music traditions. Overdubbed kalimbas, clangs of all nature, and mallet instruments impress (once again) with an atmosphere well-suited for dynamic inner meditation. And then, as if to usher us elsewhere, the album’s final track “諸行無常 (Shogyomujyo)” pulls everything back, playing all sorts of bells, in one ear and out the other, lingering on the resonance of beautiful sounds that have a finite start and end.
In this, its closing track, Isam lands on the true spirit behind the album — Shogyomujyo — how nothing is permanent. It’s a lesson I take with me after listening to the record. Every time I play Alto Paraiso, I count my blessings on all the people, places, and journeys that allowed me to get to his work. In the end, good fortune shines on those that are fortunate.
