I never realised how much shamisen could sound like a banjo.

This guy is really good with the shamisen, he should spring for the geisha make up and kimono next time.

Tags changed from "dj kentaro, electric, shamisen, coming-of-age day, japanese" to "dj kentaro, electric, shamisen" by gold star member James Roe.

dj kentaro won in the Technics DMC World DJ Final in 2002. he was signed to ninja tune.
kinoshita shinichi is a tsugaru shamisen national A-rank champion.
this collaboration was aired on coming-of-age day (january) in japan.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Very cool.
More info on this instrument here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamisen

I will say that they seemed to be tuned to a non-traditional Western scale, resulting in a not very Japanese sound.

it's called shamisen. i guess it's more like a banjo. the impressive part is that there aren't any frets.