Shimada's hypnotic songs reflect her culture

Before Aiko Shimada left Japan for Oregon, her mother made her take lessons on the koto, a traditional Japanese stringed instrument.

"She said people are going to laugh at you if you are Japanese and you don't know anything about Japan," recalled the singer/guitarist, who still speaks English with a trace of an accent.

Mrs. Shimada needn't have worried. Though her 18-year-old daughter had little training in traditional culture, when she started writing songs, somehow, they came out "Japanese."

Culture's funny that way.

As slow-moving and ceremonial as a butoh dancer, as minimal and perfect as a Japanese house, Shimada's gorgeous, hypnotic songs use odd interval leaps and off-minor chords that are, if not specifically Japanese, certainly strange to Western ears.

Shimada plays on a marvelous double bill with one of her inspirations, Robin Holcomb (joined by her husband, keyboardist Wayne Horvitz) at 9:30 p.m. today at the OK Hotel (212 Alaskan Way S., Seattle; 206-621-7903; $10).

"Everything that's amazing about Japan stems from having that very simple outside, yet an inside full of complex strength," explains Shimada. "Overall, there's this incredible starkness. Of course I don't think every Japanese person is into that. But I guess I'm one of them."

Shimada, 37, is one of the most original and creative musicians on the Seattle scene. Though she usually gets put in the singer/songwriter bag, like Holcomb, she's not really a folkie, but an art songster, influenced by jazz, world music and modern classical music. Her gossamer soprano sometimes recalls Joni Mitchell, as do her careful dissonances, nonconformist structures and oddly built chords. Her lyrics have a distant, dreamlike quality.

Apart from koto lessons, she has no musical training, and didn't take up music until her mid-20s.

"All the chords I play are made-up chords," she explains, half-proud and half-apologetic. "Some of them don't make sense to other people."

Shimada made up her mind she wanted to come to America when, as a 9-year-old with a softball jones, she saw the movie "The Bad News Bears." At Oregon State University, she earned a bachelor's degree in American Studies and a master's in cross-cultural communication, women's studies and higher education. As she grew up, she listened to "really bad Japanese pop music," she says, before discovering jazz.

"I started listening to (Thelonious) Monk and Miles (Davis), and I thought, `This is the music I've been wanting to hear all my life.' "

She moved to Seattle in 1993. Since then, she's made three albums for her own label, Bera: "Another Full Moon," "Window" and "Bright and Dark." A new album, "Blue Marble," is due this winter from John Zorn's prestigious Tzadik label, produced by the brilliant Seattle violinist Eyvind Kang. Shimada's unusual band features Steve Moore (trombone and keyboards), Dave Carter (trumpet), Eric Eagle (drums) and her husband, Mark Collins (bass). Their mysterious textures and oblique approach to song form are hypnotic.

It's no surprise Shimada is a fan of Robin Holcomb, who specializes in stark simplicity, not to mention opaque lyrics and a side-interest in jazz. Holcomb's songs squint with a rock-hard skepticism, leavened by yearning for contact that is reminiscent of the great New England poet Emily Dickinson, despite Holcomb's Georgia background. If you saw the singer's magnificent show at Bumbershoot, you heard some of the new material she'll be singing tonight, such as "Like I Care," "Say Prayers" and "The Curve of a Hand." Her best work to date, these songs will appear on a new album for Nonesuch - the first album Holcomb has recorded in four years.

Holcomb and Shimada perform on separate sets, but will collaborate on a couple of songs.

On the straight-ahead jazz side, be sure to check out saxophonist Bud Shank, who celebrates the release of his roaring new CD, "Silver Storm" (Raw Records), Thursday through next Sunday at Jazz Alley. As on the disc, the band showcases Los Angeles legends Conte Candoli (trumpet) and Bill Perkins (piano), plus Bill Mays (piano), Bob Magnusson (bass) and the great Joe LaBarbera (drums).