EPICANTHUS

[Update: Potato Hole by Booker T. Jones (of Booker T. and the MGs fame) took the Grammy in the Best Pop Instrumental Album category, Jan. 31]

Scanning the Grammy nominations for 2009 2010 just after they came out tonight, I thought I was hallucinating when I saw that the Asian American fusion band Hiroshima had been nominated in the Best Pop Instrumental category for Legacy, the group’s 17th album, a compilation of the band’s body of work from its first ten years of existence.

“We thought we should celebrate surviving 30 years in this bizarre industry somehow and some kind of ‘best of’ seemed appropriate—except we couldn’t decide on the songs.  So then we turned to our fans, and we truly appreciated the overwhelming response as to what should be our Top 10,” writes Hiroshima co-founder Dan Kuramoto, 64.

Hiroshima, formed in the mid-1970s, pioneered the mixing of traditional Asian instruments like the koto, shakuhachi, biwa and taiko with jazz and rock elements. In recent years their sound has been genre-ed as urban world music.

This year’s Grammy awards ceremonies will be held  Jan. 31 at Staples Center in a  ceremony to be telecast on CBS-TV. Awards are determined by more than 12,000  voting members of the Recording Academy from recordings released between Oct. 1,  2008 and Aug. 31, 2009.

• Nominees list: 52nd Annual Grammy Awards
• Hiroshima, official website
• Hiroshima (Band), Wikipedia