I selected a koto ensemble cover of Lateralus by Tool. The original song is off of Tool’s 2001 album of the same title. The oto ensemble version was written by a journalist, dj, and musician, Brett Larner. Larner, originally from San Francisco, moved to Tokyo to study koto for his masters degree. He studied under Kazue Sawai, a woman renowned for her mastery of the instrument. On the YouTube video of the cover, Larner said he met an ensemble of koto players and proposed that they cover Lateralus. It took him ten months to create the arrangement. During this period, the cover was never played in full. This koto ensemble only ever played the full cover for one single performance.

When we were listening to East Asian music in class I was very drawn to the koto because it has such an interesting sound, like a harp and a violin combined. After looking online and finding that koto ensembles are popular in Japan, I decided to find an audio of one. I was very surprised to see a cover of a song by Tool. The original song is very metal/rock influenced, but the cover is soft and mystical which I really enjoy. They are also able to manipulate the koto to be very heavy, fast, and sharp as well. I found it interesting how Larner was able to make his own interpretation of the original song. Something that really shocked me was that the koto ensemble that played this song tried to record it for their CD, but Larner said that the piece was never right again, and that the magic only existed for that one night. The ensemble broke up soon after.