MUSIC REVIEW : Japanese Kodo Drummers Perform at Royce Hall

Sado Island in the Sea of Japan is not the birthplace of sadomasochism--but you begin to wonder when you see the island’s most famous export: Kodo, “the children of the drum.”

Playing from the most excruciating positions imaginable--in a low squat-stance (“Miyake”), for example, or in a lay-back (“Yatai Bayashi”), so that each drumbeat requires a sit-up--this 12-man, communal company aims for the absolute in force, precision, stamina, teamwork and self-abnegation.

Watching Yoshikazu Fujimoto attack the 800-pound O-daiko high on a platform at Royce Hall on Tuesday, you saw each rib, every ligament, all his vertebrae under skin stretched so taut that he might have been a drum himself.

Clearly this was not just a performance, not “merely” drumming, but some sort of engulfing, metaphysical test. And thus the burst of playful celebration (and individuality) in the finale seemed like a frat-house party after finals--or whatever 20th-Century samurai do after proving themselves worthy.

With its low, steady tattoos rising inexorably to a roaring storm, Maki Ishii’s “Monochrome” again proved Kodo’s most intimidating showpiece. Sometimes the seven players produced a light clatter like distant typewriters from their small drums. In other passages, their unison playing mixed with the throb of a gong and pounding assaults on big drums--or splintered into brilliantly coordinated irregular rhythms.

Roetsu Tosha’s “Chonlima” also offered relentless drum crescendos, along with motifs passed down a line of four drummers and punctuated by statements from a single large drum behind them. Like “Monochrome,” there were no solos here--but the fierce, punishing hammer-blow solos in “Miyake” by Eiichi Saito and, especially, Tatsuro Matsuzaki demonstrated individual mastery far less than a kind of unsparing selflessness.

Wisely, Kodo has broadened its repertory to embrace idioms far different than such scorched-earth Japanese specialties. “Yu-Karak” (new to UCLA) adapted Korean farmers’ music--Samul-Nori turf--for a relatively relaxed and spontaneous display led by the highly personable Leonard Mitsutada Eto. Composed by Eto, the piece featured two drummers playing a simple, one-stick pattern, two others making complex figures with two sticks and Eto himself using two sticks and two sides of his drum for maximum virtuosity.

Although Kodo’s methodical style in the new “Ryogen-no-hi” robbed Javanese gamelan playing of its sensuality (no cascades of bells; indeed, very few overtones), the contemplative flute and samisen interludes by Motohumi Yamaguchi and Yasukazu Kano showed that the company can excel at something other than drums and cymbals.

Performances continue through Sunday afternoon and mark the end of Kodo’s 10-week “One Earth” tour of the United States.