My son introduced me to a song by Steven 'n' Seagull, a Finnish band that does bluegrass takes on rock standards like AC/DC's Thunderstruck. It was totally amazing. I was checking out their website, hoping they would be touring somewhere near me. No such luck but on their blog they had a link to what they called "Japanese bluegrass." This led to a link to "Shamisen Under the Cherry Blossoms II - Ki&Ki. Go ahead, take a moment and listen to this. Pretty awesome, isn't it? This led to me looking up the shamisen in general and this group in particular. I was fascinated at how this old, traditional instrument was used to play very non-traditional music. The suggested links on this video included this video by a duo called the Yoshida Brothers. I loved the energy and enthusiasm that they were playing with and started exploring their music. Kodo was awesome but Overland Blues even more so. Sounds like something that might have been played on Firefly.