The new album by Jun Yasuba's A-Chang Project, "Harara Rude," should be heralded as a major new album of Okinawan music. However, Yasuba is at present unknown to even Okinawan music aficionados. It took her two years to sell 500 of the first An-Chang Project albums, "Yarayo-Uta no Sahanji," and at present, she isn't expecting much more from the second.

"I've pressed 1,000 this time, so it might take four years to sell them," she says. "Anyway, I'll be sleeping with them all around me for a while."

The music that she creates, along with Yoshie Uno and Natsuki Hattori, her friends and co-conspirators from her former group Shisars, is certainly unlike any other Okinawan music by either local musicians or mainlanders who have offered their take on this country's most vibrant folk music. The songs are mostly traditional, but are sung in harmony, whereas usually the vocals are sung in unison.

"Harara Rude" sounds at first like a random collage of sounds: sudden, unexpected rhythm and key changes, punctuated by a cappella bursts of Bulgarian-like voices and some seriously weird guitar knob twiddling. Random, but in the end, cleverly cohesive.

This quite radical approach is not, however, part of an attempt to "update" Okinawan music. It is simply born out of their own desire to naturally express themselves. "All I want to do is just let the audience feel like they want to sing," Yasuba says.

"We're not from Okinawa, just fond of Okinawan music. We can't and don't want to imitate Okinawan music, because we already have our own history and our own favorite music, so we put everything together that's inside us -- our past, hearts and minds -- to express ourselves.

"We never think that we want to update Okinawan music; we'd probably destroy traditional songs! What we did receive from the southern islands of Okinawa is the notion of the power that people, anybody, can sing and that songs can spring out from your usual life."

Jun Yasuba was born in Kyoto in 1959 and grew up on the usual diet of "kayokyoku" (Japanese-style pop) and some Western music especially the Beatles. She first became interested in Japanese min'yo after hearing a work song from Miyazaki titled "Kariboshi Kiriuta" while at junior high school.

"There are two types of min'yo. One you can still hear on the TV today. It's a kind of sophisticated style, a bit like enka, but the melody has been changed and it's been adapted to the usual Japanese scale. But the original was totally different and that was the one I loved, in its original major scale. Everywhere in Japan the same thing has happened to min'yo. Okinawa, though, is different; they've always had their own special scale."

Yasuba first became interested in Okinawan music after hearing an early Shokichi Kina and Champloose recording. "I was fascinated by the music's beat and melody, so in 1980 I went to Okinawa although I had no idea about Okinawan music. It wasn't just the music though; I wanted to know about everything."

She went as far south and west as she could go in Japan, to the island of Yonaguni. She spent the winter working at a sugar beet factory, as well as finding out about the music.

"At that time I didn't know the difference between Okinawa and Yonaguni -- it was just the same to me, but in fact it's very different, including the traditional songs."

After returning to Kyoto she started to learn the sanshin, before moving to Tokyo and joining a circle of sanshin players. Here she met Akemi Mochida, and a few years later, in 1986, the two of them formed Shisars.

In 1992 they were joined by Yoshie Uno, who initially performed as a taiko drummer but soon contributed on vocals as well. Shisars' first and only album, "Kuwagi nu Shita de Biru," was released in 1996. Yasuba, however, was not on the CD.

"About five years ago I got sick and I couldn't sing. It took me nearly a year to get better and after that I just had to rest. I was very frustrated because I wanted to sing. I didn't know what to do, and after I got a bit better, Yoshie called me and said, 'Let's practice.' She really helped me."

Those practice sessions led to the formation of An-Chang Project. Vocal duties are shared between Yasuba and Uno, with Uno playing sanshin, and Yasuba the sanxien, the original Chinese version of the sanshin. The other instrumentation is provided by Shisar's guitarist Natsuki Hattori, who cares as much about the spaces in between the notes as his psychedelic guitar sound.

In addition to that guitar, the other most striking aspect of their music is those harmony vocals. "I happened to hear on the radio a song from the South Pacific, from Gilbert Island in Kiribati, 'Ta Berante' which they sang in harmony. That was actually the original Japanese way of singing. Okinawan music, though, has never been sung in harmony, but that's how I wanted to sing, like in the Pacific Islands."

Yasuba seems quite happy to keep a low profile, at least for the time being. "We didn't really try and promote ourselves. For me now, my job is very important [teaching Japanese to returnees from China] and that inspires me to sing. I have a firm belief that sounds should be born from where you live or how you live, so my work lets me create."

Included on the European release "Rough Guide to the Music of Japan," An-Chang Project's track "Amagoi Bushi" has probably garnered the biggest response overseas. In April, the band will also grace the cover of Folk Roots, a leading world and roots music magazine.

Indeed anyone can be charmed by the haunting beauty of An-Chang Project's music. The hard part is just getting to hear it, or even better, seeing them live.