Ara nods a distracted "Hi" in the record company lobby. He is a burly, bearded man in jeans, bristling with rings and earrings. He doesn't say much. We move to a large table with his managers and guitarist. "Do you often come to Tokyo?" "No." "What do you think of the city?" Ara's eyes narrow. He leans forward with a sarcastic smile. "It's really good fun." He sits back, a defiant glint in his eyes. "It's not that Ara hates Tokyo," offers guitarist, Masaaki Uechi. "Only when I have to work here," says Ara. Like most Okinawans, he holds the mainland in sardonic contempt.

Ara and his six-piece band, Parsha Club, are being promoted at a Toshiba/EMI get-together called, "Now, The Music Conference '95 Tokyo." In the conference handbook, Ara is described as, "the leading artist of the new-generation Okinawan pop scene." The previous night, Parsha Club played a 15-minute set of three songs for the benefit of EMI and Virgin reps from 10 countries. How was it? "Like an audition," says Ara, miming a marionette puppet, a frozen smile on his face. What was the response? Uechi demonstrates by pursing his lips, folding his arms and looking down his nose.

Yet the timing is apt for Ara and Parsha Club. Nearly all of Okinawa's best-known acts--from the Nenes to Rinken Band to Shokichi Kina--are in their mid-40s. At 27, Ara is a young punk, and it shows in his attitude. "Rinken Teruya is old enough to be my father," he jokes.

Ara's father was a teacher of singing and the three string sanshin on the tiny island of Ishigakijima. When Ara reached sixth-grade in elementary school, his father took him on as a deshi, or apprentice. The old man was--still is--a strict teacher. "He hasn't praised me once," says the apprentice, who even now gets lessons whenever he goes back home (he now lives in Naha). "I'm still his deshi."

Ara's voice is remarkable; strong and raw in the true min'yo manner, and almost liquid in the way it soars, falls and floats. It is worth seeing Parsha Club for Ara's voice alone. Unfortunately, the band's first, self-titled album swamps it in a stew of disparate styles, a problem that so many "world" pop acts seem to share. Which is not to say the seven-piece ensemble does not play well; there is simply so much here--from fusion synthesizers to Andean flute sounds, brass funk, rock and blues--that the variety cancels out the individuality. Ironically, the album's strongest track, the melancholy "Sakiyama," is built on little more than Ara's powerful voice, sanshin and a touch of guitar and keyboard. There is a universe here, in this plaintive, simple song. Perhaps this is what "world music" is about.

Yukito Ara and Parsha Club play at Club Quattro on 11/22 and release a new mini-album PARSHA on 11/29 from Toshiba EMI.