A soy sauce brewery in western Japan has swapped the smell of fermenting beans for the roar of death metal.
On Sept. 14, the brewery hosted an unusual festival called “Soy Deathfest” in Yasugi, Shimane Prefecture, bringing together eight bands and over a hundred fans. Organisers hope the event will help rebrand the steelmaking city through a blend of tradition and subculture.
Death metal, a branch of heavy metal from the 1980s, is marked by speed, distortion and growling vocals. It has fans worldwide. But hearing it in a soy sauce brewery is almost unheard of in Japan.
Soy sauce is a cornerstone of Japanese cooking. Made from fermented soybeans and wheat, it has flavoured dishes from sushi to noodle soups for centuries. Founded in 1920, Yada Soy Sauce Brewery continues to produce a standard dark soy sauce (koikuchi) with a clean, crisp taste, a lighter, more refined usukuchi soy sauce, as well as kinzanji miso made with added ingredients.
Here, the deep bass and growling shouts of death metal mixed with the sweet, fermented aroma unique to the soy sauce brewery. The overwhelming sound pressure seemed to make the wooden barrels used for brewing soy sauce tremble ever so slightly. This unexpected fusion of noise and fermentation became the most striking scene of the event.
Haruka Tsuchida, a local resident who helped organise the event, said:
“Metal music has overwhelming energy. That heat can resonate in people’s hearts and ripple out in many directions.”
Food stalls run by local restaurants and sake shops lined the venue, adding to a festival atmosphere where visitors could enjoy Yasugi’s flavours along with the music.
Yasugi has long been known as a city of steel. It is home to Proterial’s Yasugi Works, which supplies blade steel worldwide. The wider region also preserves the tradition of tatara iron-making, and the furnaces of Okuizumo are said to have inspired the ironworks depicted in Studio Ghibli’s film Princess Mononoke.
The city is also known for its cultural heritage. The Yasugibushi folk song, one of Japan’s three great folk ballads, is performed with humorous dances that often involve audience participation. The Adachi Museum of Art is renowned for its Japanese garden, which has topped US-based rankings for more than 20 years. Local cuisine includes dojo (loach) hot pot, a traditional dish reflecting the region’s culinary roots.
Eight bands from across Japan performed at the brewery, creating what Yada describes as a new kind of festival that links tradition with modern subculture. He hopes the event will help rebrand Yasugi as a “city of metal,” while encouraging outsiders to rediscover local culture.
By using a soy sauce brewery — a symbol of traditional industry — as the stage, the festival marked a first step in presenting Yasugi to the world as a city of metal. With music, food and history intersecting, the event points to new possibilities for tourism and regional branding.
Yasugi is about 30 minutes by train from Matsue, the capital of Shimane Prefecture, and 45 minutes from Yonago in neighbouring Tottori. From Tokyo, direct flights from Haneda Airport to Yonago Kitaro Airport take about 90 minutes, with onward train or car connections to Yasugi in around 40 minutes.
ーWords by Takashi Saito
Access Information
Address
131 Nakatsu-cho, Yasugi City, Shimane Prefecture 692-0061, Japan
Contact
Tel: +81-854-22-2338
Opening Hours
9:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Closed
Sundays and national holidays
Parking
Free
Access
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10 minutes by car from Yasugi IC (Interchange)
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10 minutes by car from JR Yasugi Station
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3 minutes on foot from “Jōhō Kagaku Kōkō-mae” bus stop (Yellow Bus line)