Kyoka
(Japan/Germany)

Biography

What on earth is a Kyoka?
Simply a solo artist whose cut-up-and-dance laptop electronica suggests more screws loose than fully tightened? Her style has seen her labelled as anything from a pop idol to a noise artist. And as it is usually the way, the truth lies somewhere in between. Starting her solo career at university as a side-project to her school band, Kyoka quickly found herself favouring ever-more unusual outlets for her scatterbrain sound. Finding J-pop utterly unpalatable, she began to look overseas, finding live shows in Europe and the US as well as presenting her own show on Britain’s Resonance FM, Postcards From Kyoka. Kyoka is finding fans all over the world – from Japanese experimental king Ryuichi Sakamoto, by whom she was invited to join his project, to Stooges/Minutemen bassist Mike Watt, who played her music almost every time of his recent podcast shows and who recorded bass for her sound. Her songs have ranked in the Top 2, Top 5, Top 20 and Top 50 radio charts in Japan and the US, and Amsterdam fanzine Daruma has described her as “a freestyle broken pop beat artist”, a description that fits nicely, thanks very much. On top of all that, she performs in unhinged female duo group, who have also been invited by Sakamoto to join the other project; has collaborated with Mike Watt (of the Stooges, Minutemen) CurseOvDialect (mush records), Hypo (Active Suspension, Spymania, Afterhours, Intik) etc. She appears in TV ads for Honda as a musician, she used to be a columnist for a magazine, and has had music on compilations like the Chrome Hearts Magazine’s vol.6 (cover: Karl Lagerfeld) /vol.7 (cover: Cher) in Japan, Hongkong and America. Not bad for a girl who “just wanted to follow her honest taste”. Here is Kyoka from Berlin with her second album being due up shortly. She has joined forces with the french Antonin Gaultier aka Digiki who is, aside from his musical career, modeling for Adidas in Japan. And once more there is also a tune included to which Mike Watts of Minutemen/The Stooges, who was also featured on the first album, contributes some of his bass-play. With her first album, although being a bit paranoiac, Kyoka, who is still fresh in our minds with her break-in to the Top 10 of 2008 in Japan's well-known "Music Magazine" and the project "Stop Rokkasho" with Ryuichi Sakamoto and others, has shown a very experimental new dance music which let to the development of a certain formula concerning solid audio constructions. This music proceeds to the next step with this second album.
In August 2008, the committee meeting "Berlin Music Commission" organized by one of the major producers and prominent German media companies - Piranha Music - and others have planned "AchtungMusic!", a compilation album gathering artists representing Berlin. From entries of more than 250 artists residing all over Berlin, Kyoka's "ybe ybe", which is included in Kyoka's first album "ufunfunfufu", was selected for the compilation. Taking advantage of this, she was invited to play live at one of the biggest music showcases during the Popkomm 2008.

This ended in a huge success. Now, with the acknowledgements of the gig so far being very high, one by one more stage appearances are to be expected. We still remember her gig in berlin on 3rd Dec 2008. It was the kind of surprise. At that show, Frank Bretschneider was expected his solo show after Kyoka's performance. But it did not go smoothly because of their machine problem and so on. Then suddenly, they started improvisation session. It became, at last, the 40 minutes improvisation session between Frank and Kyoka. We could see the fantastic, geometric, cold patterns on the visual screen, then the are standing at the each end of screen. Frank totally sprayed the audience with the keen, sharp, exquisite and dry rhythm pattern. Furthermore Kyoka also sprayed his sound with a very dynamic bass, with much big and fast wave, racing around the venue. But actually what Kyoka did was to find something useful sound in her laptop, and edit these sounds waves immediately to match Frank's sound. Then when she thinks "It is time to go!" She suddenly made her volume up with the tremendous acceleration mood with her own mixer. It reminds us the fight between tiger & dragon. Afterwards, we asked he about this sudden session.She just unemphatically said "to tell you the truth, I am just good at this kind of improvisation." and smiling. We all found she is too amazing. Not only the media people and CD shop stuff etc. experienced this breathtaking moment ,and sure she won many plaudits from people. We recognize this gig as one of the legendary performance in the berlin-electric-music history.

Kontakt
www.myspace.com/kyoka

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Artists
Nannue Tipitier (Thailand), Kyoka (Japan/Germany), Daito Manabe (Japan), Stereotyp & Cee (Austria) feat. AraByrd (Malaysia), Sonicbrat (Singapur), 8gg (China), Heri Dono (Indonesia), Tri Minh & DJ Kruise (Vietnam), Elsa Okazaki (Japan/Austria), VJ Azz (Taiwan/Austria), Nuphlo (India/UK), Constanze Ruhm (Austria), Coconami feat. Ferdl Schuster (Japan/Germany), Klangküche (Austria), Pinie Wang (China/Austria), Belki (Russia), Albert Rivkin (Russia), DJ Kulisch (Austria), Ganzha (Kazakhstan), Park Modern (Russia), ANTIPHoDES (Russia), Elisabeth Penker (Austria), Susanne Rogenhofer (Austria), Tran Vu Van Anh (Vietnam), Eun Jung Yim (South Korea/Austria), Ami Han (South Korea/Austria)Hilery Tsui (Hong Kong/Austria), Jun Yang (China/Austria)and others