Kyoka

Kyoka is the first solo female artist signed to what it used to be iconic German experimental label Raster-Noton (posteriorly split into raster-media and NOTON), home to artists like Alva Noto(a.k.a. Carsten Nicolai), Byetone, Frank Bretschneider, Ryuichi Sakamoto, William Basinski and Ryoji Ikeda. Kyoka is a Japan-born and Berlin-based, electronic producer, DJ, installation artist and field recorder, with an extraordinary capacity to explore and experiment with her pioneer type of approach to sound for her chaotic and direct musical approach and a heavy-rough sound, resulting in a broken pop-beat with experimental yet danceable rhythms. Her first contact with music was through the piano, the flute and the three-stringed traditional Japanese instrument used to accompany kabuki theatre. As a teenager, Kyoka experimented with tape recorders and improvised to make music of her own. After she left her home to study economics in Tokyo, Kyoka purchased a Roland drum machine. Kyoka first released in Raster-Noton in 2012 with the EP ISH (2012) followed by the album Is (Is Superpowered) in 2014, a production that stands out for the use of the composition with different field recordings, and drum machines that produce very rhythmic beats. About the experience of belonging to one of the most reputable labels, she said to us: “This experience is just great. Changed my life, positively, a lot. (…) There are no reasons to be competitive, for example. This is just fun, peaceful and productive.” Among her most outstanding songs is Link, a song with strong techno rhythmic basses with sound elements from the most contemporary electronics. Kyoka uses confusing voices with a troublesome message about something that is not going well. These voices break, repeat, and are barely heard. They are distorted and repeated until they lose consistency. Another theme is Hovering, adopted for global advertisement of Apple iPhone commercial, representative of syncopated electronics and the use of drum machines with breaking rhythms. It would be something similar to breakbeat without being entirely so. Would this be a message and a portrait of the loss of meaning in our society? Actually not, but this is along her long term concept about not to input any emotion for music composition. She thinks nothing should be emotionally controlled by listening to music.What is necessary is just discovering the brand-new/refreshing phenomenon which each persons can sensor by their own provided by sound/soundwave . In HADue, more broken voices appear, with erroneous messages that are almost unrecognisable, incomprehensible for the same reason. Kyoka also uses the drum machine, but because of the broken and distorted voices, the theme seems to be a type of techno more to be listened to rather than to dance. It could be compared to Plastikman experimental techno works, where he also used mysterious voices. Plastikman electronic music album Closer, with elements of techno minimal and acid, which appeared on the Label NovaMute M_nus in 2003, could be a reference. However, Kyoka does not explore the confines of the mystical and dark since it never loses the rhythmic foundations of electronic music. Kyoka continues to explore the territory of the voice with vocals that repeat almost incomprehensible words. Without abandoning the rhythmic basses, she creates unique combinations with the voices that, once fragmented into noise, become incomprehensible, almost transformed into sound textures, but keep pulling our attention and ears. Voices that are used as structural elements and rhythms, transformed into pure sound; voices that without a message become a simple rhythmic and sound structure. Kyoka style is full of broken repetitions and confused voices, dilutes styles, flees from definitions, is hybrid, and malleable, between the rhythmic foundations of techno, the nuances of electronics and the games with the voice that give it a more expressive and ground-breaking ability. By seeing her audience at the dance floor, you can see people are often even dancing in a variety of style. Through this, we can see her long term search trying not to control people without putting emotion in sound has create the situation of ” flees people” just to be along their sensors in a dry state. (Excerpt from Clotmag interview) Kyoka has presented live performances at Mutek(Montreal, Japan, Korea,Spain), Centre Pompidou(Paris), CTM(Berlin), Sonar(Tokyo), Volt Festival(Sweden), Plissken Festival (Greece, there she won No.2 best act.) etc. She has been invited to c.a. 31 countries, 94 cities. (the actual numbers as of March 2022 since 2012)