kyoka

Kyoka, an experimental electronic musician, started piano instruction during her preschool years and maintained the practice all the way through adolescence. Throughout those formative stages she also played with tape recorders, driven by a desire to improvise and create original pieces. Once she moved away from home to pursue economics studies in Tokyo, she acquired a Roland MC-505 drum machine, sequencer, and MIDI controller, using it to capture tracks that secured her earliest appearances on the Onpa label. The glitchy electro-pop album series titled Ufunfunfufu opened in 2008; 2 Ufunfunfufu and Ufunberlinfunfufuliveatnbi2009 arrived the following year, while 3 Ufunfunfufu closed the trilogy in 2010. Those projects prompted a connection with the German experimental techno imprint Raster-Noton, which issued Kyoka’s EP ISH in 2012 and the album Is (Is Superpowered) in 2014. The latter recording, a polished collection that moved from gentle electronic pop into lean industrial techno, came before her contribution to CI, the first full-length from the Diamond Version project led by Raster-Noton principals Byetone and Alva Noto. In 2016 she issued the short experimental EP titled SH.