Ikue Mori
Her first musical experience was as the drummer for seminal no wave band DNA. After DNA disbanded, Mori became active in the New York experimental music scene. She began playing drum machines, which she sometimes modified to play various samples. In 1995, she began collaborating with Japanese bass guitarist Kato Hideki (from Ground Zero), and together with experimental guitarist Fred Frith (from Henry Cow), they formed Death Ambient. Beyond her solo recordings, she has recorded or performed with Dave Douglas, Butch Morris, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, and many others. With Zeena Parkins, she records and tours as duo project Phantom Orchard.
Her first musical experience was as the drummer for seminal no wave band DNA. After DNA disbanded, Mori became active in the New York experimental music scene. She began playing drum machines, which she sometimes modified to play various samples. In 1995, she began collaborating with Japanese bass guitarist Kato Hideki (from Ground Zero), and together with experimental guitarist Fred Frith (from Henry Cow), they formed Death Ambient. Beyond her solo recordings, she has recorded or performed with Dave Douglas, Butch Morris, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, and many others. With Zeena Parkins, she records and tours as duo project Phantom Orchard.
Elevator Music
Big tip! Laptop electronics pioneer Ikue Mori joins forces with vocalist Charmaine Lee for their highly anticipated debut release, Elevator Music, on Lee’s newly launched Kou Records. This 7” record marks the first official recording from the duo, whose collaboration began in 2019, and showcases their extraordinary blend of laptop electronics, modular synthesis, and the voice. Elevator Music captures the duo’s omnivorous imagination, merging Lee’s unique vocal techniques with Mori’s ever-evolvin…
Hit Parade of Tears
"Hit Parade of Tears" is an album inspired by the short stories of Japanese author Izumi Suzuki, married to musician Kaoru Abe, who tragically ended her life at the age of 36. Suzuki's wholly original short stories paved the way for the science fiction genre and in many ways predicted the cyberpunk movement. Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins have created a beautiful and mysterious collection of musical miniatures that reference Suzuki's sensibility with remarkable feeling and compassion. A touching tr…
Tracing The Magic
*In process of stocking.* "Tracing The Magic" is Ikue Mori's most varied and fabulous CD to date, and an absolute masterpiece. Seven pieces, each inspired by (and dedicated to) women artists whose powerful visions and and creativity led them to create well into the 80s and 90s: Joan Jonas, Louise Bourgeois, Agnes Martin, Judit Reigl, Leonora Carrington, Jakucho Sekuchi, and Toko Shinoda
The ensembles are some of today's most exciting musicians, including new friends (Charmane Lee, Sae Hashimoto)…
Archipelago X
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* Laptop wizard Ikue Mori, master keyboardist Brian Marsella and classical percussion virtuoso Sae Hashimoto are Archipelago X, a dynamic new trio born during the 2020 pandemic. Recording at their home studios and exchanging tracks back and forth for months, the music is detailed, evocative and dramatically mysterious, blending electronica, classical, ambient, film soundtrack, pop and jazz into a remarkably original aggregate. Inspiring and engaging music by t…
Obelisk
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* Universally acclaimed as a pioneer in live laptop electronics, Ikue’s signature style is still uniquely her own and has influenced two generations of laptop performers. Her new band project Obelisk is a super-band featuring three of the most acclaimed and original players in the Downtown scene—Okkyung Lee, Jim Black and Sylvie Courvoisier. Ikue’s startling compositions blend gorgeous melodies with hypnotic rhythms and evocative soundscapes. Strange and beaut…
Seven ElectroAcoustic Septet
UK multi-reed master Evan Parker brings an all-star electroacoustic septet to the 2014 Victoriaville Festival for the massive and wonderfully detailed two part composition "Seven", performed with Peter Evans, Okkyung Lee, George Lewis, Ikue Mori, Sam Pluta, and Ned Rothenberg.
Stone, Brick, Glass, Wood, Wire - Photo-Graphic Scores 1992-95
**2 x CD box** Fred Frith's large, flexible ensemble project using marked photographs and rules as scores and featuring as permanent members Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins. Recordings are taken from five concerts, including the first in 1992 at AngelicA festival, and features 44 musicians, including: Jean Derome, Lesli Dalaba, Paulo Angelli, Co Streif, Rene Lussier, Jean Marc Montera, Guy Klucsevek, Myra Melford, Han Bennink, Chris Cutler, Daan Vandewelle, Massimo Simonini, and Hans Koch. Includes …
Syr 05
Taking a breather from the Free Kitten snazz (while Miss Julie births Alice and teaches inner city high school, Yoshimi lives about 10,000 miles away and Mark Ibold is aswamp in the madness that is Pavement), Sonic Youth's femme-mystere Kim Gordon has created a distinctly new trio of spontaneous composition and prose. Since reclaiming the electric guitar (her original instrument with the Sonic Youth) and developing a newfound post-Patty Waters free-vox technique, she has enjoined her vision with…
Chordis Et Machina
Ikue Mori and Christian Rønn are twin masters of unrule, radically attuned to time and sound, invoking the personhood of space and object, chordis et machina, as you'll soon discover once their music gets loose in your own environ. “Endless probing that hooks into your neurons, this album leaves sonic organisms floating around you. Even if that's merely an illusion, the alchemy of Mori and Rønn’s hyperactive stew is very real.” -Marc Masters Laid down at Elektron Musik Studion (EMS) in Stockholm…
Miller's Tale
Miller's Tale is the high point of the collaboration of the distinctive musicians Sylvie Courvoisier, Mark Feldmann, Evan Parker and Ikue Mori. In September 2015, they recorded the fully improvised pieces for this album. The album's track sequencing of first four whole group pieces followed by five duo pieces offer multifaced aural impressions and a rich listening experience. Henning Bolte writes in the liner notes: "Our ears usually first adhere to the known, the familiar. But they 'squint' to …
Light In The Shadow
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* A winner of electronic music awards in Europe and the United States, Ikue Mori is one of the most respected composers working in the growing field of laptop electronics. A dedicated and passionate perfectionist, she has created a completely unique and original sound world unlike any other electronic composer around. Her newest CD adds a beautiful melodic twist to her moody, detailed and unique soundscapes and is her most stunning creation to date. Essential …
Scrumptious sabotage
A recording of live performances which brought together two essential figures of the contemporary scene: an oustanding Norwegian composer and vocal artist Maja S.K. Ratkje and a celebrated improviser and composer, former DNA drummer, Ikue Mori. The common sound territory, created together by Mori and Ratkje, balances between quietly growing tension and powerful outbursts of unrestrained, relentless noise. Within this harmony, Ratkje takes adventurous excursions towards the borders and unknown fa…
Prediction and Warning
“Steve Noble [‘s] armoury of textures and tones is an acoustic mirror of [Ikue] Mori’s electronica, and just as spellbinding. He attacks his orthodox, loose-skinned drum kit from all angles, lays upturned gongs on the drumheads and is a master of orthodoxy as well as the avant-garde. His duet with Mori was the evening’s highlight, a pulsating welter of scrapes, thumps and press rolls interrupted by silences made sinister by the tick of an off-kilter metronome.” – Mike Hobart, Financial TimesIkue…
Class Insecta
One of the pioneers of laptop electronics, Ikue Mori has been breaking new ground on the musical frontier for three decades. From her early days in the landmark no wave band DNA, to her years as a regular in the downtown improvisation community and more recently as one of the epicenters of the international laptop electronic scene, Ikue has become an underground hero -- yet her work is still sorely underappreciated. This newest solo CD features Ikue's idiosyncratic take on contemporary dance rhy…