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Ikue Mori

Ikue Mori (もりいくえ, Mori Ikue^?) (b. 1953,Tokyo, Japan) is a drummer, composer, and graphic designer. She often records on Tzadik, as well as designing the covers for many of their albums. Mori has played on many projects led by composer John Zorn.

Mori was born and raised in Japan. She says she had little interest in music before hearing punk rock. In 1977, she went to New York City, initially for a visit, but she fell into the music scene, and has remained in New York since.

Her first musical experience was as the drummer for no wave band DNA, which also featured East Village hero, Arto Lindsay. Though she had little prior musical experience (and had never played drums), Mori quickly developed a distinctive style: One critic describes her as "a tight, tireless master of shifting asymmetrical rhythm"[1], while Lester Bangs wrote that she "cuts Sunny Murray in my book" (Bangs, 303) His comment is no small praise, as Murray is widely considered a major free jazz drummer.

After DNA disbanded, Mori became active in the New York experimental music scene. She abandoned her drum set, and began playing drum machines, which she sometimes modified to play various samples. Critic Adam Strohm writes that she ""founded a new world for the instrument, taking it far beyond backing rhythms and robotic fills."[2] In recent years she has used a laptop as her primary instrument, but is still sometimes credited with "electronic percussion".

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. The trio released two albums, Death Ambient (1995) and Synaesthesia (1999).

In early 1999 Mori participated in a Sonic Youth side project that included bassist/vocalist Kim Gordon, guitarist/vocalist Thurston Moore, Chicago avant-garde veteran Jim O'Rourke, and indie-rock guitarist Stephen Malkmus. The project was named Kim's Bedroom. They never released an album, but did play a few live shows.

Beyond her solo recordings, she has recorded or performed with Dave Douglas, Butch Morris, Kim Gordon, and many others, including as Hemophiliac, a trio with Zorn and singer Mike Patton , as well as being a member of Zorn's Electric Masada.

Her latest recording, Myrninerest, is inspired by outsider artist Madge Gill. Her 2000 release, One Hundred Aspects of the Moon was inspired by famed Japanese artist Yoshitoshi.

• IkueMori.com (official site)
• Discography of Ikue Mori
• Ikue Mori, Interviewed by Theresa Stern, November 1997

• Bangs, Lester, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock'N'Roll, 1988