Shizuka

There is more than one artist with this name. 1) Shizuka (静香) was a Japanese band, named for lead vocalist and songwriter Shizuka Miura. The core lineup also included her husband, guitarist Maki Miura, who was also in Les Rallizes Dénudés and Fushitsusha; bassist Takehayu Harakawa; and Fushitsusha drummer Jun Kosugi. They were active — using a generous definition of that word — in the early to mid '90s. They started out with four self-released cassettes containing a mix of live music and home recordings. They then made a single studio album, 1994's Heavenly Persona, for the legendary PSF label, and continued playing the occasional gig. In 1995, they released the self-explanatory Live Shizuka on Persona Non Grata, then disappeared. In 2000, a live CD-R, Tokyo Underground '95, popped up on the Last Visible Dog label, apparently sourced from a tape owned by the bassist. Eight more years passed, and another live album, Traditional Aesthetics, was issued, again on PSF. In 2010, Shizuka Miura took her own life. Shizuka's music was psychedelic, but in that particularly early '90s Japanese style that also shows up on Fushitsusha's Live II, Keiji Haino's Affection, Kousokuya's self-titled album and Ray Night 1991-1992 Live, and some of the gentler Acid Mothers Temple material. They wanted to lull you into a depressive trance and make you cry, rather than destroy your brain with distortion and volume (though they could do that, too). This was very different from the "noise" scene active at the same time, or the ultra-heavy post-garage rock psychedelia of High Rise, Mainliner, Musica Transonic et al., but it was all kinda lumped together by critics at the time, which is unfortunate. The connection to Fushitsusha is obvious, of course, since both Maki Miura and Jun Kosugi were members of that group, but Shizuka had something else going on. The dynamic between vocalist and guitarist, the latter supporting his wife on her artistic journey wherever it might take her, is the key to the whole thing. — Burning Ambulance 2) A five piece (Aida, Cristóbal, Pablo, Raúl, Toni) from Sevilla, Spain. 3) S.H.I.Z.U.K.A. - a french IDM musician. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.