Mieko Shimizu aka ‘Mico’ is a prolific London based Japanese composer, singer and producer, with several diverse and accomplished albums already under her belt. She erupted onto the scene with the searing audio art of her alter ego Apache 61, fusing layers of cross woven breaks and shattered percussion, whilst battling shards of sub bass within stateless melodies drawn from the fringes of the avant-garde.  Her forthcoming album, 'My Tentacles' sees her return to a deeper more reflective state in the cavernous depth of sumptuous symphonic songs that oscillate with glitchy electronica. It's quite simply a gorgeous album, interleaving magical melodies and rich harmonics; with songs that are both beautiful in their sincerity and tantalising in their complexity.

She has collaborated with Mick Karn (ex-Japan), David Cunningham (The Flying Lizards) and Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot) and re-mixed the likes of Coldcut and Yellow Magic Orchestra, Haruomi Hosono of the cult electro-pop act, signed “the Japanese Drum’ n Bass Ninja”, to his label 'Daisy World'. Word quickly spread of her incredible live shows bringing a steady stream of appearances as far a field as Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Japan as well Sonar, alongside the mighty Kraftwerk. She has released tracks on compilations by hip Berlin Label Monika which works with artists who have turned away both from the glossy world of corporate clubbing and the tired formulae of indie guitar rock.' Recent works included collaboration with Nitin Sawhney and the London Symphony Orchestra on Japanese silent film 'Yogoto no Yume' by Mikio Naruse at The Barbican and a commission for the exciting 21st vision of what opera might become; Opera Shots.

Adding yet another string to her bow, Mico was recently made an 'Emerging Artist in Residence’ at London's Southbank Centre where she collaborated with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall with her own orchestral compositions. Mico has recently been working on the quirky animation film 'Being Bradford Dillman' which premiered at this years at the London Film Festival also on the theatrical production of 'Lost Monsters' at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre, as well as scoring for contemporary dance company Phoenix Dance Theatre (Leeds) and for the Ballet ‘The Red Balloon’ with choreographer Aletta Collins at London's Royal Opera House.

'My Tentacles' is due for release in January 2012.  Prepare to experience an astonishing piece of work.


Douglas Boyce writes chamber music that draws on Medieval and Renaissance traditions and modernist aesthetics, building rich rhythmic structures that shift between order, fragmentation, elegance, and ferocity.  His approach is deeply historical and broadly philosophical.  Many of his works have an direct historical touchstone, such as his  Etude on 'Pymalion qui moult subtilz estoit' (A Book of Etudes, Quire 4, No. 1) which features quotations of and elaborations on music from 15th century Cyprus, or La Deploration for clarinet, violin, and cello, which couples Josquin's lament on the death of Ockeghem with works of his own teacher Robert Suderburg, synthesizing jazz and Renaissance approaches. Other works draw on sources from antiquity, such as the string quartet Alcyone, a partially spoken setting of a tale of Ovid's Metamorphoses, or Tethys, a violin concerto which links the sea-goddess to geological time and tectonic change.
Literature and philosophy are also significant points of articulation: The Winter Journey, a current project commissioned from the ensemble Yarn|wire, is based on a short story by George Perec; the story itself  takes the form of a 19th century fairytale of memory and loss, and so the new composition will involve transformation of the French and German art-song tradition of the 19th and early 20th century. A song cycle focused on settings of American poets (Jorie Graham, BJ Ward, Wallace Stevens) entwines with the poems fragments from philosophers (James, Aristotle, Husserl, Bergson). The piano trio 'Fortuitous Variations' draws upon the language of William James and C.S. Peirce in inspiration, organization, character markings, and movement titles. This approach and the works themselves connect to many aspects of the scholarship in the humanities, including history, anthropology, literary studies, and philosophy. 
His works have been praised many times in the press.  Regarding his Quintet “l’homme armé”, Allan Kozinn wrote “he couches [the medieval melody] in such thoroughly modern scoring that the ear is lured to other things, including the juxtaposition of eerie string writing with playful material for the clarinet and piano, or the lively interplay among all five instruments.” (The New York Times March 12, 2005.) Regarding A Book of Songs (2006), the Stephen Brookes wrote “[they] can only be described as drop-dead beautiful. Easily the most captivating works on the program, these songs of love and death are extraordinarily well written and insightful.” (The Washington Post May 23, 2006)  Regarding La Déploration, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim wrote that "...the violinist, cellist... and clarinetist... spread out throughout the crypt. Against vaporous harmonics and ghostly fragments of Renaissance music played by the strings, [a] warm, clear clarinet announced itself as very much alive as it sashayed in and out of blues territory and laughed in the face of their mournful keening." (The New York Times May 17, 2015.)
He has been awarded the League of Composers ISCM Composers Award (2005), the Salvatore Martirano Prize (2006), and the Robert Avalon Prize (2010), and a Fromm Commission (2012). He is a MacDowell Fellow in Winter 2017, and an Avaloch Music Farm Fellow in Fall 2017. His music has been performed by  counter)induction, Aeolus Quartet, Inscape Chamber Orchestra, Redlight Music, Dan Lippel, Robert Baker, Trio Cavatina, Edge Ensemble/Contemporary Music Forum (DC), pianists Ieva Jokubaviciute (Shenandoah University), Alice Belem (State University of Minas Gerais), and Ning Yu; cellists Elise Pittenger (Federal University of Minas Gerais) and Schuyler Slack (Richmond Symphony) and Lori Barnett (George Washington University); and clarinetists David Jones (Washington National Opera), Benjamin Fingland (Dorian Winds).
He is a founding member, curator, and composer-in-residence of counter)induction, a composer/performer collective active in the New York region (www.counterinduction.com).

FORTEAN ELECTRONICA - Songs about ghosts and witches, spirits and seances, haunted places and haunted people

Followers of Mieko Shimizu/Mico