LISA KORI

It’s here! Finally: My song ‘Lunar Year’ as I’d always hoped it would sound!

With Alex McMahon on Pedal Steel, and Matt Orenstein mixing and playing Bass VI, Lap Steel and Erhu Samples. Mastering by Kabby Sound Studios. Iconic cover art by Diego Romero and additional retouching by Dave Herr.

Stream it here:

I have been working on my first solo album for four years and I’m so happy it’s nearing completion. 

I’ve been itching to combine many threads-- my years of gigging in the Southwest Americana scene, my love of country and folk music, my background in experimental music, and my interest in understanding the music and culture of early Japanese and Chinese immigrants to America. So a Southwest country folk album that incorporates Japanese and Chinese music, a project that necessitates an experimental mindset and workflow... it’s a dream come true, haha!

During my time as an artist and designer, I worked on a lot of speculative design projects, creating work for imagined scenarios. I was part of a team that built an exhibit imagining the future of government, with wearable technologies and smart devices. I built wearables to fend off hypothetical brain-scanning surveillance. I prototyped a process to create custom clothing on the fly, imagining a hypothetical future of instant, custom-fit fashion. 

Lunar Year is on Bandcamp!

Full article here:

“I started writing music in elementary school. It was my favorite thing to do. As I got older, especially in my twenties, I deeply internalized all the negative things people said to me. I had fellow musicians say, “You know, only 3% of us will manage to make a career out of it,” or an ex-boyfriend’s mother tell me, “I’ve never met anyone in my life who was less prepared to survive financially than you are.”

There’s a cultural narrative that musicians and artists are worthless in society until they are successful, and then they are suddenly revered for “breaking through against the odds.” That narrative, along with the fact that I graduated into a recession, really made me feel I had to buck up and be more practical.

Then in 2013, one of my best friends died suddenly and tragically at the age of 26. It was a huge wake-up call. I had to remind myself that our lives aren’t guaranteed. If I died tomorrow, the thing I would regret most was giving up music because I was worried about failing in a conventional sense. It’s taken time, but over the last few years, I’ve gradually reoriented my life to make space for music.”

For a deeper look at Lisa’s creative process, Some Serious Business presents #FiftyQuestions to highlight folks who are creating, presenting, questioning, and critiquing. Each featured artist picks a handful of questions to answer.

Thank you, Some Serious Business! They have been supporting experimental art and music since the 70's and continue to do so!

Some of the most thoughtful questions I’ve answered are from their 50 Questions series, in the interview below:

https://someseriousbusiness.org/lisa-kori-releases-unseen/

I’m excited to share some new music! 

In 2017, after eight months of increasing exhaustion, weight loss and pain, I was finally diagnosed with Giardia, a parasite, and post-viral syndrome from a probable case of Chikungunya. Despite the acute illnesses resolving, I’ve been managing chronic fatigue and pain since. The song Quarantine is about being quarantined by the CDC in 2017 and grappling with the feeling of being trapped-- both physically, due to illness and forced isolation, and psychologically, struggling with the loneliness and ennui of a lost year sick in bed. The songs Unseen and Summon are mystical fever dreams about crossing over into the spirit world, asking for guidance, and emerging from illness with a deepened sense of gratitude, trust, and appreciation for the strangeness and fragility of life.

Unseen, 3-Track Single

1. Unseen

2. Quarantine

3. Summon

Really thankful to everyone who helped me make this: Will Floyd, who recorded and mixed the majority of the release, Timbo, who threw in some guitar wizardry, Eduardo Imasaka, who created the intricate and amazing cover art, and Will Dyar, who mastered it to perfection.

Unseen on Bandcamp:

https://lisakori.bandcamp.com/album/unseen

Unseen on Spotify:

Excited to be published! Ethnomusicologist David Novak and I co-authored a chapter in the forthcoming 3rd Edition of Handmade Electronic Music by Nicolas Collins. Years ago, I did an independent research project that surveyed electronic art and music communities around the world. It has been sitting on the back burner in the meantime; I hadn’t found myself in the right situation with the right resources to pursue it further. I’m honored that Nic Collins asked me if I’d been interested in revisiting and updating that body of research for his forthcoming book. I really hope this contribution gives credit to some of the amazing, community-minded artists and organizations out there who are swimming against the current in order to continue making important work.

These people warm my soul. So does the music we make together.