Shizuka (band)


Shizuka was a Japanese rock band that was founded in Tokyo around 1992 by Shizuka Miura. The band made mostly atmospheric, psychdelic-noise songs and was regarded for its distinctive style in the Tokyo psychedelic music scene. The band produced four albums in its eighteen years of existence, and generally remained undocumented and unknown.
Shizuka started out as a solo musical project by Shizuka Miura, but soon she formed a duo with Maki Miura. Afterward, the band Shizuka was formed with the joining of Jun Kosugi and Tomoya Hirata, who was later replaced with Tetsuya "Seven" Mugishima. Throughout its history, the band had many lineup changes but Shizuka and Maki remained together until Shizuka died in early 2010.
Shizuka's musical style was characterized by variations of psychedelic music, acid rock, folk music, free improvisation, and noise rock, some of which were influences from the underground rock scene in Japan. Maki Miura, who was once a member of Les Rallizes Dénudés and Fushitsusha, played a major role in the band's sound as the lead guitarist. Shizuka Miura was the sole singer; her vocals are often ethereal, reverberated, slow and tremulous, characteristics that connoted sadness and a "haunting, gothic atmosphere".
Of Shizuka's four albums, Heavenly Persona is a studio album that was released in 1994. The other three were live albums: Live Shizuka ; Tokyo Underground 20, Jul '95 ; and Traditional Aesthetics. They also had some video albums released such as Performance of Secret Songs in 2009, and Endless Dream in 2010. The latter is a visual tribute to Shizuka Miura, which contains one of the last live performances by her group recorded at the live venue ShowBoat in Tokyo on 30 December 2008.

History

1992–1994: Early years

In an interview from about 2002, Shizuka Miura claimed that, before forming the band, she "used to write poetry" and had accumulated a number of lyrics, but she "didn't know how to compose music at the time". In the same interview, Maki Miura said that Shizuka saw him writing songs and that she gradually learned how to compose music.
"In about 1992", Shizuka started creating music and composed three songs: "The Burial of a Shooting Star", "Pandora's Box", and "Fault". Later on, she staged three live performances, which included "renting venues, singing, playing, etc". All this was "done by Shizuka alone". The third time she performed, Maki was invited to attend the concert. Maki said he had positive impressions of her presentation. Afterward, Shizuka and Maki formed a musical duo together.
Around 1993, Fushitsusha drummer Jun Kosugi joined them. In circa September 1993, the trio appeared in the Tokyo Flashback 3, a various artists compilation album released by PSF Records, with the song "Glass Ribbon Unraveled". Also in about that year, bassist Tomoya Hirata joined the group. The earliest known appearance of him with Shizuka, Maki, and Jun was at live venue Manda-La2 in Tokyo on 8 November 1993. On 12 August 1994, they played at Japan's Studio AMS. These two Shizuka live performances were recorded on the Hi8 videocassette format, which was remastered by music producer Tetsuya Tanaka and reissued on the DVD-Video format by the label Fra, Inc. in Japan in December 2009, titled Hikyoku no Seiseki: Live at Manda-La2 1993 & Studio Ams 1994.

1994: Heavenly Persona

On 22 November 1994, Shizuka's first CD and only studio album, Heavenly Persona, was released in Japan by PSF Records. It has seven tracks, with a total length of 46 minutes. This album's concept was made by Shizuka Miura and dedicated to Japanese dollmaker. Steven Lowenthal and Peter Kolovos wrote on NPR that Heavenly Persona "features some of the most straightforward – yet equally magical – music within the PSF catalog".

1995: Live Shizuka and miscellaneous appearance

In 1995, Live Shizuka, Shizuka's first live album, was released in the United States by New Yorker record label Persona Non Grata. On this album's booklet, Shizuka Miura was credited for the vocals and electric guitar, Maki Miura for the electric guitar and for his musical assistance, Jun Kosugi for the drums, Tomoya Hirata for the bass guitar, and Amano Onkyo Giken for the recording engineering.
Also in 1995, the band Shizuka appeared in the compilation album of various artists Tokyo Flashback 4, released by PSF Records. It was the album's sixth track, "A Song for the World Left Behind". In the music production of this song, "the arrangement was completed in the first take", contrasting the band's usual creative process, which was to "listen to Shizuka and sing the songs", and then "spend some time thinking how to arrange the song". For this piece, Shizuka Miura said she used some texts from the Japanese epic poem Hotsuma Tsutae as lyrics to "complete the song".

: Lineup changes, American tour, and hiatus

Maki Miura said Shizuka's first bass player "couldn't keep up with" the band members' pace, having Maki himself to write the songs bass lines. He also told it became a major problem for the band, since its members were "used to completing the arrangement in the studio". Sometime after the release of Heavenly Persona in November 1994, singer Shizuka, Maki and Jun met Japanese musician Tetsuya Mugishima, also known by his pseudonyms "Seven" and "SevenZ". Tetsuya "Seven" Mugishima, as a musician, originally was a guitarist, but, according to Maki, "when he was a bass player, he was very competent and able to write a very beautiful bass line". Shizuka's members invited Seven to join the band as its bassist. In 1995, the music group Shizuka was "formally established", with singer and guitarist Shizuka Miura, lead guitarist Maki Miura, drummer Jun Kosugi and bassist Seven.
In 1995, with Seven, the band did three live performances in Japan. One was at live venue ShowBoat in Tokyo's Kōenjikita district on 20 July 1995. Another was at live venue Namba Bears in City of Osaka on 10 September 1995. Both performances were recorded and later released on the CD format, in 2000 and 2008, respectively. After these three live shows, Seven left Shizuka. Afterward, Jun Kosugi also left the band. Maki Miura said both left the group for "personal reasons". After that, a number of lineup changes followed.
Sometime between 1995 and 1997, American software engineer and musician Mason Jones organized a tour in the United States for the band. There were shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles. They went twice to a local radio station, one of which was a live performance. Shizuka Miura said that "there were many fans in San Francisco". Known members who participated in this tour were Shizuka Miura and Maki Miura, both of them told having positive experiences with the audience in the.
On 15 July 1996, Shizuka had its song "Bloodstained Blossom", which was taken from Shizuka's album Heavenly Persona, released in the United Kingdom in the compilation album Tokyo Invasion! Volume 1: Cosmic Kurushi Monsters by Virgin Records.
On 22 April 1997, Shizuka's song was released in the compilation album Land of the Rising Noise, 2 in the United States by independent record label Charnel Music, owned by Mason Jones. The cover art of this various artists album features a doll made by Shizuka Miura.
In about 1997, with "a tendency to slow down" after Seven and Jun Kosugi left the band, the group disbanded or had a hiatus. Maki Miura said that although they "changed the membership several times, always felt that the original members were the best, so waiting for them to come back".

Members

Former members

Discography

Studio albums
Live albums
Video albums