SAEKO KILLY

'Morphing Polaroids' is the debut album by Japanese born Saeko Okuchi alias Saeko Killy for Hamburg-based Bureau B. After moving to Berlin in 2018 Saeko Killy found herself in the orb of Club Sameheads, where she made herself known as a DJ and live performer. After releasing her first EP "Dancing Pikapika" with the label Chill Mountain from Osaka in 2021, followed a fruitful Jam session during the pandemic lockdown, resulting in the eleven titles collected together here for the album 'Morphing Polaroids' produced by Brussels DJ and selector soFa elsewhere. The LP is a contemporary Leftfield Clubsound, effortlessly combining elements of Dub, Post-Punk and Kraut with electronic Beats.

Back in Japan, Saeko Okuchi started to learn the piano as early as four years old and at sixteen she started to play the guitar. Through her parents influences, Saeko discovered Jazz and Brazilian music. Visiting Techno-Parties in Tokyo awoke her interest in the spheres of electronic dance music. DJs who played renegade club music to the mainstream played an important part in that. Through those DJs, Saeko discovered artists such as Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, who greatly inspired her with their Industrial sounds. Driven by those impulses, Saeko Killy became a DJ herself. During her time travelling in Brazil, she played at Underground-Parties, organised by the artist collective VOODOOHOP in São Paulo. A context that showed free artistic expressions and broadened her horizons, both politically and musically.

Alongside DJing, different band projects in Tokyo and Berlin became her way of experimenting vocally. A Lo-Fi-Improv-Snapshot of her krautrock-post-punk-esque voice is found on the Vax!-EP (2021) by des Sameheads on the track "Die in Seconds" by the group "Automattenfall". To produce music herself, for her either English or Japanese lyrics, she began to experiment with Synthesizers.

After the release of the first Saeko Killy EP (2021), the Belgian scene DJ and producer soFa elsewhere asked her to contribute vocals on his song "The Dream" ("All My Friends Are Witches", Planet Trip, 2022). The musical collaboration worked out so well that he invited Saeko for an improv Session at his home studio in Brussels:

"The whole process was started during the pandemic – I was very depressed at home and soFa pulled me out of Berlin to Brussels. So I can see through the songs, it was also a process to find my own fire again. The fire looked out but was actually still burning silently; looks changing, and morphing, but still there, coming back, again and again."

The meandering described by Saeko Killy during the production process is reflected in the album title as well as in the lyrics and sound of the entire record especially the lyrics to "Sun Shower" and "Intimate Flame" which describe the resurgence of her artistic vigour after it being dulled down and paralysed by the pandemic lockdown. The two found out that they complement each other delightfully and had much fun recording many tunes, from which this album came into being. This interplay virtually challenges the intuitively emerging lyrics. Almost rapped the voice becomes an instrument. 'Morphing Polaroids' casts a spell as psychedelic dance music, which unfolds its magic through a certain form of opposing disturbance, similar to the Japanese avant-garde.