XTATIKA

Like a shape-shifting creature of mythical origins, Xtatika went through several incarnations since its beginnings. At the age of 16, Tora Kim started the band under the moniker Toilet Maiden and the Hands, recruited Korean drummers Kyungwook Jung and Vongku Pak, and along with Mas Yamagata on bass the group recorded their first demo and started playing the downtown club scene in New York City. Their intense shows incorporated dramatic costumes and theatrics from Tora who displayed a penchant for performance art at a young age. For her first show she wore warpaint, dressed in the tattered and singed dress of a virgin burned at the stake, while her drummers dressed as love warriors in black with militant red armbands. Their performances and demo caught the attention of John Zorn, who offered to release their first album on his experimental-music label Tzadik.
For their first album, the 4-piece band went into the studio with Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans, Dresden Dolls) in Brooklyn, New York, and Tora renamed the band Xtatika (say it like ex-TA-tika) which came from putting together two words meaning "ecstacy" and "aesthetics", respectively, from two different languages. Incorporating the traditional Korean percussion of p'ungmul, with the hourglass changgo drum, the puk bass drum, and the handheld metal gong kwenggari, the post-modern rock album Tongue Bath bewitched an unsuspecting audience upon its release in 2001. It even pushed Zorn to initiate a new series on the Tzadik label, with Xtatika's debut inaugurating the successful "Oracles Series".
The album Tongue Bath was the first of its kind to bring together elements of ritual drumming, dirty driving bass, and a heart-stopping menagerie of dramatic vocals which show Tora drawing from performance art, inhabiting characters such as a vengeful warrior, a giggly-girl, a schizophrenic witch, and also witch-burner, sometimes all in the breadth of one song. These elements made for a frenetic tapestry of texture which were based on the traditional beats of p'ungmul, straight from the farming fields of Korea itself. The album received encouraging reviews.
The band continued to play a slew of shows on the east coast through 2001. But the pressures of city-living, drug use, and increased attention proved dramatic, and Tora had a nervous breakdown. Starting from scratch, Tora followed a yen for electronic music, and began work with drill n bass whiz-kid Denim Venom. The two hit it off as collaborators and then as friends, and eventually shared a studio in Brooklyn by 2003.
As the electronic incarnation of Xtatika, the duo independently released several EPs, such as The Powers Street EP, Snake Ring, and My Heart Is A Knife. My Heart Is A Knife EP was recorded in Brooklyn with John Chang on guitar, and was their final release on their own Detention Span Recs with the definitive sound from that era. Shady industrial beats, set to an urban angst-track of dark girlish vocals and sinister samples take the listener to new levels of dance-sexy, or to coin a phrase: Noir Wave. Electronic Xtatika continued to play the northeast USA and toured Europe in 2006 to welcoming audiences. Then Tora and Denim Venom saw through their relationship as lovers and collaborators which ended in the summer of 2006. They remain friends to this day.
After a hiatus from music, Tora went to Paris, France, and Morocco to write. She returned to New York with a suitcase of 21 love songs, having gone solo as Tora Brava. She currently resides in Los Angeles.