A pit stop at CIFIKA’s Soundcloud page may intimidate the uninitiated. The South Korean producer’s recent uploads vary wildly in scope and sound. “Emoji Love,” posted in February, weaves a series of tongue-in-cheek melodies with synth bloops that resemble Nokia Tracfone ringtones. It’s silly, yet symphonic, like Crazy Frog trying its hand at Modern Classical music. “Baptize,” released a few months earlier, suggests a state of mind that’s more sober but no less chaotic, as CIFIKA sneaks a few R&B-inflected phrases through a gauntlet of drum machine breakbeats, presenting the tattered remains of a slow jam sent through the food processor. “In the End,” a Gregorian chant composed of layered Millennial whoops, takes its predecessor’s somber atmosphere to extremes.
Coinciding with the release of PRISM EP, the 27-year-old Electronic artist coast-to-coast tour of the States (running March 4-April 7) marks the longest-running American tour every by a Korean artist.
In just two years, CIFIKA’s artistic output has germinated from the seeds of lo-fi House chill-outs into fully-fledged Avant Garde soundscapes. Sonically, she channels Björk’s fixation on the human voice as an instrument, streamlined by the balance between anthemic songcraft and the grandiose experimentation that Kanye West found in 808s & Heartbreak.
Her compositions are often more texturally evocative than melodic — not surprising given her art school background in graphic design.
“I’m used to handling Photoshop and InDesign,” she told ATK Magazine at the start of her tour, “so when I first learned (music production programs) Logic and Ableton, it was easier than I thought. The mechanisms behind them are the same. One is visual, and the other one is musical.”
Click here for more on this free show.
This article appears in Mar 14-21, 2018.
