Who is Miho Hatori (Musician)

Miho expressed an early interest in music while growing up in Japan. She worked in a record shop where she was exposed to many different styles of music, and sometimes performed as a club DJ. Miho moved to the United States, New York circa 1993 to study art. The first New York band she was in was a punk band called Leitoh Lychee for which she provided the vocals, and also played violin through a distortion effects pedal.

It was as a member of Leitoh Lychee where she first met her Cibo Matto co-founder Yuka Honda in 1994. Cibo Matto went on to release two albums, Viva! La Woman in 1996 and Stereo Type A in 1999. She also contributed vocals to Cibo Matto band-mate Sean Lennon's solo album, Into the Sun in 1998. Cibo Matto has since broken up.

While Cibo Matto was touring with Beck, Miho and Beck guitarist Smokey Hormel discovered a shared love of bossa nova and samba, which eventually resulted in their Brazilian-styled musical project Smokey & Miho. Other artists she has worked with include Handsome Boy Modeling School, Stephin Merritt's The 6ths, The Baldwin Brothers, The Beastie Boys, Blackalicious, Peter Daily, Greg Kurstin (Action Figure Party), Forró in the Dark, John Zorn, and The Incredible Moses Leroy. Miho has also performed solo and on October 21, 2005 her first solo album, Ecdysis was released in Japan and in the following year, in the United States & Europe as well. She appeared in Jet Set Radio Future for the Xbox as a main character and model for a group of women-only skaters. Birthday Cake from the first Cibo Matto album was also used in the game. She also provided the singing voice of Noodle for Gorillaz's debut album also titled Gorillaz.

Her latest (2009) side project is called New Optimism made up of herself on vocals along with Shoko Nagai (keyboards) and Timo Ellis (bass) for the music squad; Nabe, Ravi Davis, and Samer Ghadry for the dance squad; and Prema Murthy for the video squad.

Read more about Miho Hatori on the following websites.