Cyo started singing publicly in church choir and
recorded her first album in high school. Her professional stage
debut was an intense acapella song about sexual abuse in a lesbian
musical written by writer musician, Niomi Littlebear. (what a start,
from church to gay musicals, no wonder she's able to move all over
the musical map) Cyo sang in coffee shops with her sister, then
ran away and joined the Circus for several years and was silent.
She ended up in LA, singing in corny musicals until hooking up with
professional session players/musicians, and a member of the avant
musical theory ensemble of Harry Partch, and then she began to write
her own music. Forming several projects, from space rock to dance
music before she blew the LA scene and returned home to Portland
to form LAND OF THE BLIND. THE BLIND was at first, a 8 piece world
beat vocal and drum ensemble doing her mentor's music-(obscure Kate
Bush & Peter Gabriel covers), as well as their own works.
THE BLIND, and the SF bands Transmission and Ancient Future,
were, at that time, the only west coast bands exploring world
fusion music, everywhere/ everything/everyone else were all Nirvana
clones, angry alt rock boys, Grunge-a-rama. BLIND, in the beginning,
was even called by Portland press "pretentious", for
daring to mix many influences together, such as Native tribal
feels, (with Lakota singer Pete Mesteth) Australian didgeridoo
(Krystov, studying with master Stephen Kent), folk flutes, punkish
driving bass leads (with Regina LaRocca, from M99), hand drummers
rather than western drum kit, and most of all, intricate 3 part
beautiful female AAA harmonies. They recorded their first album
ONE EYE, with Billy Triplett (Prince, Meredith Brooks) co-producer
Bobby Torres (Santana)
But Cyo was constantly pushing the band to expand further away
from Rock,
and was influenced by alt world-folk bands (De'CooCoo, Mouth Music,
Dead
Can Dance), as well as emo singer-songwriter types like Tori Amos,
Jane
Siberry and Kate Bush, and more avant Eno-ish music. Cyo produced
the
award wining second cd OUT OF CHAOS, (Young American Composers
Award,
A.S.C.A.P., New York) also recorded in Portland, with dual engineers
Billy
Triplett and John Lemmon. Eventually tiring of being hemmed in
vocally by
two other singers, on CHAOS she wrote for just her own voice,
with a few
harmonies, and also began to perform solo. BLIND toured with SF
bands,
Haunted by Waters, Oscar Winning THOTH, and other unusual projects.
They
did a cross country tour with theatrical East Coast opera-rock
band,
SQUONK OPERA, and were welcomed and loved from Denver to NY.
Cyoakha was on tour with BLIND down from Portland to SF, when
she met the
World-Prog-Rock band AZIGZA and found out that they were looking
for (for
over two years) a singer that could move from whispery pretty
dreamy world
vocals to full blasting prog rock epic pieces. Intrigued, she
auditioned
and got the lead singer spot. She then moved to SF in her pursuit
of live
musical education and avant trail blazing. In her 4 years with
8 piece
Azigza, she recorded two critically acclaimed albums, played all
the SF
clubs/festivals and got into the world wide Prog Scene. Some of
the
highlights were playing Prog West at the world famous Palace of
the Fine
Arts and a huge PROG festival in Mexico to thousands of fans from
around
the world. She still sits in with Azigza at major gigs, such as
the
recently played epic evening at the famous Chabot Space &
Science Center,
in the planetarium during a star show. Working with virtuoso violinist
Aryeh Frankfurter, amazing avant electric guitarist Kevin Evans,
Middle
Eastern singer Mohammed, killer bassist Pierce McDonald (currently
recording with Gilli Smith, "Mother-Gong" of Gong Orchestra),
and various
percussionists, "AZIGZA has been my advanced musical education."
During
that time Cyoakha was voted "Best Overall Performer"
at ProgFest at Chapel
Hill, North Carolina as well as "Best Singer" from a
3 day international
music festival.
During Azigza, Blind continued to perform at all the major west
coast
"hippie" festivals, Oregon Country Fair, Burning Man
etc...either with the
"old Blind" Portland tribe, or the "new Blind",
world-class SF musicians.
Cyoakha also finished her third album project with BLIND, a fully
self-produced cd, ORDINARY MAGIC, a true fusion of styles, world
and
witchy, rock and Celtic, trance and tribal and recorded the many
talents
of both the Portland tribe and her new SF musician friends.
Now on it's 10th year, Blind has reformed so many times with
so many
excellent musicians that it's almost impossible to track. Cyo
says, "it
has a life of it's own. It never seems to end. I am currently
doing Blind
songs as a duo with just Krystov (didgeridoo) and live looping,
as well as
a trio, adding psychedelic guitar, calling ourselves Edgewalking
but we
are still Blind. I joined the all woman Celtic funk-rock band
DRUID
SISTERS TEA PARTY in 2002, and they also loved the Blind songs
and we
perform several of them from both the 2nd and 3rd CD's!"