FROM CHURCH-TO LESBIAN MUSICALS, NICE START! Cyo started singing in church choir then 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. In Los Angeles she sang in theatre musicals until hooking up with professional session players/musicians & a member of the avant musical theory ensemble of Harry Partch, beginning her shift from acting to music. She began to write her own music and formed several projects, from space pop-rock to dance, performing in all the major LA clubs. Returning home to Portland, she formed LAND OF THE BLIND in 96. THE BLIND started as a large world beat vocal-drum ensemble that included originals as well as covers of KATE BUSH, JANE SIBERRY, PETER GABRIEL. BLIND played with PELE JUJU, NUMANTRA, JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, PATTI SMYTH...at all the major west coast fests: Portland Rose Fest, Seattle Bite, Portland Bite, Artz Edge-Seattle, First Night Fest, Folk Fest, as well as all the major clubs in the NW, and with bi-annual tours to San Francisco & a month long cross country tour.

WHEN WORLD FUSION WAS NOT YET A WORD
Portland's BLIND, SF bands Transmission, Haunted by Waters, & Ancient Future, and Seattle's Numantra were, at that time, the only west coast bands exploring mixing world styles, during a time on the west coast when every band (at least in the NW!) were Nirvana clones, if we'd been Land of the Grunge we might have been accepted! Bucking the wave of copycats was rough, in it's beginning years, BLIND was called by Portland press "pretentious", for daring to mix such influences as Native tribal feels, (with Lakota singer Pete Mesteth) Australian didgeridoo (Krystov, studying with SF's Stephen Kent), lead flute/driving bass leads ( Regina LaRocca, from punk band M99, who toured with Nivana!). So the mix called pretentious (later we made teeshirts, Blind =Pretentious!) was a combo of Native-Punk-Jazz-World with singer songwriter female vocals on top! NOT DONE! (HAUNTED BY WATERS was very close, less fierce, more dreamy) One newspaper really went after Blind:, "does the world really need another combo of Kate Bush and Dead Can Dance?" (trying to insult, Cy was totally FLATTERED!!! and she wondered where she could buy some this work of all these imaginary combo singers??)

WHAT WORLD? Cyoakha also steered the band away from the then fairly popular dance sound of strickly World/ traditional (African & Reggae) and also away from Western, using 2-3 hand drummers instead of a western drum kit and deciding on bass as the lead instrument, skipping the overused rock electric guitar. Blind topped off the mixture with intricate 3 part beautiful female harmonies and they recorded their first album ONE EYE, with Billy Triplett (Prince, Meredith Brooks) and co-producer Bobby Torres (Santana). "World Music, sure, yeah, just pick any world!" The Rocket

ON HER OWN Cyo was constantly pushing the band to expand further away from Rock, influenced by world-folk bands (De'CooCoo, Mouth Music, Dead Can Dance), as well as emo singer-songwriter types Tori Amos, Jane Siberry and Kate Bush & more avant Eno-type music. Cyo self-produced the award winning second cd OUT OF CHAOS, (Young American Composers Award, A.S.C.A.P., New York) in Portland, with dual engineers Billy Triplett/John Lemmon. Much as she loved singing with Jan Deschene and Stephanie Salazar, she also felt "held in" vocally, so on CHAOS she did own harmonies & began to perform solo as lead, beginning her trend of Blind growing smaller to find the essence of TRIBAL and TRANCE music, the MAGIC. BLIND toured with SF bands, HAUNTED BY WATERS, Oscar Winning THOTH, & other ground-breaking projects. On a cross country tour with Pittsburgh's rock-opera band, SQUONK OPERA, they were welcomed and loved from Denver to NY. "LAND OF THE BLIND from Portland is amazing" Ohio Guardian

AVANT TRAIL BLAZING 101 SF STYLE! Cyoakha was on tour in SF with BLIND when they shared stage with World-Prog-Rock SF band AZIGZA & learned they were seeking a lead singer (for over 2 years!). Someone that could move from whispery pretty Dead Can Dance style vocals to full blasting prog rock epic screaming but good that could hold it's own with a huge rock orchestra! Enter Cyoakha with her love of World and background in Punk, Improv and Goth. Intrigued by AZIGZA ( Marhavishnu Orchestra mixed with Led Zeppelin), she auditioned and got the job! Ready but sad to leave Portland she moved to SF in pursuit of her musical education in Avant Trail Blazing 101. In her 4 years with 8 piece ensemble Azigza, she recorded two critically acclaimed albums, played all the SF clubs/festivals & joined the world wide Prog Scene, playing with notables such as DAVIED ALLEN & GONG. Highlights were playing Prog West at the world famous Palace of the Fine Arts in SF & a huge PROG festival in Mexico to thousands of fans from around the world. She still sits in with Azigza such as the recently played Space Concert at Chabot Space & Science Center, in the planetarium with a lazer show! Working with virtuoso violinist Aryeh Frankfurter, avant electric guitarist Kevin Evans, killer bassist Pierce McDonald (currently recording with Gilli Smith, "Mother-Gong" of Gong Orchestra), singing with Middle Eastern singer Mohammed, and many excellent percussionists, AZIGZA was a one of a kind adventure in styles. Cyoakha was voted "Best Overall Performer" at ProgFest at Chapel Hill, North Carolina as well as "Best Singer" from the 3 day international music festival!

DOWN TO FOUR, THEN THREE, SOMETIMES TWO! Down to 4 members & now based out of SF, BLIND continued to perform at all the major west coast "hippie/alternative/green/dance" festivals, from Oregon Country Fair to Burning Man, Groove Garden, Unconditional Dance Festival, & Matthew Fox's Techno Cosmic Mass. Cyo self-produced BLIND's third album ORDINARY MAGIC, a true fusion of styles, World, witchy, Alt-rock, Celtic, Middle Eastern, Tribal-Trance. Working with both the talents of Portland's long time BLIND TRIBE and some of SF's finest world musicians, it was released to the delight of her world-wide friends & fans. She has added: EDGEWALKING BLIND, recorded live at a Portland House Concert with former bass player Regina LaRocca playing beautiful Turkish style acoustic guitar, (down to THREE!!!) Then a mellow didj based meditation cd: GREEN FAERIE SESSIONS, (down to TWO)and is currently releasing Pagan-Trance-Dance CD: SHAMANS OF SOUND, with bass player, fellow looper, & drummer RHAN WILSON, Santa Cruz (THOTH). SHAMANS is BLIND's 6th CD produced by Cyoakha. (up to THREE folks again)

FILM WORK/LOVECRAFT:Cyoakha scored her first full-length feature film, to H.P. LOVECRAFT fan's delight. The movie DreamQuest for the Unknown Kadath debuted at the LoveCraft Film Festival in Portland in 2004. The soundtrack received raves and she then released the soundtrack as a CD, UNKNOWN MUSIC FROM KADATH in 05, gathering notice from gamers to literary lovers. She continues to write music for films, indie movies & tv as composer/Music Supervisor.

ALL GIRL GROOVEY Cyoakha joined all girl Celtic-Funk band, DRUID SISTERS TEA PARTY in 03 and continues to tour & record with this very popular group headed by Claudia Paige, well-known bay area fantastic drummer who has played with everyone from GRATEFUL DEAD to LINDA PERRY and ZAP MAMA. They recently released their second cd, GYPSY LOVE CARAVAN, a wild mix of up tribal dance songs with an Afro-Celt feel and currently play all the major NorthCal festivals including Ardenwood Celtic Festival, Northern California Women's Music Festival, Benbow Arts Festival, The Mateel Center with Shanna Morrison, The Medieval Fest &Santa Barbara's Sol Fest.

CYOAKHA AVANTE' Cyoakha was asked to sit in on several avant performances in the bay area with Ninah Pixie of BIG CITY ORCHESTRA. BCO is world-renown for taking imagination to another level, headed by musical master magician dAS with years & years of performances and many cds released. Cyo sang opera in a trio that included Ninah Pixie & Kate McWhir of Haunted by Waters, a very warped version of VERDI's The Troubadour that opened for famed The Ledgendary Pink Dots in SF. Recently she performed again with BCO during the Illuminated Corridor Project in Oakland, backed by Oakland Opera. Cyoakha also joined female experiemental composers from around the world in the 3 year/3 disc project: WOMEN BRING BACK THE NOISE.

ALMOST A TEENAGER....For 12 years now, with most of the bands they started with long gone, Land of the Blind is proud to continue to change, grow, and strip down to it's Tribal-Trance essence. Currently a duo of Cyoakha & Krystov, it features Cyo on vocals, tribal beats, Indian harmonium, Native flutes, keys, percussion and Live Looping. Krystov has turned into a Didj Master, calls himself DIDJERI-DOC, plays trance-inducing Healing Deep Earth Australian Didjeridu, teaches Didjeridu workshops, & also plays Appalachan Dulcimer in a folk style & haunting Indian Dilruba (he plays all the D named instruments). Together they create a trip around the world and a much larger sound that seems possible as a duo. As a looping duo, they did a month long tour to Australia to rave reviews & tons of new trans-Atlantic fans. Played the Pagan circuit with Aussie songstress Wendy Rule, from Melbourne to Sydney to Gold Coast & were one of two USA bands chosen to perform at the Adelaide Fringe Fest at the world famous Speigaltent. As a trio, they add multi-instrumentalist RHAN, who also live loops, plays his double djembe kit, then adds fat funk bass, then touches of pyschedelic electric guitar & Spanish style bariton ukulele! These Organic Grooves/Songs have elements of Folk, Tribal, Trance, Dance, and World and of course, feature Cyo's award winning amazing vocals. Currently Cyoakha calls herself "SHEMANA ELECTRONA" and is focusing on Channeling Shamanic performances and instant vocal Magic! There is a MYTHIC, MYSTIC MAGIC that occurs, unable to be explained, in their live shows, with Belly Dancer TATSEENA swirling with wings, Celtic psychedelic projections by Welsh artist JEN DELYTH, as the BLIND layers up: their organic field recordings of birds, frogs, crickets, then addsExotic Effected otherworldly sounds, bottom heavy big fat FUNK with bass and didj grabbing you, the listener is looped and re-looped, taken into Dreamtime, but held to Earth by Ethnic instruments, soaring off into space with Cyoakha's powerful beautiful fierce female vocals ripe with mysterious magical messages with a green slant...ALL THIS creates one of a kind moments in ECSATIC DANCE, with Pagan hits & Unknown Underground Journeys. Haunting, trancey, dreamy & danceable.

NOTABLE QUOTABLES

"POP MUSIC FOR DRUIDS" Oregon Journal
"CYOAKHA IS UNASHAMEABLY SHAMANIC" International Loopers Fan "
"MUSIC THAT PULLS THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER YOU. YOU ARE STANDING ON NOTHING KNOWN. THE KIND OF MUSIC YOU RUN AND TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT!" Jack Sutton, Harmony Ridge Music