Piana is the vehicle of songwriter/composer Naoko Sasaki. Working alone, with occasional contributions on guitar from Yuichiro Iwashita (Minamo), Sasaki creates fragile, plaintive melodies backed up with digital glitches, whirrs, and crackles; picture a small girl surrounded by benevolent machines in a cozy, well-swept factory in snow country. Her first release, as vocalist of the duo Card Skepper, was a track on the 1999 Toshiba-EMI Parlophone Compilation 1999. In 2000, Sasaki began...

Piana is the vehicle of songwriter/composer Naoko Sasaki. Working alone, with occasional contributions on guitar from Yuichiro Iwashita (Minamo), Sasaki creates fragile, plaintive melodies backed up with digital glitches, whirrs, and crackles; picture a small girl surrounded by benevolent machines in a cozy, well-swept factory in snow country. Her first release, as vocalist of the duo Card Skepper, was a track on the 1999 Toshiba-EMI Parlophone Compilation 1999. In 2000, Sasaki began recording as Piana, providing vocals for the album Farewell Kingdom from World's End Girlfriend, and seeing inclusion with Card Skepper on the Weather Compilation from the Weather imprint. In June 2003, the first Piana album appeared on Cubic Music, entitled Snow Bird. This honest, unpretentious set recalled the work of Icelandic artists Bjork, Sigur Ros, and particularly Mum - all stated influences - and displayed remarkable control and maturity for a debut. In November of the same year, Snow Bird was distributed in the United States by the upstart Happy label, which licensed the album as their flagship release. In mid-2004, Sasaki toured Hong Kong, Macau, and Taipei, building a strong overseas fan-base at least as large as her base in Japan.  She followed Snow Bird with two more long players in the next several years - Ephemeral and Eternal Castle - both of which expanded on Sasaki's core formula to include more sweeping, arranged pieces.  In addition to making records, Sasaki has gotten involved in creating sound for a variety of other media, including websites and even a commercial for McDonald's.