POST-BURNOUT
The story of KiiKO begins in a record shop in Tokyo, where Emmy Shigeta worked. Emmy had an affinity for Irish music, from the classics of the last century to contemporary artists like Fontaines D.C., Just Mustard, and Kneecap. Then, one day, a colleague told her, “If you love Irish music so much, you should go to Ireland!”
In 2018, Emmy did just that, and was surprised by how easy it was to make friends in Irish nightclubs compared to Japan, where you were expected not to interact with people you didn’t know. Through her engagement with the Irish music scene, Emmy decided to do something she had never done prior: DJing.
When Emmy began performing in Dublin, she carved a niche, as most people were unfamiliar with the Japanese music she brought from home. “At that time…it’s eight years…now, people talk about city pop in Europe, but, at the time, it was very, very quiet,” she explains of the crowds’ initial reactions to her music when Post-Burnout interviewed her.
One person who did get it was local musician John McDowell, who had studied Composition and Classical Music at third level, but whose background was primarily playing in rock bands. Before seeing Emmy, he had already begun experimenting with ambient, neo-classical productions, and was a fan of Japanese composers, like Haruka Nakamura.
“I was going to a few of Emmy’s DJ sets,” recalls John. “I remember one in particular, at Hen’s Teeth, where Emmy was playing this mix of ambient/experimental music from Japan, and I was there, Shazam’ing almost every track she was playing, because it was oh, so, cool!”
Courtesy of KiiKO
Describing the music that Emmy was playing as “Something I was really waiting to hear,” John created a playlist of the songs he heard at her set and wanted to approach her about potentially collaborating. Fortunately, Emmy was dating Konrad Timon (best known as the frontman of the Dublin alt trio Other Creatures), whom John was a friend of. Through him, the two got in touch.
“We love ambient music, so we had a very similar taste,” Emmy says of what drew her to John’s proposition to form a band. “Also, I’m always thinking, when I’m making music myself…because DJs always play other people’s music, that ‘I wish I could make my own music.’
“But I didn’t have any experience with using Ableton or whatever. But John had a lot of knowledge about everything, especially IT. We did sessions together for half a year, in voice lessons and how to use Ableton. Then we started making music together.”
What resulted from their collaborations was certainly atmospheric, but, chiefly, not ambient by traditional definitions. “To describe the music as ‘ambient’ is almost wrong,” asserts John.
“It’s so detailed and perfect and interesting, and there’s nothing ‘background’ about it; it’s really fascinating and amazing. So, my whole interest in that world has never been in the ‘background,’ ‘yoga’ ambient mood; and just more in the instrumental/experimental space.”
John prefers a different definition: Cinematic. “When people would ask me what kind of music it was, I couldn’t really think of anything other than, ‘It’s kind of like soundtrack music’,” he says. “It’s like a drama.”
With the new project born, all that was left was to christen it. “I decided on the name [KiiKO],” Emmy explains. “It has a meaning to my grandmother’s name. Her name is Kioko, and my name is Emmy. So, it’s kind of mixing Kioko and Emmy. So, KiiKO!”
As a songwriting tabula rasa, Emmy found her voice by mixing Japanese and English in her lyrics, and focusing on encouraging optimism in her words, even if she didn’t always feel that way. “I’m a very negative person,” Emmy admits. “When I wrote [their debut single] ‘July’ last year, it was a very hard time for me. It’s a very complicated story, I’m sorry, but I just didn’t have any energy.
“But when I focused on the music that was making me so happy, I wanted to follow the vibes when I was making the music. So, why am I making positive music? Because I wish I was a positive person, as well!”
John adds, “When Emmy explained that to me, many months ago, how she might feel like not in a good place, so she just wants to make something that is just positive, something that is totally defiant of where Emmy is at, mentally, at that moment, I loved that!
“It’s become, I think, a part of our identity as a band: just relentless positivity. It’s always motivating me to make something that is always unapologetically optimistic and positive. There are parts [of their music] that feel more introspective and thoughtful, but I think, overall, it’s a big statement of positivity in spite of things not always being so positive.”
When KiiKO began crafting music in earnest, John was amazed by the pace they were achieving. “One of the greatest things for me about KiiKO is that we don’t get stuck in the details of anything,” he says. “We just make stuff quickly. […] There is a constant sense of, ‘Yes! Yes! That’s great! Let’s do that more!’ Never questioning ourselves.
“So, I guess with all creative stuff, we have this tendency to become paralysed by indecision and self-consciousness, but when we’re together, we never look back as we’re writing a song.”
It was such readiness that gave way to the creation of their debut album. After releasing their first single, “July,” in the song’s eponymous month in 2025, Emmy told John that she was ready to make an album!
There was some initial trepidation on John’s part, as conventional wisdom advised against making a record so early in their career, but following Emmy’s enthusiasm, they went ahead. With the addition of drummer Dave Rogers, the three knuckled down. Now, less than two years into the band’s existence, KiiKO’s debut album, KiiKO Forever, is going to drop next month.
“We more or less kind of committed to making it,” John says of producing KiiKO Forever. “We booked studio time in late November [2025], I think it was. So, September, October, and early November, we were meeting up, working on the stuff. So, everything else, except that first track [‘July’], was made in those two-ish months and then recorded the subsequent month.
“So, that part of our process of just committing and pushing forward was the only way we could’ve possibly made it so quickly. It’s not like we’re sitting around the studio for days and days; we have a few hours twice a week, and we have to get a whole album done. So, Emmy’s ambition made it so we had no choice but to make it quick.”
Emmy and John feel their latest single, “Dance World,” which was released last Friday at the time of publication, is a strong indicator of what people can expect when the album releases on October 9th.
“Even the name of the track, ‘Dance World,’ it’s just like, ‘What’s the most positive two words you can put together?’” John says of the song. “Then the hook on that track, the lyrics are, ‘Tonight, tomorrow, together forever,’ which is just, in a way, so cheesy, but not really, actually! To us, it doesn’t really feel all that cheesy; it feels genuinely sincere. It feels like just positivity, through and through, you know? […] If there was one tagline you could have for the whole record, it would be that, just because of how painfully positive it is! [Laughs]”
A week to the day before the KiiKO Forever release, KiiKO will perform a coveted spot at Ireland Music Week. “I’ve been in bands before, and we would’ve loved to have played this,” John says of the significance of IMW. “It’s an amazing opportunity. I feel like we’re kind of in our own space a little bit, in our own lane in Dublin, and sometimes, that can make you feel a little isolated.
“But I’m really hoping that when there’s industry people there, that they see something different, you know? This might sound a little pretentious, but we never identify ourselves. We never really think of ourselves as an ‘Irish band,’ or a ‘Japanese band,’ or whatever; we see it as an international thing, even though we don’t have many international fans yet! [Laughs]”
KiiKO’s latest single, “Dance World,” is out now. Their debut album, KiiKO Forever, is released on October 9th. The band will perform at The Grand Social Ballroom on October 2nd as part of Ireland Music Week. You can purchase tickets here. You can keep up with KiiKO through their Bandcamp and Instagram.
Tune in to POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… tonight to hear this interview in full. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.
Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.