Ikue Mori was raised in Tokyo and moved to New York in 1977. Soon after, she started playing drums and formed the experimental no wave band DNA with Arto Lindsay. In the mid ‘80s John Zorn introduced her to the NY downtown-improvising scene and she began performing using drum-machines, a very unlikely choice in the context of improvised music, forging her own unique approach.

Since then Ikue has collaborated with numerous musicians in diverse genres and styles throughout the US, Europe, and Asia, while continuing to produce and record her own compositions. She received the award for Prix Ars Electronics Digital Music in 1999 and shortly after started using a laptop computer to expand her vocabulary, not only playing sounds but creating and controlling images.

Ikue Mori was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2022.