UNWOMAN - BIOGRAPHY

Unwoman: bio

San Francisco's Unwoman, also known as Erica Mulkey, creates darkly beautiful music, a powerful collage of vocals, cello, and electronics. Matthew Heilman of Starvox.net writes, "Her style ranges from a kind of experimental trip hop to swirling darkwave atmosphere with just enough static and noise to give it that extra technical punch."

In July 2005 Unwoman published Wildness & Artifice, a wholly original double-CD featuring a full disc of material in a similar vein to her debut Knowledge Scars, plus a bonus acoustic piano-vocal CD. At the end of 2007 Unwoman released Blossoms, an utterly gorgeous album featuring original electro-acoustic works on the first half, and acoustic (mostly cello-vocal) compositions based on poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay on the second half. In 2008, struck with a rush of inspiration, Unwoman composed the six-song Trouble EP. Then in the Fall of 2009, Unwoman released The Keys as a 15-track download plus antique key. Unwoman has just finished a full-length album, Casualties featuring 16 songs, all written after Blossoms was released.

In April 2009 Erica toured with Voltaire as part of his Skeletal Orchestra. Prior to that she performed in Rasputina at Convergence 12 in New Orleans and in part of their June 2006 US tour, in which she also opened solo. She currently plays cello with Stripmall Architecture (formerly Halou) and Vernian Process, and has also shared the stage with HUMANWINE, Attrition, Jill Tracy, Falling You, and improvised aural alchemy with Paul Mercer's The Ghosts Project. She often performs solo, with or without laptop accompaniment, in the Bay Area and all over North America -- West Coast tours and festivals are happening in the first half of 2010 with more distant travels planned later in the year. (Please contact her to inquire about adding her talents to your upcoming recording or performance.)

Unwoman began playing the cello at nine years old, and piano at eleven. At thirteen Erica wrote her first songs for piano and voice. At sixteen she began studying electronic music at a local community college while continuing to play the cello and piano, compose, sing, and study music theory.

Erica earned a BA in music (emphasis on cello) and minored in electronic music at UC Santa Cruz. While at UCSC she began a thriving (now erstwhile) mp3.com page, choosing the name "Unwoman" from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, as a nod to females in the novel's dystopia stigmatized and punished for rejecting traditional gender roles. As Unwoman rejected traditional genre definitions as well, her music flirted casually with goth and industrial audiences, until the rise of the steampunk sub-subculture which embraced her anachrofuturistic styles wholeheartedly.

Unwoman has studied the cello with Patty Hicks, Nick Anderson (who invited the young Erica to receive instruction from revered pedagogue Margaret Rowell, then 94 years old), and Karen Andrie at UCSC. By far her most influential teacher has been international composer-performer, writer, and Renaissance Man Matthew Owens. Matthew Owens' instruction has been integral to her developing both cello technique and compositional savvy.