I went to see Totsuzen Danboru play at a small club in Ogikubo in 1999. Chie, performing solo, opened. When I walked in, Chie, dressed in a long purple velvet dress, was pacing the room barefoot. She held her signature instrument, the Chinese violin, known as the er-hu, or kokyu, affixed with a pickup and amplified through a delay pedal. As she wandered the room she frantically bowed and plucked her two stringed instrument only stopping to chant (what she refers to as "vocalization") through a microphone running through more delays. Unexpectedly, she kicked a silver bowl filled with tiny bells in my direction. The bowl hit my shins and the bells scattered throughout the club - the perfect chiming accompaniment to the waves of tones coming from her kokyu. I was spellbound. After the show I bombarded her with compliments and we’ve been friends since.

Justin S., November 2002

Alan Cummings wrote:

Chie Mukai started studying improvised music under Takehisa Kosugi in the late 70's, and was a member of the renowned Japanese freeform group East Bionic Symphonia at this time. Kosugi was the one who gave Mukai her first er-hu, a bowed Chinese "violin" of challenging tonalities. The instrument (and its Japanese variation, the kokyu) has been a central part of Mukai's creative endeavours ever since. In the early 80's, Mukai started playing in various improvised contexts, and she also formed her own folk-psych unit Che-SHIZU, a group which stil exists and has released five full albums to date. Throughout the eighties and nineties, Mukai has been much in demand as a collaborator. Her work has appeared on several compilations, including the "Welcome to Dreamland" compilation curated by Fred Frith. She has also appeared on records by the Los Angeles Free Music Society, by famous Japanese folk singer Morio Agata, and by Christoph Gallio. In November 2000, SIWA records of the USA released a solo album by Mukai--her solo first non-Japanese release. In the same year, she appeared at the Beijing International Art Exchange festival in Beijing, a gathering of performance artists that was banned by the Chinese authorities. For the past few years, Mukai has organized the annual Perspective Emotion festival in Tokyo. This festival brings together multi-media performers from across Asia. Mukai continues to perform solo, in duos, and with Che-SHIZU throughout Japan.

Her web site is here.