Keiji Haino was born on the third of May 1954 in Chiba. Influenced by the playwright Antonin Artaud during his adolescence, he first envisaged to be an actor. But listening to The Doors' second album was an eye-opener for him: he wanted to play music. The first bands he played with mainly did blues or experimental music.
In 1971, he founded the improvising rock band Lost Aaraaf, inside of which he started to experience different vocal styles. Then he collaborated with the psychedelic rock artist Magical Power Mako, with whom he played on the television show Hiruma no purezento in 1973. Their performance was so disturbing that many viewers sent complain letters to the channel's management. One year later, Keiji Haino worked with the famous compositor Tôru Takemitsu on the making of the original soundtrack for Himiko.
After the breaking up of Lost Aaraaf in 1975, he started to play the guitar and developed his own theories on rhythm and space. He started four years later his main project, Fushitsusha, which found itself plagued with line-up changes, all without stopping activity. At the end of 1971, the band was playing a hard rock kind of music.
At the beginning of the eighties, Keiji Haino released his first solo album, Watashi dake?, and then went to the United States where he collaborated with several artists from different styles. He went back to Japan in 1988 and added drums and Budô dancing to his solo performances, in which he showed the result of his long abstract work on space, rhythm and breathing.
During the nineties he worked with the electronic and ethnic band Nijiumu. It's also during this period that Haino multiplied his performances abroad, in the United States as well as in Europe. He also formed the band VAJRA in 1995, with Kan Mikami and Toshiaki Ishizuka, and then appeared in the film Endless Fruits in which he played his own part. He created yet another band in 1998, Aihiyo, with which he played "as they should be" titles from various styles, be it Japanese pop from the sixties, international renowned bands like the Rolling Stones, or even children's nursery rhymes. He played the same year with the drone metal band Boris.
In 2004, he created Kikuri with the noise artist Masami Akita, also known as Merzbow, and then appeared one year later in the documentary film AA, directed by Shinji Aoyama, about the famous deceased music critic Aquirax Aida. He also formed several other bands during this period, like Head Rush, knead, or Sanhedrin.
These last years, he's been collaborating especially with poets, dancers, or theatre actors. He also distinguishes himself as a DJ and sometimes presents his own paintings during shows.
