Ski Oakenfull Biography (Updated 2023)
Ski Oakenfull is an Artist, Musician, Producer, Remixer, and Composer living in London, UK. Having started his career as a keyboard player with the band The K-Creative who were signed to Gilles Peterson's Talkin' Loud label in 1991, he has gone on to release three solo albums, Life Changes (2000), Rising Son (2005) & Short Circuits (2021), play keyboards with bands such as Galliano, Raw Stylus & Two Banks of Four, remix countless tracks, and work as an in-house writer at Xenomania. He currently releases music on his own label, Primaudial Records, writes & produces with artists such as Incognito, Duke Dumont, Dave Lee, Milton Jackson, Str4ta, Nick Luscombe, and Valerie Etienne, and has an Ambient Electronic project called Ayota. Ski has recently collaborated with Milton Jackson on two EPs for Freerange Records and Lazy Days Recordings, and is preparing for some Galliano live shows.
The Ayota project was born out of Ski's love of all things ambient, experimental & Japanese, with artists such as Brian Eno, Steve Reich, David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamoto all being big influences.
It was whilst on a holiday in Japan in 2004 that Ski was inspired by a Japanese friend's book of Poetry entitled 'Kumorizora no Helicopta' to write soundtracks to three of the poems. This quickly developed into an album project continuing the Japanese ambient theme, the result being 'Helicopter Cuts' which was released on the label 'Third Ear' in 2007, becoming Tower Records' ambient album of the year.
Ayota has performed live in the UK at festivals such as The Big Chill and Bestival, and venues such as The Village Underground and Spiritland (with Tomoyasu Hotei). Ski has also received a number of ambient-based commissions including a 20-minute surround sound piece for a photographic exhibition at Christie's in 2017 and a research project called 'Otocare' in 2020 which researched the use of sound recordings to improve the well-being of staff and patients in high-stress medical environments. Recently Ski has been putting the finishing touches to his fourth Ayota album, entitled 'Sound Travelling' due for release on Primaudial Records in 2023.
Alongside his production work, Ski holds the position of Head of Education & Curriculum at Point Blank Music School in London where he manages their BA(Hons) degree programmes. He has also made over a hundred tutorial videos for the school's YouTube channel which have racked up over nine million views, and is an Ableton Certified Trainer.
