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.