PuppeTwin is a unit consisting of H. Wakabayashi, who handles music and visuals, and Koh Shimanaka, who is responsible for music and words. Through acoustic expressions that weave together voice, words, sound, and silence, their body of work creates an intersection between Japan's cultural foundations and contemporaneity. For overseas listeners, their works evoke a tactile sense of Japan through the "presence" and "negative space" inherent in words and sounds, while simultaneously presenting Japanese native speakers with unprecedented perspectives that avoid resting on existing cultural imagery and touch upon the deeper layers of culture. They express the liminal world between dream and reality, physicality and abstraction through recitation, acoustic direction including improvisation, and visual media.
H. Wakabayashi is active as a composer and sound artist, releasing numerous works through YouTube and SoundCloud. While expressing scenes where summer and winter coexist, from around 2014, he has advocated for "Iceface tuning" (a tuning method that raises only the black keys of a keyboard by 50 cents, adding a sensation of melting ice to the sound) and has devoted himself to composing in microtones and devising related techniques. This led him to also call himself Iceface. He owns one Lumatone and numerous afro wigs.
Koh Shimanaka expresses the "in-between" of people and the world through sound and words. In the music unit PuppeTwin, she handles the expression of words and sound, and as a native Japanese speaker, she delicately explores the resonance, presence, and deep cultural layers dwelling within words. Her words and narration go beyond mere transmission of meaning, attempting to touch the unconscious dwelling in voice, unspoken emotions, and the depth of silence. For overseas listeners, the resonance of Japanese itself becomes a gateway to culture, while for Japanese speakers, she brings to light the often-overlooked texture of words from new angles. Her practice is deeply connected to philosophy, Shintoism, views on life and death, the concept of kotodama (word spirits), and animistic sensibilities that find spirituality in all things, pioneering a horizon of sound and words that emphasizes "resonance beyond meaning."