In 2013, an eight-year-old in Japan uploaded a video of herself playing “Scarified” by Racer X. It is a famously difficult piece of guitar music. She got through it, and the internet noticed.
The Video
Li-sa-X was born on 8 February 2005. The “Scarified” clip passed five million views. One of the people who watched it was Paul Gilbert, the guitarist who wrote the song. He responded publicly and invited her to join his online guitar school on a scholarship, and he has mentored her since 2014.
The attention kept coming. At ten she was filmed taking a lesson from Marty Friedman, and guitar magazines abroad were writing up her Dream Theater covers.
The Records
She made her professional debut at twelve. The EP Serendipity came out in March 2017, and her first album, WILL, followed on 26 October 2018 through Sony Music Japan. She was thirteen.
Child prodigies on the internet are common. Ones who are still making records ten years later are much rarer.
KOIAI
In December 2022 she did something that solo prodigies seldom do: she joined forces with another guitarist. KOIAI was formed around Li-sa-X and Hazuki, as a twin-guitar band.
The EPs came quickly: Deep Indigo in May 2023, Deep Love in October 2023, and Come see me in November 2024. The band is a five-piece, with Mirei Sakurada on vocals, Yunika Impact on bass and Kanade Sato on drums. The story of the band’s name, and the pun hidden in those first two titles, is here.
Why It Matters
The usual path for a player like this is a string of solo records and clinics. She took that path first, and then stepped off it into a band where the guitar parts are divided between two people and the songs have a singer.
It is the choice of a musician who wanted to be in a band more than she wanted to be the main attraction. Start with WILL, then Come see me.
