[1] Her father, Suguru Kawamura (川村秀), was a Japanese academic living in the Soviet Union,[2][circular reference] while her mother, Elena Alexandrovna Skudnova (Елена Александровна Скуднова), was Russian.

[3] The family moved to Japan when she was 11 years old, where Kaori was subjected to repeated bullying.

In 1990 she had a hit with "Kamisama ga Oritekuru Yoru", and the following year with an upbeat version of the often-covered "Tsubasa wo Kudasai."

From the mid-1990s, she split her time between New York and Japan, and got involved in the club scene in the late 1990s.

In October 2008, she wrote on her blog that the cancer had returned and spread to her bones and lungs.