aznlover - Monoral

Based in Japan, Monoral is very much a globally influenced band consisting of singer Anis Shimada and bassist/guitarist Ali Morizumi. Both are Hapa (Anis is Japanese/Moroccan and Ali is Japanese/American). Their international origins are evident in the quantity of fluent language skills they share between them:

Anis speaks Japanese, French, English and Arabic.

Ali speaks Japanese and English.

They have both recently begun learning some Spanish and Portuguese.

With a Japanese father and a Moroccan mother, Anis was born in London, England and raised much of his early life in France. Using his own skill with the guitar and his natural good looks, he eventually found his way in Japan working as a model and a session musician. His language abilities have been useful in various ways, such as helping with translation work, along with the choice to create and perform music with English lyrics.

He often collaborates with other artists and projects such as commercials and television and can be heard trading vocals with influential Corean artist Uhm Jung-Hwa in this soundtrack located on YouTube called 'In This Rain':

Ali was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan with an American father (of which descent has not been mentioned) and a Japanese mother. He started out as a radio DJ (and also hosts a show for InterFM). He eventually found work with MTV Japan and it was there that he met Anis originally as a fellow VJ. His early musical influences include 'Radiohead' and some vintage experimental musicians, along with his own musically inclined family.

Both Anis and Ali participated in several early bands and other collaborations before finally joining together to form Monoral.

Together, they began creating work as Monoral in 1999 and soon completed the 2001 release of 'In Stereo', although it was a while longer before they considered themselves formally as professional musicians. 'In Stereo', consisting of five songs, featured their unique indie-rock sound with English lyrics and was well received. Almost immediately they were able to perform at 'Fuji Rock '01', Japan's largest annual rock festival (more on the Fuji Rock Festival).

They have since gone on to tour South America, Asia and Europe and have indicated that they hope to tour in North America as well at some point.

Their sound is described on their MySpace page as:

If Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Portishead all got drunk, had crazy sex and spawned 2 offspring, they might sound something like MONORAL.

Discography:

In Stereo 2001
Ammonite 2004
Petrol 2005
Turbulence 2007
Via 2008

Singles:

Visions In My Head 2005
Kiri 2006
Tuesday 2007
Casbah 2008
70 Hours 2009

Here is an excerpt from a 2004 interview with Monoral on JaME:

The night before their concert in Paris, MONORAL took some time to answer our questions about their shows in Spain and France, as well as their Via Latin America Tour 2008. Sponsored by JaME, the tour went from November through December of 2008 and took them to Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina. Anis spent part of his childhood in France and answered some of our questions in French, so we indicated which language he used for each answer.

Hello, could you please introduce yourselves to our readers who don’t know you yet?

Anis: (in French) I am the vocalist for MONORAL, Anis, and this is Ali.

Ali: I play bass.

Since your last interview with JaME, your album Via has been released. How would you describe this album?

Anis: (in French) Actually, it’s a pretty colorful album, I think. There are some old songs that we’d composed when we were making Turbulences, and there’s also new material. I think it’s a mix, it’s a little of everything we’ve done from In Stereo until now. It doesn’t have strong colors like In Stereo or Ammonite. It’s a little like a mixture from those albums.

Ali: Like he said, (laughs) we wanted to do a candy pop album. I think we were able to do that.

We can see an evolution from Turbulences to Via. What were your inspirations for this album?

Ali: For Turbulences, we focused on making an album that would be different from our other albums. We wanted to really make different songs and give new feelings. Via is different from what MONORAL usually does. I think it’s a mix of everything we’ve done until the present.

Anis: (in English) That’s actually what I said earlier. (laughs)

Ali: Oh, right, that’s what you said in French. (laughs)

Anis: (in French) I think we were really inspired by the concerts we’d done. We wanted to put in our album the essences of different countries, even those we hadn’t been to yet, like Costa Rica. We wanted to do an album that’s really described by “Via” (“Voyage”), something that could bring us to other continents to do concerts. That’s what happened before! We released the album, and then we went to America, Mexico and South America, and here we are in France, and we also played in Spain.

Ali: I agree completely. (laughs)
(Note: He doesn’t understand a word when Anis speaks French.)

Read the rest here:

Interview with Monoral