Monoral profile

Monoral is a Japanese band, signed to Sony Music Japan. The band consists of Anis Shimada on lead vocals and guitar and Ali Morizumi on bass and guitar.
Members

Anis, the band's lead singer, born on February 23, 1975, is a Japanese-Moroccan who speaks Japanese, English, French, and Arabic. Born in London and raised in France, he used to be a fashion model and used to support some famous musicians performing on TV as a guitarist. He is often involved with the creation of TV commercial songs, singing backup for other famous musicians', and narration for TV commercials including work alongside Tetsuya Komuro.

Ali, born in 1973, is a Japanese-American who grew up in Tokyo. He can speak both Japanese and English fluently. He was a VJ on MTV Japan, where he eventually met Anis. He is currently apart of the TV show Self Liner Notes on MUSIC ON! TV. Ali is also a radio DJ and used to host a show on Inter FM as well.

History

The band's first minor debut album Ammonite, which rose as high as #3 on the Tower Records Indie Charts in Japan, remained in the Top 50 for 7 months. In 2005 they released their first major debut with the single Visions In My Head, under the label Haunted Records (a subsidiary of Sony Music Japan), which was created by the Japanese rock musician, hyde, lead vocalist of L'Arc~en~Ciel. They are now signed on hyde's independent Indie's label VAMPROSE.

The song "Visions in my Head" was used for a TV commercial. In 2006, the band performed "Kiri", the opening theme to the anime series Ergo Proxy. The song was also released via the iTunes Store on May 25, 2006. Monoral also soon released their second major album, Turbulence, on July 4, 2007.

Collaborations

Monoral's support members are the guitarists Akira and Hirama Mikio (former member of Tokyo Jihen) and Daigo on the Drums. Guitarist Eric Zay also helps the band write and compose songs; he is now a member of Japanese rock group FAKE?. The band have collaborated with various other artists such as Fumiya Fujii and Mondo Grosso, either through songwriting or performances.

official site

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