Tokyo based Tatsuki Hamasaki and sisters Hiromi & Mayumi Hasegawa are Miaou, formed back in 2001.
Miaou, a musical outfit born out of their love for electronic sounds and guitar rhythms released their first album ‘Happiness’ back in 2003, since then, they have notched up plenty of tours across Japan and Asia.
Now they are getting ready to drop their latest album ‘The Day Will Come Before Long‘ and to honour this noteworthy event we have managed to grab five minutes of the bands time to ask the a quick Q&A. Here goes…
Welcome to MODERNFUSS Miaou, how are you guys?
Great, thank you!
First up, I think it’d be worthwhile giving our readers a bit of background about yourselves. Could you tell us how’d you describe your style and sound?
We play poppy electronic music – mostly instrumental but we have some guest vocalists on our new record.
Could you make up a new genre for your music?
Space cat electronica
Who do you think your biggest influences in music are, why?
We’re all big fans of sonic youth, tortoise, boards of canada and telefon tel aviv. They’ve all influenced our sound I think.
‘Miaou’ is a snazzy name, where did that come from?
It’s how cats say ‘nya’ in French!
We have been having a good listen to ‘The Day Will Come Before Long’ – Well done. Are you happy with it?
Were really happy with it – our sound has really moved on from the last record. It was mixed by Qua in Australia and his studio skills really stand out. Our guest vocalists Radical Face and Epic45 really added something to our music that wasn’t there before.
You seem to use a lot of programming in your music, do you think it’s important to move with the times when it comes to music? Is technology important?
It’s not so important for us – it’s always great having new stuff to play with but we love our old synths as much as we love finding new stuff to use. Our favourite instrument to use in recording was an old vibraphone.
If you only had one song to sell yourself, which track would you say does it best? *We dig Small Dreams.
We love them all! Maybe ‘Lost Souls’ is a stand out track though. We liked the music on the track but Radical Face’s vocals made it special.
If you could write a book about The Day Will Come Before Long what would you call it, and what is the first line?
That’s difficult! I think just the same as the title of the record….
When you’re not making music how do you entertain yourselves?
Tatsuki loves playing soccer, Hiromi loves shopping and I (Mayumi) love cats and finding new music!
What do you have planned for the future? Anything really exciting?
Were going on tour around Asia in the coming months and we’ll be playing some shows with our Belfast friends Not Squares in Japan in November. Our album release party is in Tokyo Planetarium too, we’re super excited about that.
As a way of giving up-and-coming bands a bit of publicity here in Japan, we always ask our featured bands and artists to recommend a few to our readers. Who are your picks?
Shugo Tokumaru, toe, aus, Vampillia, LITE, 4 bonjour’s parties .. many many!
Muchos Thanks Miaou!
Check Miaou here.
www.miaoumusic.com
www.twitter.com/miaoumusic
The Day Will Come Before Long is out September 8th on Thomason Sounds.
Have a sneaky listen on Soundcloud
Lost Souls
Own Your Colours
