Monoral
Monoral is a Japanese alternative rock band signed to Sony Music Japan. The band consists of Anis Shimada (lead vocals and guitar) and Ali Morizumi (bass, guitar and keyboards) Members. Anis, the band's lead singer, born on February 23, 1975, is a British musician who speaks Japanese, English, French, and Arabic. Born in London, England to a Japanese father and a Moroccan-French mother, and raised in France. Anis was first discovered by Tetsuya Komuro, with whom he released a debut single in 1994 under the name of Aniss. He used to be a fashion model, as well  as a MTV show host. He also 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, writing English lyrics and helping other artists as an English supervisor. Ali, born in 1973, is a Japanese-American bassist and guitarist. Born and raised in Tokyo, Japan to an Iranian-American father and a Native Okinawan mother. He can speak both Japanese and English fluently. He was a VJ on MTV Japan, where he eventually met Anis. Ali is also a professional radio  DJ and hosts a show on InterFM as well. History. Their debut was in July 2001. Only 2 days after the release of their first mini album "in stereo", they performed at the Fuji Rock Festival 2001. The band's second minor debut album "ammonite", which rose as high as No. 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 label VAMPROSE. The songs "Pocketful of joy" and "Visions in my Head" were used for a TV commercial for IXY digital camera by Canon. In 2006, the band performed "Kiri", which became the opening theme to the anime series "Ergo Proxy". The song was also released via the iTunes Store on May 25, 2006. Monoral also released their second major album, "Turbulence", on July 4, 2007 and "Via", on October 29, 2008. After the release of "Via", they toured in Latin America, Europe and  China. Collaborations. Monoral's support members are the guitarists Akira Yasue and Hirama Mikio (former member of Tokyo Incidents) and Daigo Kakijima on the Drums. Former support guitarist Eric Zay played for rock group FAKE?, another former guitarist Tomoya Tsusui has his own band called Tobyas. MONORAL have collaborated with various other artists such as Fumiya Fujii, Lisa from M-flo and Mondo Grosso, either through songwriting or performances.