Hi and welcome to my website…

I was born in Funabashi, in the prefecture of Chiba, near Tokyo, in Japan. My mother is Japanese, and my late father was French-Canadian (Québécois). I grew up in Quebec, more precisely in the Montreal region, in the south shore of Montreal, where I also now reside.

As far as I can remember, growing up, there was always music and cinema in the house. My father was a cinematographer, photographer, director of photography, cameraman, wearing many hats in the industry. He had done work in film and television in Japan during the 70’s, hustling between more personal passion projects he was trying to complete and his more corporate gigs, on top of teaching English and French (which is how he met my mother). This was before finally settling down in Quebec to raise his new family, after marrying my mother and having two kids (the third one, my younger brother, was to be born on Montreal soil).  My father was also a big fan of music, from British, American, and Japanese 60’s & 70’s rock, to film scores, to ‘chanson française’, he showed just as much passion for ‘sound’ than he did for the screen. My mother was also into all the above, however with a slight inclination towards classical music and opera.

This wonderful amalgam of music and cinema during my youth certainly began entering my psyche, slowly making its way into my subconscious. Indeed, I remember hearing scores by Ennio Morricone or Ryuichi Sakamoto or Bernard Hermann, blasting through the speakers in the living room and feeling like I was in a movie myself. I remember the first time I heard the Beatles, the Kinks, the Animals… I remember when I heard the voice of Stevie or Michael for the first time… I remember the warmth I felt listening to Nakajima Miyuki (a Japanese folk singer from the 70’s)’s perfectly melancholic melodies and heartbreaking voice on that one album my parents had brought back from Japan (and is now kept preciously in my personal LP collection). I remember feeling the power of images for the first time, through Bertolucci, Spielberg, Kubrick, Kurosawa, and so many films that I was probably too young to watch (Blue Velvet when I was maybe 8 or 9? It traumatized me… but I felt how powerful it was). Every one of those things ignited a big spark in my brain, but it was only years later that I would fully understand the impact of it all in my life.

Although I was aspiring to have an acting career when I was a boy (my dad would take me to auditions, I would do pretty good and land a few acting gigs), the passing of my father changed me in so many ways, and music became my outlet to deal with the loss. It was at that moment, when I was 13 years-old, that I leaned fully into learning music by way of the guitar.

Drums was my first love (still is to this day) and although I’ve had my share of opportunities to play them in some projects (and still love to play), the guitar was going to be my first instrument. Electric that is, until I decided to enrol in a classical music program in a specialty music High School (Pierre-Laporte in Montreal). That’s where I learned most of what I know in terms of music theory, thanks to the school’s long(er) schedules including classes such as music history, choir (chorale), music theory (solfège), classical guitar, and lots of hours dedicated to practicing our instrument in addition to the usual academic classes. In parallel was my exploration into punk rock music territory, which I was living through my first real band experience and through adopting a skateboarding lifestyle. This was an already established local band, nothing big but established nonetheless and that meant playing shows and recording music in professional studios, which I did with them (they were a bit older than me) until I finished high school.

Next were the jazz studies I ended up not doing. Indeed, I had enrolled in a jazz program after high school but decided not to go, literally when I was on my way there. I had played in a band, did some shows, and recorded, that’s what I felt I wanted to do. At the time, I didn’t care so much for learning more scales or music theory, I felt I had had enough. The few following years were spent exploring different musical styles, recording demos, playing with a few people, not quite knowing what was coming next and feeling the pressure of having to do ‘something serious’ as people would keep telling me. So I went back to school, this time to study 2D animation and cinema in a private institution. Besides making music, I had always leaned towards visual art and had a pretty decent stroke of the pencil. After working very briefly in animation, I travelled to Japan for the first time on my own, and it was during that trip that I had a calling, I was to return home and start a new musical project.

This new project was a mixture of sound and visuals, it was all instrumental with the occasional guest singer or rapper, and the whole thing was very much influenced by film soundtracks, though performed by a rock ensemble. This project was inspired by my trip to Japan and how I felt at that time, trying to connect with this side of me I knew little about. With the help of an old friend (from that first punk rock band I had been in) I put together this band called ‘Pawa Up First’, and in 2005 we were recording our first album ‘The Scenario’, a collection of previously demoed songs I had in my back pocket and that we re-recorded for about 300$. The band went through a few changes of personnel and went on to release a total of 4 albums in 7 years, one of them, the last one entitled ‘Missing Time’, released in 2013, won the year’s ‘Best Instrumental Album’ at l’ADISQ, Quebec’s Grammy equivalent. The band played several shows, toured a little, had its music used for films and documentaries (ie : the late Jean-Marc Vallée’s ‘Café de Flore) until we decided to call it quits in 2014.

Although I was playing music as a hired gun for a few local artists at the time and touring quite a lot (with Beast, Ariane Moffat, Xavier Cafeine and Boogat), it was with Pawa Up First that I was introduced to the world of sound and images, as the project had been imagined and put together to explore instrumental music in the context of visual content. That’s how I got my foot into the world of television and film scoring as I started getting calls from producers and directors to create music for their projects. It was a very organic and natural trajectory. For me, it felt like the right thing to do, I felt at home. I sure did have a lot to learn, technically and psychologically (which is an important aspect in working in film composing), but I truly felt that the language the directors were speaking was one I spoke as well, one of emotions, colors, and textures, rather than keys, scales or theory. When making music, I often feel like I’m a film director myself, or a painter… We’re all simply passionate about telling a story. In short, it’s something I absolutely love to do, that feels like an extension of myself, and I want to keep learning, keep collaborating and work on all sorts of different projects.

With all that, I still love touring, playing live shows and recording albums. My band TEKE::TEKE is a once in a lifetime project. I love this band with all my heart, and I love the possibilities this 7-piece ensemble can generate. This family affair started in 2017 as a tribute to Japanese guitarist ‘Takeshi Terauchi’ but after performing his music with a new kind of energy and sound, we felt compelled to keep exploring. And so the band rapidly started writing its own material, which we felt opened even more doors in terms of sonic opportunities, there was a magic there between the 7 of us. Together we released two full-length records on renowned Pacific Northwest label Kill Rock Stars (‘Shirushi’ in 2021 and ‘Hagata’ in 2023) and a couple of EPs, one of them released on famed Seattle label SUB POP Records. Our first album ‘Shirushi’ won ‘Best Album – Other Language’ at l’ADISQ in 2022 and was on the Polaris Prize’s long list that same year. T::T is a wild adventure… cinematic, deep, magical, and full of hope. I’m extremely proud of this band.

So, now you know a little bit more about me.

Thank you for reading!