SOMA, formed by Tomo, started out in October 2007 at the Bento restaurant, a restaurant popular with many Japanese musicians. The official members were Tomo, who played the multiple roles of guitarist, synthesizer, rhythm sequence programmer, producer and mixer and Hymn, who took up the dual roles of vocalist and guitarist. In December, SOMA’s official MySpace was launched with three original songs.
The duo had their debut performance in March 2008 at a Japanese culture convention Animansion in Brussels, Belgium. Two months later, they released their first seven-track album, The violent visual groove liberation, through a Jmusic store in Paris, France and several shops in Camden Town, London. SOMA then hosted the visual kei live event in UK at the well-known venue, Bar Fly, in July. Later on, they performed at the Cosplay Ball party and on the main stage during the London Movie Comic Media Expo 2008 in October. Following that, SOMA had a secret gig and Hymn left the band. Henceforth, SOMA became Tomo’s solo project.
In Febrary 2009, SOMA released the mp3 version of The violent visual groove liberation, containing remastered versions and a few different tracks from the original CD version. In the meantime, SOMA became less active and Tomo’s other band, MOULT, which is a multi-national psychedelic electronic experimental post rock band, released their first album in Japan, UK and iTunes worldwide and performed at several venues in London in July.
By January 2010, Tomo found himself living in Athens, Greece and started to try his hand at playing DJ sets at Japanese parties. Continuing on with SOMA as a solo project, a new maxi single EP, Kyourangengu, was released and distributed worldwide in May. The EP featured London-based Japanese singer-songwriter Rica Minami on two of the songs. Tomo has since been using vocaloid, a computer vocal software popularized in Japan, on SOMA’s new songs. During his recent EU tour that started on 24th September, Tomo used vocaloid along with motion dive. Tokyo, a video mixing software, to introduce more people to Japanese culture through the use of Japanese tools.
With a talented musician and unique blend of various musical influences, SOMA is sure to bring its very own brand of visual kei into the music scene.
