Takaakira “Taka” Goto is a composer based in Tokyo, Japan, who is also known as the lead guitarist and composer for Japanese instrumental rock band MONO.
Taka’s first solo album ‘Classical Punk and Echoes Under the Beauty’ was originally written and recorded in 2003, but was never completed and ready for general release.
„I wasn’t actually thinking about sharing this album with anyone at the time. It didn’t sound like MONO, so I left it as a trail to my envisioned world, as my personal collection“, Taka explains. The tracks sank into oblivion as Taka focused on MONO. Now, in 2015, they appear like a melancholic relict of the past… a relict much too precious and too authentic to be polished up – and hence, Taka decided to simply master these tracks, and to release them as they were, in their raw, slightly shop-worn beauty.
Much like the album title insinuates, his music carries the dignity and grandeur of classical music, with its big orchestrations of piano and strings… yet at the same time, there is the rawness and the high-energy impact of punk rock, with wails of electric guitars and shrouds of noise.
Taka adopted his unique compositional style not only through his work with MONO but also through his experience in scoring for films such as Snow Angels (2007), All God’s Children Can Dance (2010) and the WOWOW TV Drama Kanata No Ko (2013).
