Hiroki Tanaka

Hiroki Tanaka is a Toronto-based guitarist, singer-songwriter, and writer. Formerly lead guitarist of Juno/Polaris-nominated band, YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN, he has embarked on a solo career that infuses elements of his Japanese-Canadian heritage with lyrical, high-concept art rock. Tanaka’s genre-hopping sound has been compared to David Bowie, Saya Gray, Animal Collective and Mr. Bungle. Tanaka's new project is called Isan, meaning "inheritance" in Japanese. Tanaka wrote each song based on a corresponding obscure hymn, composed by Japanese-Christians in the early 20th century. Isan explores notions of cultural identity, the effects of religious thought on western society, and attempts to answer the question of “what can we do with what we inherit?”, all while traversing various genres such as synth pop, garage rock, ambient drone and psych folk. As a writer, Hiroki has had poetry published in literary magazines including Metatron Press, and was shortlisted for the Janice Colbert Award (2017). He wrote for Weird Canada, and for the online Canadian music blog, DOMINIONATED, as well as curating their first music festival HEAR HERE Fest in Vancouver. While he was in YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN, the band was longlisted for the 2018 Polaris prize, and won a Canadian Video Game Award for their soundtrack for Severed (2016). Hiroki toured extensively in Canada/US and Western Europe, opening for artists such as Jethro Tull, Kim Gordon, and Dirty Projectors.