Today, Wednesday 3rd December – the incredible, hugely influential and much loved Japanese band toe can finally announce a run of UK headline dates for 2026. Blending together an intricate and stunning mix of post rock, jazz, electronica, math rock, R&B and much more, these shows are long, long in the making. toe only been to the UK twice in their entire career, in 2013 (a sold out solitary London show at XOYO) and in 2016 (or an ArcTanGent Festival exclusive) – but they’ve been highly influential on the world of math rock both here and in Japan, where they’ve just completed their 25th tour across the country, culminating in an in-the-round show at a Sumo arena in Tokyo. On top of that – the band also recently celebrated the 25th Anniversary with a huge in-the-round (sumo) arena show in Tokyo, and these shows – billed as the “Loneliness Will Shine” tour (includes Euro dates also) are part of their 25th anniversary touring. To get a better understanding of this very special band, please do watch this captivating live performance from The First Take, of the track ‘Goodbye’ feat. Asako Toki + Seigen Tokuzawa. WATCH – HERE —— All toe UK Tour Dates for 2026:
April 10th – Bristol, Prospect Building
April 11th – London, Electric Brixton – TICKETS
April 13th – Glasgow, St Luke’s ALL shows on sale 10:00am Friday 5th December
TICKETS – HERE —— A little bit about the incredible band, toe: Since forming in 2000, toe have synthesised everything from pop, post- and math-rock, jazz, R&B, and electronic into one of the most distinct sounds in rock music. Their debut LP the book about my idle plot on a vague anxiety (2005) left an unmistakable imprint across the splintered worlds of instrumental and experimental music, exploding the tenets of post-rock with writing and performances that channel the intensity of hardcore. toe have kept the same lineup since their inception. Yamazaki Hirokazu’s acoustic and Mino Takaaki’s electric guitars often juxtapose one another against the backdrop of drummer Kashikura Takashi’s unmatched sense of feel and rhythm, specializing in phrases that trick the listener with unanticipated backbeats and climactic gasps. Bassist Yamane Satoshi lends depth to the staccato, explorative melodies, gluing them to, and making sense of Takashi’s unique style. The debut’s follow-up, For Long Tomorrow (2009), was a breakthrough that explored their pop and jazz DNA, as well cementing comparisons to post-rock forebears and contemporaries like Tortoise. For Long Tomorrow also produced one of toe’s better known songs in “グッドバイ / Goodbye,” a re-recording of the 2006 track from the New Sentimentality EP, this time featuring Japanese pop singer Asako Toki. 2015’s Hear You was defined by its loosening of the rhythmically frenzied work that predated it. Understated instrumentation stretched and smeared style and genre spectra, as heard in the piano-laden “オトトタイミングキミト”; the drumless rap on “Time Goes”; and the tabla, synth, and chanting in “G.O.O.D L.U.C.K.” Although such experimentation was always foreshadowed by the band’s early EPs songs, ideas we forgot (2003) and The Future Is Now(2012)—and later echoed by Our Latest Number (2018)—Hear You is still subdued, a marked departure from the band’s prior work. NOW I SEE THE LIGHT (2024), toe’s fourth full-length album, is a bridge between the experimental restraint of their later work and the explosive abandon of their earlier output. From the opening tracks, toe balance serpentine passages against meditative repetition. On “LONELINESS WILL SHINE,” “サニーボーイ・ラプソディ,” and “NOW I SEE THE LIGHT,” Hirokazu reprises his role as part-time vocalist, breaking the band yet further from the instrumental work that formerly defined them. As a whole, NOW I SEE THE LIGHT closes the loop between early and late toe, giving them a clean slate for their new outlook. | 
