Since making their first live appearances in Japan in 1999, Mogwai have returned to tour the country a dozen times. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that the Scottish postrock quintet played only two gigs last year, and one of them was in Japan.
The act spent much of 2010 working on their seventh full-length, the awesomely titled "Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will." In late August they performed a hometown charity show in Glasgow. A week later they headlined Shizuoka's Metamorphose festival.
"We really wanted a short break between the recording and the mixing of the album to give our ears a rest," says multi- instrumentalist Barry Burns. "It was actually a great help, and we had a brilliant time up in the hot springs and at the concert.