タコ 토끼 - from the Japanese “Tako” (octopus) and the Korean “Toki” (rabbit).

The Toki triplets are the heirs to a remarkable family legacy.

Their great-grandfather, Pablo Toki, was the first in the family to build instruments from discarded materials and scrap. While working as the caretaker of the open-air landfill in Vinh Long, Cochinchina, he was bored out of his mind and found an enjoyable pastime in crafting rudimentary string instruments and mumbling songs of his own invention. Among his creations was a monokardon, which he played throughout his life and which remains in the possession of the triplets to this day.

Their grandfather, Paco Toki, carried on the family tradition and built more than a hundred instruments, primarily from kitchen utensils. Paco was of Japanese-Korean descent and owned a restaurant in Okinawa renowned for its famous octopus-and-rabbit stew. The restaurant soon became known by the name of its signature dish: “Tako Toki.” Octopus (tako in Japanese), rabbit (toki in Korean).

The triplets’ father, Pedro Toki, was a poor cook and unfortunately lost the recipe for the stew, but he passed on to his sons his passion for salvage, recycling, and musical invention. Though not a particularly accomplished musician, he possessed a fertile if somewhat chaotic imagination and built numerous instruments from metal parts recovered from a scrapyard in Gobleg, a village in Bali, where he settled in the 1970s and where the Toki triplets were born a few years later.

After returning to Europe, Aurèle, Étienne, and Nico Toki went their separate ways and each pursued formal musical training at some of the most prestigious conservatories and music schools (including the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and the Geneva University of Music). They later reunited to form the trio “Tako Toki,” creating what they describe, borrowing from Claude Debussy, as “savage music with every modern comfort.” Their work is a unique blend of a long family tradition of raw, instinctive music and refined, scholarly craftsmanship.