The Filipino-Japanese started with strict piano lessons, now she’s shaping her own sonic universe.
For some artists, music is a career discovered later in life, a calling that appears after years of searching. For Filipino-Japanese Ena Mori, it was something far more instinctive.
It was her second nature.
Long before she stepped onto festival stages or released alt-pop records, Mori was already sitting in front of a piano at six years old, learning classical music with the quiet discipline expected of young musicians. While most children her age were still figuring out hobbies, she was already reading notes and practicing scales, absorbing music as if it were another language.
At fifteen, Mori moved from Japan to the Philippines, a transition that would quietly shape the environment in which her artistry would later grow. Immersed in a new cultural landscape while still carrying the discipline of her early musical training, she continued developing the instinct that had followed her since childhood: to create.
Years later, the sound she crafts, textured electronic pop layered with emotion and precision, still carries echoes of those early years. For Mori, music was never something she learned only for a stage. It was something she grew up inside.
From classical discipline to creative freedom
Mori’s earliest relationship with music began with structure. Classical piano demanded patience, repetition, and strict attention to sheet music. For years, she followed the rules of the tradition, interpreting compositions written by others.
But by the time she reached eleven, something shifted. She grew tired of simply reading notes.
Rather than walking away from music entirely, Mori challenged herself to write her own. The curiosity to experiment replaced the discipline of memorization. The piano, once a guidebook, became a canvas.
In a recent interview, Mori recalled that moment of quiet rebellion.
“I got tired of reading the notes,” she said. “So I challenged myself to write music instead—to write what I like.”
That instinct eventually shaped her sound today. While her music leans heavily into electronic production, the influence of her classical training continues to echo through her work.
“My sound is electronic,” she explained. “But my classical roots are still there, especially in this EP.”
A balance of creating music in the dark and just letting it go
Before audiences, streams, and festival posters, Mori was simply creating.
While studying at De La Salle–College of Saint Benilde, she spent years making music privately, experimenting in her room without a clear plan of releasing it. At the time, the act of creation itself was already fulfilling.
“I’ve always loved making something,” she said in a recent interview. “In college I was just making stuff in the dark without plans to release it.”
Her creative process remains deeply DIY to this day. Many of her recordings are built inside her room, surrounded by computers and keyboards, carefully layering sound until it feels complete. In that process, she also collaborates closely with Tim Marquez of the band One Click Straight, who has been part of the creative and technical side of bringing her music to life. Together, they work through the details of production, a collaborative process that remains grounded in experimentation rather than formula.
Still, creating music professionally is not without its challenges.
“As a new artist, it’s hard,” Mori admitted. “Turning your passion into work is hard.”
One of the most difficult lessons she faced was learning to release control. Once a song is shared publicly, listeners interpret it in their own ways, sometimes far from what the artist originally intended.
“It was hard before to accept that after releasing music, it wasn’t really in my control anymore how people would interpret it,” she said.
Over time, however, she began to see that moment of release differently. For Mori, a song is finished only when it feels like it has moved beyond her.
“When I feel like, ‘Oh, this is not mine anymore,’ that’s when I know it’s ready,” she explained. “It has its own entity already.”
When music is simply who you are
Despite the difficulties of building a career in music, quitting was never something Mori seriously considered. Music, for her, is not merely a profession.
“This is my therapy,” she shared. “I find myself calm whenever I experiment with sounds.”
She compares the idea of stopping music to suddenly giving up coffee after years of drinking it—unnatural, almost impossible. Having spent most of her life surrounded by melodies and instruments, music has become inseparable from how she processes the world.
Her latest EP, “ORE,” reflects that personal relationship with sound. Inspired by small but deeply human emotions—greed, jealousy, curiosity, and change—the project embraces more direct storytelling compared to her earlier work.
Where “rOe” leaned into metaphor, “ORE” chooses clarity.
“‘rOe’ was more metaphoric,” Mori explained. “‘ORE’ is more straightforward.”
Even as her sound evolves, Mori remains eager to explore new directions. She hopes her artistry will continue to transform over time.
“I want to be the kind of artist who, when I’m 80 years old, I’m totally different already,” she said. “Because I’ve tried everything.”
That openness extends to collaboration as well. In a recent interview, Mori shared that she hopes to work with artists such as Caroline Polachek, Imogen Heap, Massive Attack, and genre-bending acts like Yaelokre.
For Mori, each collaboration represents another musical language to explore, another story waiting to be told.
Yet, no matter how far her sound evolves, it always traces back to the same beginning: a six-year-old at a piano, learning to read notes, unknowingly shaping the life she would grow into.
For Mori, music was never just a passion. It has always been her second nature.
Mori hopes to work with artists such as Caroline Polachek, Imogen Heap, Massive Attack, and genre-bending acts like Yaelokre.
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