Theo Poyer and Margot Magniere fell hard for Japan on their first visit. It was March 2020, their first trip outside Europe, and they were loving being here — until things got a little too dramatic.

“We got one of the last flights back to France before everything was closed,” Poyer says, recalling the chaotic early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. “After that, we just wanted to go back.”

Five years later, the now 30-year-old musicians — who, along with Poyer’s younger brother Eliott, make up the band Tapeworms — are back and seated comfortably in a Shimokitazawa cafe.