Mono

The instrumental rock quartet delivers a work of epic proportions

photos courtesy of Human Highway

Rock ‘n’ roll once referred to a specific style of music. It was based on R&B’s rhythmic and melodic structures and pioneered by African-Americans like Chuck Berry and Little Richard.
These days, rock seems to include just about any music made with guitars, bass and drums (the White Stripes even did away with the bass). Nowhere is this more evident than in the surge in the numbers of instrumental rock bands. Acts like recent Japan visitors Sigur Ros and Mogwai have achieved worldwide renown even while essentially tossing the conventions of rock in the dustbin.

Take, for instance, Tokyo-based Japanese unit Mono’s new album You Are There. Six songs and 60 minutes go by with nary a hint of a vocal chorus or blues-inflected guitar solo. “We thought we didn’t need singing or lyrics,” explains leader Takaakira “Taka” Goto in a quick interview before the band embarks on a summer of heavy touring in Asia, North America and Europe. “Like people have been appreciating classical music for a long time, we can enjoy the atmosphere and feelings of any piece of music without singing or lyrics. What we want to express is emotions that cannot be described in words.”

Although success might have seemed unlikely when Goto, fellow guitarist Yoda, bassist Tamaki and drummer Yasunori Takada formed Mono in 2000, other groups were to some extent already paving the way with rock that lacked its traditional musical elements. In the ’80s and ’90s, bands like Sonic Youth and Radiohead launched their music into uncharted territory with elongated experimental jams that took rock far away from its R&B roots.

Mono soon found that a worldwide audience was ready for its instrumental excursions, playing New York’s CBGB and the influential South by Southwest festival in 2001, and releasing their debut, Under the Pipal Tree, on downtown New York figure John Zorn’s Tzadik label the same year.

For their fourth album You Are There, Mono once again worked with Steve Albini, the legendary engineer of stripped-down ’90s masterpieces like Nirvana’s In Utero, at Albini’s Electrical Audio studios in Chicago. Known to loathe digital recording technology and heavily produced rock, Albini proved an ideal match for Mono.

“We’re not interested in flawless, no-mistake takes or up-to-date technology,” explains Goto. “Steve is one of a few sound engineers who try to capture the musician’s personality, wishes and feelings on tape.”

You Are There

Mono’s songs follow a soft-loud-soft arc familiar to instrumental rock, but no one would mistake their sound for Sigur Ros’s Nordic tribalism or Mogwai’s noise-punk shadings. You Are There has a cinematic lushness and drama that sees achingly sweet guitar melodies build to symphonic sweeps of squalling distortion before subsiding to a placid calm. Violins and cellos, overdubbed after the band had laid down its basic tracks, highlight the filmic textures of the music.

The cinematic quality of the album, it turns out, was no coincidence. “I wanted to create an album like the film Breaking the Waves by Lars Von Trier,” says Goto. “I wanted to express eternal emotion, compassion for life and the profound consolation we can only grasp thoroughly when we face the death of our loved ones.”

As Goto composed, he wrote an accompanying story. “Each scene required me to write specific music. We took extra care not to cut the emotional flow throughout the album. Also, we wanted to make the climax of the last song, ‘Moonlight,’ the conclusion of the story… The album starts with sorrow, then moves into melancholic sounds, and the swirl of noise comes at last at the climax.”

Goto says he would like listeners to feel the same way they do after reading a great book or seeing a great movie. Those looking for “shake, rattle and roll” or even a moshpit had better look elsewhere. “They pay attention to music sincerely,” he says of Mono’s audience. “They don’t come to party. They are serious listeners.”

You Are There is available on Human Highway Records.

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