An Audience with Mono

If you’ve ever been to the Islington Assembly Hall in East London, you’ll know that it’s a striking, ornate building that looks every bit like the 1930s artifact that it is. Since being reopened in 2010, it’s become one of the most interesting venues in the city, hosting all manner of different acts. Last Wednesday (December 10th) though, it hosted an event that will be ingrained into its long memory for years to come. Since the mid-90s, post-rock music and its variants have risen to an acclaim that has spread across the world. It has seeped into the DNA of modern rock, expanding it, enhancing it and broadening its boundaries. Japanese foursome Mono were one of the originators of the style and their live performances have become legendary. In the summer they headlined at the ArcTanGent Festival in Bristol. Suffice to say, when they walked onto the stage at the Islington Assembly, the audience were well aware that they were in for an unforgettable experience. Any niggling uncertainty was put to bed as the lights dimmed and the four of them began to recite the foreboding intro to ‘Recoil, Ignite’, the massive, thrashing opening salvo of the darker half of their new double LP, The Last Dawn/Rays of Darkness (released in Europe by Pelagic Records).

It’s fair to say that a few hours earlier, Takaakira ‘Taka’ Goto, the lead guitarist and songwriter of the group cut a very different figure. Sat opposite me in the green room with his jawline-length hair brushed back, his hands clasped together on the table and only the beginnings of his extensive tattoo work showing beneath his sleeve, he seemed reserved, cheerful, even demure. It was almost difficult to believe I was talking to the mastermind behind 15 years’ and 7 albums’ worth of massive, raw, emotional music. How does he do it? Well in the case of the most recent release, it wasn’t an easy birth. “The last album, For My Parents, had a big, symphonic sound. This time, we had a vision, with the strings, we wanted to use them to create something new and unique, but it didn’t work, actually, it was very difficult.” He explains. “I got stuck. We still had a tour scheduled, I’m always writing songs as we tour but this time it was so difficult.”

Moving on from For My Parents certainly seems a daunting task. Buoyed by the band’s recent history of live shows featuring a full orchestral compliment (something few rock-oriented bands can boast), it was a huge, sweeping album laced with melancholia and sentiment. It still features in their shows, after rounding out the onslaught of ‘Recoil, Ignite’ and mercifully allowing the stunned audience a few precious moments to catch their breath, they played ‘Unseen Harbor’, a 14-minute epic and the highlight of that album. The new album features no such orchestral grandiosity, sticking predominantly to their foundational, four-piece set up (guitar, twice, bass, drums). The writing process really started whilst Taka was working on some soundtrack music for the Japanese mini-series Kanata No Ko. “It was like a medicine for me, a way of refreshing and recovering, because I’d been pretty depressed.” Taka says, smiling slightly. The darker mindset that haunted Taka during this period eventually germinated into Rays of Darkness, but that’s only half the story. “I realized that I really wanted to explain both sides, the lighter and the darker.” He recalls. “After I finished the soundtrack and compiled the songs it became The Last Dawn.”

The contrast was certainly evident on stage. The heavier moments, which saw the band in a flurry of lashing hair and thrashing heads were offset by lighter, hopeful builds. During ‘Kanata’, the track originally composed for the aforementioned show, Taka rhythmically flicked his wrist up across his eye line at intervals, letting his movements flow with the music. The structure of the set felt something like a transition from one end of the spectrum to the other. “I started thinking about positive and negative emotions.” Taka says, then claps his hands together, mimicking a pointer on a gauge. “If we can be like 50/50, if we’re even 1% on the positive side, it carries on. So with Rays of Darkness, it’s a negative decent. The Last Dawn is the positive side. More hope.” It’s a new, inventive approach for the band, their albums normally have one presiding emotional through-line, rather than a split. In terms of live performance, they treat it like a journey. “We always start with the dark side, and gradually become lighter. It’s like walking in a tunnel, you cannot feel any light but you keep moving towards a small eye and it grows until you reach the end.”

Midway through their set I was certainly seeing what he meant, I’ve seen Mono live a few times and each one has been an absorbing experience. The crowd response is, for the most part, reverent silence, most stay still, some sway and others bang their heads during the heavier parts but no man is left behind. Since they started Mono have toured globally almost on a yearly basis. This year alone they’ve performed in North America, Europe, Australasia and most of Asia, including China, but does the crowd differ? “Everywhere it’s the same crowd.” Taka proudly proclaims. “Once you trust in the power of the music, which can be like a conversation, it’s like spiritual travel. Last time we played in New York, there were these two big security guards who came to me after the show and said “We’ve never seen so many metal heads crying at a show before!” In America it’s not something you expect, metal guys try to keep a macho exterior, but they were crying. It was such a great thing.” I didn’t necessarily see anyone cry during their performance but it wouldn’t have surprised me, I came pretty close a couple of times.

Despite the universal language of their music and the amazing, universal response of their worldwide fan following, Mono are still Japanese at heart and it informs the way they play, even if it’s not immediately obvious. “If I listen to a Rachmaninoff piece, I want to see the Russian sky. We want to bring the Japanese sky to London.” Japanese music certainly has a distinct feel to it, Japan imports almost every kind of music you care to name and what they export often feels refined and delicately crafted. “We had our own history before WWII, but afterwards everything changed.” Taka explains, speaking on his home nation. “We play everywhere in the world, but our skin stays the same. We have to be original.” Certainly their recent bloom of collaborative work testifies to their cultural roots. Alongside the TV score, they have done yet more music for Where We Begin, a dance film made by award-winning director Mitsuyo Miyazaki. Anime director Koji Morimoto (known for his work on Akira, The Animatrix and Memories) also produced a 15 second promo for ‘Recoil, Ignite’. “It was very much an artistic collaboration.” Taka affirms.

Perhaps even more interestingly, the lead singer of the post-hardcore band Envy, Tetsuya Fukugawa lent his snarling vocal stylings to one track on Rays of Darkness. It marks the first time Mono have ever used a vocalist, as well as their most sinister, frightening piece yet. It scared the ever-loving shit out of me the first time I heard it, for sure. “We met Envy for the first time in New York, two Japanese bands meeting in New York, who didn’t know each other. We became friends over there and when we got back we realized that Tetsu’s house and my house are pretty close, so we started hanging out, talking about how great it would be if we could collaborate in the future.” Recounts Taka. “When I was writing a song for us to work together on, I could hear his voice clearly, so I gave the song to Testu without any requests, I trusted him. What he gave us was exactly what I had imagined.” Since the song was produced, Tetsuya has retained a working relationship with the band, suggesting future collaborations might be on the cards. “We played with Tetsu in Taiwan, that was so great, and we planning to tour together in Japan.”

Any time Mono actually get to spend in Japan is precious, they really are a band on the run most of the time. They recorded The Last Dawn/Rays of Darkness in the States, as they have done with several of their albums and their touring schedule is positively unrelenting. “We have a planned tour up until next December 2015. We might come to Europe 3 times next year, April, May, July, maybe November and December. It’s crazy. It’s our life.” Fittingly, and after about 90 minutes of sheer intensity, the band closed out with ‘Everlasting Light’, the bitter-sweet closing track from their 2009 juggernaut, Hymn to the Immortal Wind. Tamaki, their bassist and lone female member drifted across to the piano and gradually led the rest of the band into a hopeful, beautiful build to a crashing crescendo before the band rose from their sets, settled into a collection of exhausted smiles, gave a bow and disappeared offstage, leaving a flabbergasted London crowd in their wake. I say London crowd, I picked out dozens of accents and several different languages rippling though the audience. As Taka so rightly stated, their crowd is globally alike, they’ve all come for the same thing, and they will continue to. Mono have forged a path in musical exploration that their dedicated, trusting fans will always follow them down. Their music really is conversational, a universal language. I have no doubt that the discussion will continue for years to come.

 

The Last Dawn and Rays of Darkness are available for download as well as on CD and vinyl here