Venue: Menza pri koritu, Ljubljana
Concert date: 19.02.2010
Attendance: 0
Mono are a four-piece Japanese band (mostly two guitars, bass and drums) who’ve served up a heap of albums in the new millennium. They always had a strong sense of the epic and the emotional, but they were mostly riffing on sounds already known, borrowed from earlier, somewhat bigger-caliber post-rock bands. Still, they stuck to their mission and before long were winning recognition from listeners all over the world – not so much for originality as for the essence hidden in the music, which is hard to recreate.
Fearing viral illness, the Americans (where “mono” is slang for mononucleosis) wanted to see the band in Europe first, and if there weren’t too many casualties, they’d invite them over to the States too. On their European migrations the Japanese really did infect most of the people at their shows, who were never the same again, since their sound soaks into your whole body and fills every cell. Ljubljana wasn’t safe either, and Mono surely hoped Slovenia would catch their mission too.
Last year Mono released the excellent album Hymn to the Immortal Wind, which was front and center at Saturday’s show at Menza. Of course, the guys and the girl (the bassist) didn’t neglect the legacy they built in the past, either. They played at least one song from each of their studio albums, only the newest release got a much fuller share. But let’s take it from the top.
First to take us on a wild ride were Balžalorsky / Drašler 3o, whose take on jazz rock surely doesn’t deserve to be so unfairly overlooked in Slovenia. The guitarist’s fast fingers can quickly cloud your mind until John McLaughlin appears before your eyes, while the slower, more demonic antics conjure up the whole picture of a disgruntled dictator Robert Fripp. The music is pretty loose and leaves tons of room for each member of the trio to express themselves, though at moments a bit more compositional discipline wouldn’t have hurt.
Then came a few minutes of break, while we got ready for the Japanese ecstasy known as Mono. Anyone who knows their music and the post rock label that has stuck to them over the years will know the Japanese can’t exactly lean on a huge dose of originality in this field. They borrow heavily from Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Ros, and some even want to pin a kinship with the Scots Mogwai on them. Post rock really is a genre built largely on building uncertainty and tension and then a final dramatic release. That’s common to all the major acts in the field, and Mono are of course no exception. They start building their structures slowly, and gradually, through a nirvana of guitar distortion, they reach the boiling point.
Their music isn’t higher mathematics and doesn’t serve up too obvious technical showdowns between the individual members. It’s more about surrendering to a musical trance, which the Japanese know how to create by dramatically shifting our perception of the rules of music – but only if you haven’t heard any other post rock band before. In their search for their own expressive space the Japanese really aren’t all that original, and their show is fairly predictable too, but giving yourself over to their heady, refined sequences requires listeners to take part on a not-so-scientific basis. You literally have to relax, as if lying down on a soft cloud. This music appeals mostly to our emotions, to our right brain hemisphere, and with too much scientific analysis of their lack of ego and technical ability, the magic simply evaporates.
Mono have the typical rock toolkit, which they usually spice up even further on their albums (with some strings, too). This time they simply had to rely on the basic form of their craft. They were up to the task, though, since this rawness added an even greater touch of authenticity to their performance. The two guitarists, who often even sit, preach their meditations at us, so intense that either of them could have a revelation any moment and tumble off the chair. Still, Mono did have to commit a little sin by using extras like bells and a piano, which only fired up the crowd even more.
Plenty of people probably grimaced at the lack of communication with the audience, but to me it felt just right. The musicians, hidden behind their long hair, seemed to be in a trance, and too much chatter might have ruined the magical atmosphere they created. The most animated was the bassist, who swayed devotedly to the rhythms of a sensual trance.
Anyone who could relax and give in to their emotions (and of course likes this kind of music to begin with) was surely left far from indifferent by the show, since the Japanese are among the better builders of grandiose soundscapes. The concert experience was enriched even further by a promising opening act, which maybe didn’t fit Mono’s ideals genre-wise, but whose inclusion made the evening more diverse. In an hour and a half on stage, the headliners Mono met every expectation and, predictability aside, satisfied the appetites of the music gourmets at Metelkova. There may not have been a skyscraper nearby, but there was still no shortage of goosebumps.
Photos: Mojca Perdih
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