The idea of trying to tell a story without words might seem
difficult, illogical or even ridiculous. But that idea is the
foundation for the beautifully noisy music of the Japanese band
Mono. And with four albums and numerous tours throughout the world,
the latest of which brings them to the Troubadour on Monday night,
it looks like the band’s plan is working.
Amplified, haunting and powerfully redundant, Mono’s
latest album, “You Are There,” relies on drawn-out
musical themes (the longest lasting more than 15 minutes), powerful
chords and sweeping dynamics to develop its emotional and narrative
elements. Rather than writing lyrics to be descriptive or even
didactic, Mono instead creates luring and independently convincing
music as its form of dialogue.
“We are trying to make music like that in film so that the
music and the story are incorporated together. That’s the
feeling we want to create in the album,” Taka Goto, guitarist
and primary songwriter for the band, said through an
interpreter.
Part of the cinematic approach to the album arises from one of
Goto’s more significant influences, Danish director Lars von
Trier’s film, “Breaking the Waves.” The film,
which is set in a deeply religious part of Scotland, examines the
emotional, religious and sexual difficulties within a marriage
tainted by the husband’s sudden and traumatic physical
injury.
The band’s other influences embody a similar mood ““
often extremely saddening but also hopeful and ultimately
inspiring. The band cites musicians ranging in style from Miles
Davis to Nico to Beethoven, as well as the films “Life is
Beautiful” and “Schindler’s List.”
But Goto and the band also look internally for their narrative
structure. The songs on “You Are There” all derive from
a story Goto created about a woman’s journey through Japan as
she follows a man she loves, only to have it end in a tragic
death.
“The theme (of the album) is people seeing the value and
the importance of life through death,” Goto said. “When
you face death, that’s the way you can feel life.”
This duality is the theme not only of Mono’s latest album
but also of its music in general. Mono consistently uses stories as
guides for its music’s development of plot and emotion,
creating powerful orchestral rock with heart-pounding drums behind
tearing guitars. The sound usually begins as barely audible,
builds, resides, and then repeats, becoming more of a journey than
simply a collection of individual songs.
The undulation between these extremes recalls the sound of other
recent post-rock instrumental bands such as Mogwai, Explosions in
the Sky, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. All of these employ
repetitious musical themes and simple but intense sounds ““
rather than virtuosity or embellished ornamentation ““ to
achieve their goals.
But just as in storytelling, bands blanketed under the same
genre each establish their own personality. Though it takes its
time to develop, Mono’s music is consistently engaging
throughout the songs, layering the instruments to create a full and
intricate sound but all the while keeping the composition itself
simple and progressive ,so that it is difficult for the listener to
get lost or lose interest.
“We play music as an orchestra, even though (Mono) is only
a four-piece band,” Goto said. “The band is looking for
some kind of outlet of some dialect; (an) expression of the
explosion of this energy.”
The band found this outlet through its live shows, which only do
further justice to the music captured on the album. The band relies
heavily on these performances, which have taken it throughout
Europe, Asia and North America, to help audiences fully experience
the music.
Even in places outside of Japan, the band can connect with
listeners through the music precisely because of this absence of a
language barrier. For Mono, words are expendable; it is the music
that matters most.
“We want (our music) to be something similar to what you
feel after you read a great book or watch a good movie,” Goto
said. “We try to create music that will leave listeners with
(a) feeling that is indescribable in words.”