Post-Rock
2002
Originally written in December 2006
I’ll admit, I only came across Mono while looking for the British electronica group of the same name. The latter seems to have disappeared after one hit song (and a rather shoddy accompanying album). That said, I was still desperately looking for a live album, a B-sides compilation, anything really that could reproduce the drama-pop sheen of their unabashedly commercial trip-hop sound (a term that’s universally reviled as shallow and completely unspecific, by the way). I pretty much guessed beforehand that my chances of finding any of that on a record titled One Step More And You Die were pretty slim.
This Mono happens to be a Japanese four-tet that play post-rock. This record follows their 2001 debut, Under A Pipal Tree, and is surprisingly accessible, provided you’re at least partially familiar with Sigur Ros and Explosions in the Sky. Mono weave dense, wordless soundscapes with guitars, strings (often), piano and cello (less so), with tracks ranging anywhere from two to fifteen minutes in length.
'Halo' is one such epic, clocking in at nearly eight minutes. Guitars noodle away quietly, expanding into a distant roar of spaced-out distortion while appropriating some of the feedback techniques employed by groups like My Bloody Valentine and Flying Saucer Attack. The tempo drops off, eventually fading into silence as the ambient tones of the 90-second closer ‘Giant Me On the Other Side’ become audible. On ‘Sabbath’, delicately trembling guitar notes play a moving elegiac theme. Within a rather concise five minutes, it reaches great heights of melancholy drama while remaining grounded in its cautiously optimistic tone. ‘A Speeding Car’ follows a similar blueprint, with warm guitar lines slowly gaining momentum and volume, as each new movement is introduced by a brief wash of feedback. The slightly mournful tune picks up as the guitars move from a slow burn into full throttle, eventually blasting waves of feedback.
I haven’t followed the track order at all in this review, partly because the record itself doesn’t really follow a particular sequence. With that said however, it is mostly because I wanted to finish up by discussing 'Com(?)', the utterly massive, completely overpowering sixteen-minute centerpiece. It comes in innocuously enough after the hushed tones of the brief ‘Where am I’, the leisurely opener. The latter is all very Explosions in the Sky-like, gently strummed guitars with nary an effects pedal. Com(? begins in similar fashion, but around the 3.5-minute mark, the guitar sound begin to expand, distorting ever so slightly. Yoda’s (I believe that’s his real name, the poor fellow) guitar bristles with feedback as his elastic riffs reverb heavily until it fades into silence again at the 6.5-minute mark. Slowly, the drums begin pounding ominously, as if precipitating one final surge. On cue, Takaakira’s and Yoda’s guitars completely detonate in a fuzz pedal-fueled metal riff, matching thunderous volume with kinetic power. The riff blazes away as one guitar switches to Dirty-era Sonic Youth-style atonal feedback. At the end of it all, the main riff is inaudible in a maze of tape machine scree, overdriven guitars, and amplifier noise.
It might sound like there’s little to this record aside from its quiet-loud-quiet dynamics. I’ll concede that they make frequent use of that technique, and while it’s hardly original, they do do it remarkably well. Their use of varied instruments sets them apart from their immediate contemporaries; 'Mopish Morning, Halation Wiper' is but one example, layering an out-of-tune piano with delay effects to concoct an eerie requiem before plunging into ‘A Speeding Car’. One Step More and You Die ultimately is an undeniably rich album, with new nuances appearing regularly on successive listens. Highly recommended.
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