Photographer: Stephen Goodwin
Photographer: Stephen Goodwin
Acts: Mono, No Anchor, Secret Birds
Venue: The Hi-Fi, Brisbane
Date: 05 October 2011
Shimmering like heat haze, criss-crossing guitar arpeggios seem to pluck at the very heavens. Bass thunders with symphonic grandeur. Crash cymbals scale spine-tingling heights, the crescendoes piercing the senses before fracturing into a crystalline silence just as poignant.
Yet the cause, Japanese instrumental quartet, Mono is an isle of still, focused calm at the centre of this typhoon of beautiful, ferocious noise.
As I watch, I’m piqued by a fancy that music is channeling them, rather than the other way round.
That, as soon as they seat themselves on stage, a force possesses them, and the most exquisite sounds just pour forth.
And, oddly, that could be the ultimate compliment to Mono‘s prodigious talent for accomplishing with music the sort of transcendence which people usually stuff things up their nose to experience.
Even in their wildest moments — such as during Pure As Snow tonight when Goto rises from his low seat, drops the hammer on the distortion and starts thrashing about and bending his guitar all out of shape — the band still retains an otherwordly remoteness.
It’s as if we perceive them through gauze.
Maybe it’s the low blue lights that makes them seem impenetrable and mysterious.
Maybe it’s the absence of lyrics and that they never even speak.
Maybe, like Mono‘s music, it’s another thing about them that defies critical analysis.
There’s one thing that’s not in doubt though, watching them switch from elegaic to apocalyptic, it’s that they inspire us to feel: sadness, joy, hope, awe. And that’s a beautiful thing.
Photos and Words by: Stephen Goodwin
More articles by Stephen Goodwin:
* All articles & Galleries by Stephen Goodwin
