Send "Mono " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Having established themselves as one of the most distinctive-- and difficult to categorize-- bands of the 21st century, post-rock group Mono have more or less been following their own muse for a number of years. On Holy Ground: NYC Live with the Wordless Music Orchestra, it takes them away from their usual home-away-from-home of Chicago (and the ministrations of their favorite producer, Steve Albini), and to New York for a lengthy and elaborately constructed live performance with the redundantly named Wordless Music Orchestra. This time out, the job of recording falls to Matt Bayles, who brings to his duties here the same meticulous determination to give every sound its own space, the way he did on Oceanic and Celestial for the late, lamented Isis. The album sounds fantastic, filling up all the room it's given; even the crowd noise comes through with a bright clarity that matches the emotional resonance of Mono's work.The music itself-- mostly drawn from last year's Hymn to the Immortal Wind-- very much follows the stream Mono have been navigating since their inception. As early as 2001, they were incorporating strings into their sound, and their previous two albums featured, respectively, a string quartet and a chamber orchestra, so working with a full-fledged, complete orchestral arrangement must have seemed like a natural progression. The arrangements, mostly done by Wordless Music Orchestra conductor Jeffrey Milarsky and Mono guitarist Takaakira Goto, are written to take full advantage of the new range of instruments at the group's disposal. The treatment of the songs never seems tacked on, and Mono never makes the mistake of wasting orchestral resources on tacky string stings and other cheap flourishes. Yet while Mono avoid the pomposity that often goes along with orchestral collaborations, Holy Ground is most effective when the arrangements are written to take full advantage of both the depth of the orchestra and the power of the rock band they surround. The first two tracks illustrate how good the pairing can be, as does the electrifying treatment of "Halcyon (Beautiful Days)"; all three maximize the potential of the concept by bringing Goto and Yoda's guitars and especially Yasunori Takada's increasingly underutilized drums to the fore and letting the orchestra support them. On other tracks, though, the cart is put so fully before the horse that it's difficult to distinguish what's happening from a manipulative film score. Mono have always been susceptible to overwrought emotion, but by bringing in so many instruments that are inextricably linked in our cultural receptors to specific feelings and moods, they risk becoming an unusually refined melancholy-moods outfit....full text |
| Rocksound |
| Let’s be honest, the vast majority of live albums are a waste of time; ill conceived, poorly mastered and delivered as little more than an afterthought aimed at the most intransigent completists. Thankfully, Mono are one group who rarely operate in half measures and this, their first live record, delivers on almost every level. Documenting the band’s 10th anniversary show in New York, complete with 24-piece orchestra, ‘Holy Ground…’ quite clearly represents a labour of love and, thanks to a quite revelatory mastering job from Matt Bayles, the entire set is rendered in stunning clarity and with a commendable absence of compression. Indeed, with the concert hall’s acoustics swathing every instrument in a sheen of beautifully organic reverb, it’s arguable that Mono have never sounded better. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the relatively straightforward visual aspect of the package pales somewhat in comparison and, given that ‘Hymn To The Immortal Wind’ (from which the vast majority of the set is culled) was itself recorded live, the difference between the two albums is at times barely discernible. Nevertheless, aside from a couple of minor complaints, ‘Holy Ground…’ provides an exemplary record of what was without doubt a hugely special evening....full text |
| Tinymixtapes |
| The band-plus-symphony live album is nothing new. Portishead did it in 1998, mixing Beth Gibbons’ lovely voice with the New York Philharmonic at the Roseland Ballroom. Metallica tried it in 1999, recruiting Michael Kamen to conduct the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for what is arguably the best performance in the back half of their catalog. But neither of these artists’ music is inherently symphonic to begin with. Sure, Metallica pinched whole phrases from Gustav Holst and regularly nipped other classical works for their early thrash, but their music never had anything more than the grand flow of symphonic strings, the thundering bombast of tympani. Mono is one of the few bands overtly influenced by classical music to try the rock and symphony bit, and from the record we have with Holy Ground: NYC Live, the results are astonishing. Rather than simply reinterpreting their songs with a symphonic counterpart, the band allows the music to stretch and grow, filling the Society for Ethical Culture Hall with waves of guitar reverb pitted against the soft moan of cellos and violins. In this context, a song like “Pure as Snow” becomes a journey, an excursion much like the walk through the wintry woods depicted in Dimitri Galuret’s video for last year’s Hymn to the Immortal Wind track “Follow the Map.” In like fashion, “Burial at Sea” extends the ocean metaphors and nautical themes to drift among underwater tidal flows. Surpassing the studio version, this rendering captures the claustrophobic feel of the weight of the water, and here’s where the added DVD comes in handy. To see Mono work through these songs with The Wordless Music Orchestra is a feast for the eyes as well as the ears. On stage, lead guitarist Takaakira Goto plucks the soothing melodies for songs like “Silent Flight, Sleeping Dawn,” while drummer Yasunori Takada punctuates every phrase with marked measures of snare and hi-hat, cymbals and toms....full text |
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