Describing Japanese quartet MONO's show at The Wall in late April without leaning on the crutch of hyperbolical overstatement is nigh on impossible. If you were there, you would understand this. If you weren't, your life has a gaping void which strong liquor and unbridled carnal passion might one day start to fill.
Descending into trite cliché is another route I could choose to follow, but you can take it as a given that, for example, angels wept at the soaring crescendos. However, I'd then be obliged to use the word 'soundscape' somewhere as well, which would bring to an end my very proud lifelong tradition of not being pretentious.
For an hour and a half, Takaakira Goto played like a man possessed, the only way he knows how. Tamaki Kunishi was delicate on the piano and stylish on her bass, grace and elegance radiating from everything she did. Yasunori Takada, in equal measures on drums, stroked a lover's hair and forged the steel for a samurai's katana. And Yoda was like a general marshaling his troops on rhythm guitar.
In a word, MONO were phenomenal. They will be back, and you will go and see them.
