Artist: MONO
Album: Nowhere, Now Here
Year: 2019
Rating: 95/100
Japanese post-rock band MONO have an innate knack for creating some of the most beautiful music I've ever laid my ears on. Their 2004 album Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered and the Sun Shined is a masterpiece comprising some utterly stunning soundscapes, such as "2 Candles, 1 Wish" and "A Thousand Paper Cranes", to name but two, and now, ten albums and twenty years into their career, it seems that knack hasn't eluded them even slightly on their new effort, Nowhere, Now Here.
The album opens with "God Bless", an ethereal, haunting number led by strings and trumpet, leading into the guitars of "After You Comes the Flood" just to set the tone perfectly. "Breathe" is a spooky, synth heavy number that's best not so much listened to as absorbed, with it being the only track on the album to feature any vocals of any kind. The title track is also a stand out, the first one of the album to clock in at longer than ten minutes, beginning with a sumptuous mix of clean tone guitars, trumpet and strings, beginning slowly, pulling back slightly, then exploding brilliantly into life where the listener least expects it to. Elsewhere, "Far and Further" is a low key blend of jangling guitars and strings, "Sorrow" is a beautiful melancholic slow burning eight minute epic, while closing track, "Vanishing, Vanishing Maybe" is a powerful soundscape to bring proceedings to an end.
I'm rarely stuck on finding words to describe how good an album honestly is, but "Nowhere, Now Here" is one I truly cannot recommend highly enough. This sumptuous beauty of an album is best listened to through headphones without distraction, as it seems to be the only real way to do it justice.
Track listing
1. God Bless
2. After You Comes the Flood
3. Breathe
4. Nowhere, Now Here
5. Far and Further
6. Sorrow
7. Parting
8. Meet Us Where the Night Ends
9. Funeral Song
10. Vanishing, Vanishing Maybe
