With their first soundtrack, Japan's
Mono reveal an entirely new dimension to their musical persona.
My Story, The Buraku Story is a feature-length documentary by director Yusaku Mitsuwaka. It details the plight of a people commonly called "the burakumin." Dating back to the feudal era, they were a hereditary class of untouchables separated not by race or ethnicity, but by residence and family bloodline. Victims of intense discrimination and ostracism, they lived as outcasts in separate villages. Burakumin status was disallowed in 1868, but descendants continue to experience intense societal discrimination that is not discussed publicly.
Mono don't merely provide cues for Mitsuwaka's film; he enlisted them as collaborators. Their music informs and advances the narrative as well as accompanying it. They abandon their signature dramatic volume and feedback attack by exchanging guitars and drums for piano, synths, chamber strings, and choral loops. Opener "Doumyaku" is introduced by a wispy female chorus and a spacey synth, framed by layers of luxuriant electronic ambience. Subdued notes from a keyboard bass frame a formless yet forward-moving series of moody atmospherics executing a circular major chord pattern. The elliptical piano melody that introduces "Kokyo" is appended by cello, reverb, and sonorous layering effects. Its lithe single "Kioku" flirts with classical minimalism. Piano and string quartet exchange lines then entwine in an implied, episodic frame for a melody that is never fully articulated. "Chinmoku" conveys a Japanese appreciation of silence in one of its several definitions. Its contemplative tone weds hummed vocal drones in the foreground to distant, atmospheric sounds produced by scratched vinyl, radio static, percussive rattles, and gentle, looping keyboard drones. "Himitsu" is an episodic cue. An organ bathed in warm reverb and unidentifiable ambient sonic cascades flows against a minimal melody provided by a synth. Its gentleness contrasts with its solemn, bittersweet presentation. "Songen" is built on a repeating two-chord figure. Though it is introduced by an organ, it quickly takes on more elements -- strings, vocals, echo, washed-out synths, etc. Though it is whispered into being, it gradually asserts its quiet power and transcends the economy of its composition to become a muted work of elegance and even majesty. Closer "The Place" allows the return of guitars. Fingerpicked changes twin with lyrical slide lines buoyed by a droning organ line. An electric bass compels the six strings forward and they respond as the dynamic increases when the drum kit finally enters atop ambient synth washes.
Mono assert their power as the circular progression intensifies but eschew volume overload. The subtlety is revealing; one can hear ghost traces of meaning between notes and sonic, reverberating echoes as one phrase morphs into another. It makes the hidden plain in direct proportion to what is revealed in Mitsuwaka's film. While
My Story, The Buraku Story offers a side of
Mono we've only heard in aural glimpses before, it is a part of their musical persona that should be explored further. ~ Thom Jurek