Review & photos by Andrew Bansal
April 30th 2014, The Troubadour, West Hollywood CA: As part of their ongoing North American headline tour, longstanding Japanese instrumental rock quartet Mono played at the Troubadour last night, with Los Angeles based doom cellist Helen Money as the opening act. Over the years, Japan has treated us with some very unique and creatively eclectic groups of musicians, bands such as Boris coming to mind straightaway. So, although I was honestly not familiar with Mono prior to seeing them here and attended this show more so for Helen Money, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be disappointed with Mono’s efforts.
Doors opened at 8 and an hour later, Helen Money quietly took the stage to play a 35-minute set comprising 7 tunes, including four off of her latest full-length album ‘Arriving Angels’, undoubtedly one of the finest, most compellingly beautiful pieces of music to have come out in the year 2013. Performing as a solo act in the truest sense with nothing but her cello and a pedalboard, the Los-Angeles born Alison Chesley, the woman behind the Helen Money moniker, formulated her career in Chicago and recently relocated to Los Angeles, picking the perfect bands to open for ever since, having played shows headlined by Lake Of Blood, Agalloch and Neurosis in the past few months. Once again, she turned out to be an ideal opener for Mono’s fans present here at the Troubadour, holding this audience in complete pin-drop silence, so much so that the sound of my camera shutter clicking was audible loud and clear, and I put down the camera for the majority of the set as I almost felt like I was being rude and intrusive to the audience. It’s extremely rare for an LA audience at a club venue to be this silent with undivided attention for an opening act, which goes to show the impact of Helen Money’s music. She played the cello using the bow as well as finger-plucking to lend two different expressions to the music. ‘Radio Recorders’ stood out as the best tune of the set for me but there wasn’t a single weak or dull moment to be had, such was the undeniable power conveyed by her through this performance. This audience was here for Mono, but most if not all of them left the show as converted Helen Money fans. She’s supposed to be writing new music this year, and I very much look forward to hearing it. Even though the cello is a very ‘untraditional’ instrument in the rock/metal realm, there is no doubt Helen Money’s music successfully crosses over to fans of the genre and if any of you readers haven’t yet familiarized yourselves with her, I highly encourage you to do so.
Helen Money links:
HelenMoney.com
facebook.com/HelenMoneyBand
twitter.com/Helen_Money
Set List:
01. Rift
02. Too Heavy
03. Radio Recorders
04. Untilted
05. Hendrix
06. Upsetter
07. Beautiful Friends
Promptly at 10 PM, the four members of Mono descended down the staircase from the Troubadour’s green room. Amidst excited cheers from their fans, they began their 80-minute musical journey on this stage, presenting a variety of material encompassing the last four of their six studio albums, along with the latest single ‘Kanata’ and leaving the audience absolutely mesmerized in the process. The performance definitely had more than one level to it, as each tune had an extremely gradual but notable buildup through its duration and the set itself was building up as a whole to a massive crescendo. The band members didn’t make any eye-contact with the audience and were instead lost in their own world, truly feeling the music even as they played it themselves. They portrayed themselves in a serious, no-nonsense artistic manner and it resonated through the audience as each and every attendee was compelled to embark on this mentally enlightening journey with the band.
Aside from the guitars, bass and drums, they employed the usage of the piano and glockenspiel and did complete justice to their multi-layered music. When it comes to such a style of musicianship, a lot of bands tend to go overboard by using an excessive amount of samples and tapes, specially in the live setting which to an extent kills the impact, but to their credit, with Mono it was a 100 per cent live and genuine which was perhaps their standout feature. Each note was played with such unabated expression and emotion, it altered the audience’s moods and thought patterns (even those who were completely sober) and transcended them onto a whole another altitude. I feel privileged to be a witness to this Mono performance and will certainly keep a tab on their activities from here on.
All in all, through the combined efforts of Mono and Helen Money, this was one of the most mentally captivating shows I’ve ever been to, and it was, in every sense, instrumental music at its glorified best.
Check out more photos of Mono & Helen Money below (view them here if you’re on a non-Flash device):
Mono links:
MonoOfJapan.com
facebook.com/MonoOfJapan
twitter.com/MonoOfJapan
Set List:
01. Yearning
02. Dream Odyssey
03. Pure As Snow (Trails Of The Winter Storm)
04. Kanata
05. Ashes In The Snow
06. Halcyon (Beautiful Days)
07. Everlasting Light
Mono + Helen Money remaining dates:
05/01 – Pomona, CA @ The Glass House
05/02 – San Francisco, CA @ The Great American Music Hall
05/05 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
05/06 – Seattle, Washington @ Neumos
05/08 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret