Formed in 1999 by four Tokyo natives as an antithesis to the omnipresent Japanese pop scene. At first,MONO wore their influences on their sleeves, colliding the ugly washes of noise pioneered by My Bloody Valentine with the beautiful, subtle guitar figures of Slint and Mogwai. Not groundbreaking, but certainlymagical. Eventually, MONO developed into a whole different species: Their classical influences broke through, pushing the music to structural and emotional extremes that owed as much to Wagner andBeethoven as it did Black Sabbath and Neurosis.
Collecting all of MONO’s rare and out-of-print non-album tracks, Gone perfectly (and chronologically) displays their astounding growth, from the modest opening notes of “Finlandia” to the scorched finale of “Little Boy (1945-Future).” These tracks are culled from a series of highly sought-after releases, including the Japanese-only debut Hey, You. EP, their split LP with Pelican, the Cameron Crowe-commissioned Memorie
dal Futuro vinyl 10”, and The Phoenix Tree, their out-of-print EP for the storied Travels In Constants series.
All tracks have been beautifully remastered from their original master tapes, with both CD and 3xLP formats boasting absurdly beautiful deluxe packaging. The vinyl is a limited edition one-time pressing of 3,000 copies.