Mono - My Story, The Buraku Story (Original Soundtrack) - RED - VINYL LP

My Story, The Buraku Story is a new feature-length documentary film that explores the discrimination against a group of people - commonly called Inchthe burakuminInch - who were classed into lowly groups and segregated from the rest of Japanese society. This discrimination is not by race or ethnicity, but rather by place of residence and bloodline, and has existed for centuries - albeit very rarely acknowledged or discussed in Japan. When director Yusaku Mitsuwaka imagined the exemplary score for such a culturally sensitive and significant subject, he idealized Mono to help tell this story through their legendarily cinematic music. Following their recent experiments with electronic textures infused into their trademark dynamic rock compositions, My Story, The Buraku Story finds Mono at their most understated and elegiac. The songs that make up My Story, The Buraku Story are largely built around piano, strings, synths, and choral vocal loops. As one might expect from Mono, the arrangements are masterworks of understated execution with oversized emotional resonance. By far Mono's most delicate album, it is a fitting document of the band's first-ever full-length film soundtrack.

After COVID-19 first swept the world in 2020, Mono felt compelled to make a special little gift for the Christmas holiday. The accompanying message was simple InchWishing everyone good health, happiness, and good cheer in the new year.Inch Originally made at home in isolation, this digital-only consisted of two new Mono songs InchScarlet HollidayInch and InchFirst Winter.Inch Now, to commemorate the 2021 holiday season, Mono has reworked and expanded Scarlet Holliday into a very special 3-song EP (now including the brand new song, InchEpilogueInch).Recorded at home and at Electrical Audio by longtime collaborator, Steve Albini, newly mixed by John McEntire, and mastered by Bob Weston, Scarlet Holliday is finally being released into the world on limited-edition 10Inch vinyl, as well as all digital formats.In their unflappable determination to shine light into the darkness, Mono explains InchThese songs were written with the idea of new hope for the new year since this time has become unforeseeably dark for many in the world.Inch

The conflict and correlation between dark and light is a universal theme with a historically rich history. Musically, perhaps no band in the 21st Century has mined that relationship more consistently or effectively than Japan's Mono. Across 10 albums in 20 years, Mono have convincingly reflected the quietest and most chaotic parts of life through their music. Their ever-expanding instrumental palette - which began in earnest in 1999 with the traditional guitar- bass-drums rock band setup - has evolved to include as many as 30 orchestral instruments. Now, on Nowhere Now Here, the band add electronics to their repertoire - partially inspired by guitarist/composer Takaakira 'Taka' Goto's recent collaboration with John McEntire, the beguiling Behind the Shadow Drops. Nowhere Now Here also sees Mono's first-ever lineup change, adding new drummer Dahm Majuri Cipolla (The Phantom Family Halo) to the core trio of Goto, Tamaki, and Yoda. Tamaki also makes her vocal debut here, singing into the shadows of vintage Nico on the poetically hazy InchBreathe.Inch