Mono - Pilgrimage of the Soul - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Mono / REQUIEM FOR HELL - Requiem For Hell finds Mono returning to longtime friend and collaborator, Steve Albini. After Mono and Albini's band, Shellac, toured Japan together last year, they realized how much they missed the (often wordless) creative dialogue they shared during the making of many of their most memorable albums - beginning with Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky... (2004) and culminating with Hymn To Immortal Wind (2009). The rebirth of the Albini collaboration for Requiem For Hell also coincided with the birth of a close friend's first child, whose actual in utero heartbeat serves as the foundation for the aptly named InchEly's Heartbeat.Inch For Mono, it all felt so right, so inevitable. Requiem For Hell is undeniably heavier and scarier than most of Mono's output to this point - hear the dizzying 18-minute title track for example - but it also carries some of their most sublime moments. This dichotomy is how one band's obsession with conflict has manifested itself into one of underground music's simultaneously quietest and loudest catalogs. Album Tracks 1. Death in Rebirth 2. Stellar 3. Requiem for Hell 4. Ely's Heartbeat 5. The Last Scene

What are we doing here? The year 2020 turned what was once quintessential late-night stoner existentialism into a daily mantra for nearly everyone on this planet. What are we doing with our limited time in this life? What is our purpose? What should we be doing? For the past 25 years, Mono have explored themes such as the relationship between darkness and light; hope in the face of disaster; and the duality of birth and death. On their 12th full-length album, OATH, they ponder the time that makes up life, and how to make the most of that time. Recorded and mixed with longtime friend and collaborator, Steve Albini, OATH opens like a sunrise with a slowly ascending orchestra and brass section, the full band taking it's time to revel in the atmosphere before joining in the splendor. Throughout the album's 71-minute runtime, Mono meditates on that theme of time and life in myriad ways. The unhurried evolution of a song that is a hallmark of Mono's catalog is infused with an air of elegance that elevates OATH to new heights. Mono challenged themselves with a universally relatable existential examination, and answered with OATH, an album that offers benevolent reflection rather than fleeting respite. Album Tracks 1. Us, Then 2. Oath 3. Then, Us 4. Run on 5. Reflection 6. Hear the Wind Sing 7. Hourglass 8. Moonlight Drawing 9. Holy Winter 10. We All Shine on 11. Time Goes By

The Last Dawn and Rays of Darkness are a pair of new albums by Mono. Recorded simultaneously yet conceptually and creatively disparate, the two act as both opposing and complementary sides to a story. No strangers to narratives, the twin albums explore familiar themes for the band Hope and hopelessness, love and loss, immense joy and unspeakable pain. Those elemental parts of life and the complicated relationships they create have never been more resonant through Mono's music than they are here. The Last Dawn is the first of these two companion albums, and is the InchlighterInch of the two. Album Tracks 1. Gates Between Tides/Glory 2. Kanata 3. Cyclone 4. Elysian Castles 5. Where We Begin 6. Last Dawn