When silence turns into sound, and sound into infinity, MONO returns to Riga on November 30 at Palladium concert hall. Their music is not just a concert, it is an experience where time dissolves and emotions transform into trembling string vibrations. This will be an evening where sound speaks louder than words. Instrumental rock from Japan! Tickets available from March 21 at 12:00 via Biļešu Serviss.

MONO’s guitar compositions range from melodically hypnotic and euphoric calm to raging musical storms capable of sweeping away everything in their path. As is often the case with artists from Asia, MONO elevates instrumental post-rock to an intense, even exaggerated level — yet always within a sonically comfortable spectrum that shines especially bright during their live shows. The Japanese quartet has already played three sold-out shows in Riga, and this marks their long-awaited return after eleven years, a reunion for Latvian fans who already know that MONO is among the greatest live bands on the planet.

To capture the organic interplay of the musicians, MONO records mostly live in the studio, often using instruments built more than half a century ago. Alongside crystalline guitar and piano sounds and creative use of effect pedals, the quartet has long incorporated classical string instruments — and in later albums, even expanded to full orchestral arrangements with brass sections, further deepening the atmospheres expressed in their music. The British magazine "New Musical Express" once praised MONO as a band whose "music is addressed to the gods."

The story began in early 1999, when guitarist Takaakira "Taka" Goto from Tokyo started composing and looking for musicians to form an instrumental rock band. Rhythm guitarist Hideki "Yoda" Suematsu joined first, followed later that year by bassist Tamaki Kunishi and drummer Yasunori Takada, all of them also using metallophones. Their inspirations included "Sonic Youth," "My Bloody Valentine," "The Velvet Underground" and "Neil Young’s Crazy Horse." Their debut "Under The Pipal Tree" (2001) was released by avant-garde icon John Zorn’s New York experimental label "Tzadik Records," and was later named by "Fact" (UK) and "Paste" (US) as one of the greatest post-rock albums of all time. In 2018 it was reissued for the first time as a double vinyl release.

MONO’s latest, twelfth full-length studio album "Oath" is one of the last works produced by the late Steve Albini, who passed away in 2024. It opens with airy electronic sounds that gradually expand with horns and a powerful orchestra, until the quartet joins in to take listeners on a dizzying journey, ultimately celebrating sanity’s triumph over the world’s evils — a theme already explored in their 2016 album "Requiem for Hell." Last year, marking their 25th anniversary, MONO toured sixteen countries. This year, after performances in North America and China, they return to Europe — and to Riga.