Program Guide 2011 Program Guide | Page 44

Mono Black Dice (Japan) Wintercoats (Australia) Japanese post-rock legends Mono make their eagerly awaited return to Australia, this time joining their singular blend of arcing guitar and surging drums with the majesty of a full orchestra in order to reprise their otherworldly Holy Ground performance. An instrumental rock onslaught with tracks that often stretch well beyond the tenminute mark, Mono’s music plays out as a sequence of symphonically choreographed exercises in emotional decompression and vast aural spectacle, journeying from moments of haunting quietude to emotionally charged climaxes of feedback, percussion and prodigious guitar work. To see Mono perform is to be transported and overwhelmed, lost in the spell of a band standing at the precipice of the tragic and the sublime. (USA) Lucky Dragons (USA) Mono are joined by Melbourne multiinstrumentalist James Wallace, AKA Wintercoats. As the name suggests, Wallace trades in a gauzy brand of wintry intimacy – ethereal fragments of orchestral pop that seem to channel the muted palette of dreamed snowscapes. Armed with violin, piano, glockenspiel, guitar, his enveloping voice and an overworked loop pedal, Wallace makes music that is simple but cocooning, a gentle fire set against the creeping cold. Warning Contains strobe lighting “Screw ‘Music For The People’, this is music for the gods.” NME (UK) Rightly renowned as one of the pre-eminent forces of the noise art movement, Black Dice have built a reputation as one of the most mercurial, abrasive and overwhelming live music experiences touring the world today. Event Information Forum Theatre Fri 7 Oct at 9.30pm Doors open 9pm All tickets $35 Transaction & booking fees may apply Save up to 20%. See page 73 for details. Over 18s event only Ticketmaster 1300 723 038 melbournefestival.com.au Supported by From their origins as an occasionally violent post-hardcore outfit in the late 90s, through to the improvised distortion epics that marked their middle years, Black Dice have emerged in 2011 as a techno-influenced amalgam of noise atmospherics, jaggedly programmed beats and snatched, scrambled sample work. Feared and respected in equal measure, Black Dice’s live shows are relentless audio-visual assaults, exercises in virtuosic musical coh