MONO are a band of patience and extremes. Of lights and darks. The Tokyo four-piece carefully raises and razes instrumental compositions. To call them post-rock falls short. MONO's rock is more petrified, volcanic, or basalt. They plant worlds. Movements pan from jet-engine volumes to pin-pricked quiet. Glaciers are formed for a thousand years, then melted with a mammoth blowtorch within a single song. Pterodactyls battle, then mate in the updrafts. Going inside, MONO render at the cellular level. The curve of the earth becomes the curve of a nucleus for their protozoa requiem. Guitarists Yoda and Takaakira Goto flank the stage, shearing and sewing decibel threads. Bassist Tamaki Kunishi ceremonially guides trances out of her instrument-weapon. Drummer Yasunori Takadan conducts the range solemnly. MONO's precision comes from practice. Since their inception in 1999, they've averaged 150 shows a year in North America, Europe, and Asia. Their fifth and sixth full-lengths, Hymn to the Immortal Wind and For My Parents, were recorded with orchestras in tow. For me, MONO means Magnum Onslaught Neural Opus. What's the plural of opus? They have more than one. Guitarist Takaakira Goto spoke from New York. They had just arrived from Tokyo. He was very jet-lagged.
Your music encompasses extremes—loud/quiet, chaos/tranquility, fire/ice, high-speed/slow-motion, graceful/crushing. What draws you to extremes? Why do you think your music comes out this way? We don't want our music, or life, or anything to have limitations. We like it to be able to follow any journey. We have some songs that are more orchestral, that have great dynamics like "Everlasting Light," but we also have meditative songs like "Follow the Map" and "Dream Odyssey" that have simpler structures. They just come out this way themselves. We don't ever think, "This will be a simple song" or "This will be a complex song." It's more that you write a song and there are parts that work together, and you follow where creativity takes you.
You all tour so much, where do you usually write music? I usually write most MONO music at home. Sometimes at sound check or late at night in a hotel on tour, there are times when I can work on ideas and play with them, but mostly it is at home.
What's your earliest musical memory? What music did you listen to while learning to play? My earliest memory is hearing the piano sonata at the beginning part of "Für Elise" by Beethoven as a child. Later, Japanese folk music inspired me to play the acoustic guitar. And then later, hearing "Highway Star" by Deep Purple for the electric guitar. My older brother introduced me to them.
You have played and recorded with orchestras. Did you do anything different with your music to get it ready for an orchestra? There is nothing like playing with an orchestra. It is such a powerful experience to be surrounded by that rich, physical, unified sound, created without amplifiers. In our music, the orchestra parts usually complement or augment what the band already plays. There are some parts where, after recording, we change one guitar to follow a line originally played by strings. But more often, the band is playing relatively the same as on the record. I think our songs develop and change naturally long after we have recorded them, so it is all evolving.
Who directed your video for "Dream Odyssey"? How did the imagery come about? Henry Jun Wah Lee directed it. He had contacted us about working together on a project and showed us his other work, which we enjoyed greatly. He worked solely on the images, which were mostly time-lapse sequences filmed in Iceland. He was inspired by the music to edit it how he did. It was a pure collaboration in this respect; he brought his part and we brought ours.
What's the difference between playing shows in the United States and playing in Tokyo? In the United States, it seems the audience is mostly younger. We have a wider audience elsewhere in the world, as does most music. In Europe, for example, it is not strange for older people to be at a show. It is also more common that people come to a show who simply decided to go out and hear new music, who may not have ever heard of us. American people are perhaps more conservative usually, and here we are mostly playing to people who have listened to MONO before.
What is your favorite thing about touring in the United States? The American fans and people we meet are very kind and generous to us. Always, since we have been a band touring in the US and unable to speak English at all, it has been like this—a brotherhood of musicians and music fans.
What is your least favorite thing about playing in the United States? It's a big country, and sometimes the driving is very long. Also, the 13-hour time difference from Tokyo makes the worst jet lag of anywhere we travel [laughs]. So usually, the first two weeks are crazy while we adjust night for day, and day for night. Then, once we finally adjust, it's usually just a few more weeks until we return to Japan and do it again.
Are you working on a new album? What's next for you? After this tour, we will spend five weeks recording in Pennsylvania, and then mixing with Fred Weaver, who recorded our "Kanata" single and also mixed our last album, For My Parents. It will be released in the fall of 2014.
How do you describe your music? I don't want to say post-rock! We say instrumental music. Post-rock is a term that we feel is very limiting and creates expectation. There are a lot of bands that fit that label, and perhaps some of our songs do too, but a lot of our music is different than that. It's very hard to describe music, so we prefer people to listen with an open mind. 
