MONDO GROSSO
A tale of mastery in two songs
Mondo Grosso’s late night show at the Red Marquee Saturday night didn’t become revelatory until the final two songs. Up until then, Shinichi Osawa’s band project was a very solid mixture of rock and dance sounds. Despite boasting material from all the way back in the early 1990s, the bulk of the show focused on the dreamy shufflers on this year’s Reborn Again And Always Starting New, the project’s first full-length in 14 years. Guitar notes wrapped around synths and beats, with a series of guest vocalists coming out to provide vocals, including Kick A Show (of rap outfit Kick The Can Crew) and soulful singer bird. It was a nice, grooveable set, with the vocal features really shining brightest.
But then Mondo Grosso reached their last two songs, the group’s two biggest hits and finest compositions to date, their placement at the end of this set revealing how much Osawa’s project has changed over more than a decade. Start with the finale, “Life,” featuring a stirring performance from bird. It’s a joyful, shuffling number full of horn blurts and floor-eyeing beats, anchored by a lively chorus. It came out in 2000, and hearing it at the Red Marquee felt like hopping in a time machine, back to the peak days of J-pop. It’s a masterful rendition of those high-rolling times, designed to get people moving in synch with one another — midway through, everyone started waving their hands back and forth in the air. The song begs folks to do it, so they responded.
But before that, there was “Labyrinth,” from earlier this year. Actor Hikari Mitsushima, clad in white, came out to perform her vocals, swaying alongside the music while delivering her lines. If “Life” practically instructs folks how to respond, “Labyrinth” leaves them confused. It’s a wispy, fever dream of synthesizers and skittery machine beats, given humanity through Mitsushima’s singing and violin swells. It moves at dancefloor speed, but feels so elusive as to be something more. Fittingly, most people just screamed, stared and filmed with smartphones. At least until “Labyrinth’s” climax, when Mitshima’s voice rose from whisper to release and the violins pushed her up further than before, prompting her to spin about the stage and for the crowd to lose it.
