While big-name music acts look to foreign markets to continue fattening their already oversize bank accounts, for Tokyo quartet Mono, it's a simple matter of survival.
Quickly realizing after forming in 1999 that their instrumental brand of distorted, soaring postrock was too sonically dense and abstract for mainstream consumption at home, Mono opted to gig abroad to create a word-of-mouth buzz and maintain some kind of musical career.
The decision has paid dividends. They now play to established followings across the globe, even if they remain little known at home. That they're playing the sizable Ebisu Liquid Room venue next week is largely because the show is only Mono's second, and final, Tokyo live show of 2007.