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The show didn’t really begin until the members of Mong Tong slipped on their blindfolds. OK, technically they weren’t true blindfolds. The strips of gauzy red cloth allowed Hom Yu and Jiun Chi to see what they were doing onstage, but they are such an essential part of the Taiwanese group’s lore that they had blindfolds for sale at their merch table at Mano Oculta last Thursday. And when they finally put the accessories on after getting their elaborate display of gear set up, much of the sold-out crowd actually applauded.
The blindfolds are apparently a reference to a Taoist ritual in which a priest covers a person’s eyes in order to more safely guide them to the realm where their dead relatives dwell. Such is Mong Tong’s deep love of the folklore and history of their native country, which informs their dense psychedelic sound. They draw on the sounds of folk instruments like the gamelan and the kén, but as played on modular synths and electronic drum pads. True to another of the group’s interests—UFOs—their music often sounds like an alien race trying to replicate the sound of centuries-old radio broadcasts from Southeast Asia.
Hom and Jiun stayed in constant motion, not stopping for an applause break or to allow for a lull in the momentum of their hourlong set. They built up each instrumental in layers, often starting a piece with a thick curtain of drones and looped noise and then cutting through it all with a loping bassline and a spindly melody. And just as the crowd was settling into the sound and mood, the pair would shift or fall apart in the manner of a caustic dub remix or the disorienting but not unpleasant rush of an acid flashback.