The year is 2009. I am a recent college graduate making the transition between living at home and moving in with a friend who has the largest record collection I have ever seen. They are constantly loading my iPod with what they deem essential releases, operating as a sort of crash course for what I might hear when we live together.

At the same time, I am very early in a dating relationship with my now wife. In the awkward limbo of dating while both of us are still living with our parents, we would frequently sit in my car at the park to talk and listen to music. I often used these times with my girlfriend to work through the enormous catalogue of post punk, new wave, Krautrock, shoegaze, noise rock, lo-fi, and so much more that my friend gave me. In one of these instances, I threw on Gone: A Collection of EPs 2000-2007.

At the time, I had no language to describe what I was hearing. Despite listening to bands like Sigur Ros, Saxon Shore, and Unwed Sailor, I had never heard the term “post rock.” I had no idea that the cinematic, largely instrumental music I loved was part of a larger movement, nor that MONO was one of the major players in that movement. As the collection unfolded, I struggled to find the words to react to it.

Then, my girlfriend summed it up in three words. “This is epic.”

On the other side of the 2010s, I’ve become very familiar with post rock as a whole, as well as MONO. Despite the great heights their discography would take them—especially the incredible Hymn to the Immortal Wind—Gone might remain my favorite of their works.

The composition of the collection is exactly what it says on the tin: these are songs from EPs, splits, and other non-album releases in the first several years of the Japanese post rock outfit’s career, arranged in order of release. Across the eighty-minute runtime, MONO slowly transforms into the legendary form they would become known for. “Finlandia” opens the record (and likewise their career) with a simple melody, repeated in increasing volume over its eight-minute runtime until it reaches a climax of noise. The band’s earlier penchant for noise is especially showcased in “Black Woods,” the last six minutes devolving into feedback and delay self-oscillation. The fifteen-minute “Yearning“gets even louder, distortion pedals bending the sound of the instrument out of recognition it stubbornly grasps onto the melody.

But as the band continues, they start to adopt more of the string elements they would become synonymous with. “Memorie del Futuro” employs a full string section to augment the song’s dark melody. “Gone” feels almost as if the orchestra parts were written first with the guitars and drum kit added afterward.

On closer “Little Boy (1945-Future)” displays both facets of MONO with full clarity. Somber strings and eBowed guitars float beneath a plinking xylophone, the band and orchestra swelling in tandem until the heavily distorted climax. The closing minute of feedback feels far more like the beginning of the disc then the end, demonstrating MONO’s final form as a band that marries both halves of their dichotomy.

While it lacks to unified vision of the group’s proper albums, Gone is maybe the most comprehensive picture of MONO in their entire catalog. In any case, it’s probably the one I listen to the most.