Mogwai has been around for well over a decade now and in
that time, they’ve created some very memorable instrumental rock. They’ve followed a relatively similar formula
for all of their existence, and while their music is certainly anything but
tired, it is nice to hear it from a different angle. Enter A
Wrenched Virile Lore the bands second remix album and first since 1998’s Kicking A Dead Pig.
A Wrenched Virile Lore
pulls its inspiration from 2011’s Hardcore
Will Never Die, But You Will. Tracks
from that record are given to the likes of Justin Broadrick of Jesu, Zombi, Tim
Hecker and The Soft Moon, and those artists then have their way with the
original source material.
In name only is this a Mogwai record, because the producers
enlisted here have done such an excellent job of shedding new light on these
tracks. Opening track ‘George Square
Thatcher Death Party’, as redone by Justin Broadrick, is a bleary
shoegaze/dream rock tune that soars even higher than the original song, while
Zombi’s ‘Letters to the Metro’ is a Kraftwerk indebted bit of electronica. The other highlights include Time Hecker’s
droning makeover of ‘Rano Pano’ and Robert Hampson’s combination of ‘White
Noise’ and ‘Death Rays’ into 13-minute closer ‘La Morte Blanche’.
The transformation that the original material undergoes on
this record is pretty impressive. And,
if the purpose of a remix is to reimagine something then the producers enlisted
by Mogwai have done a bang up job. Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will was
a solid album to begin with, and on A
Wrenched Virile Lore things have only gotten better,
Grade: A-
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