Showing posts with label mogwai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mogwai. Show all posts
, , — 0 comments

Album Review: Mogwai - Rave Tapes


If there is any band that simply refuse to rest on their laurels, it is Mogwai. The Scottish post-rock outfit has enjoyed the status of titans of their genre since the late nineties. Despite their widespread acclaim, Mogwai has continued to release new material at a seemingly exponential rate that would make any Radiohead fan jealous. It appears that the Glasgow quintet has a very comfortable and productive relationship with each other. There are, however, tradeoffs involved in this type of relationship. The solace of routine can narrow the disorderly paths to creativity. On Rave Tapes, Mogwai tend to straddle the line between retreading old material and pushing forward into unfamiliar territory. The album contains moments of middling routine-ness but is saved by the talent and artistry we have come to expect from Mogwai.

 The album opens with the pleasingly minimalistic track “Heard About You Last Night,” the slow development and subtle textures of this song bring to mind the works of contemporary composers such as Arvo Part, and is a reminder as to why this band is so sought after for soundtrack work. The album drifts into electronic territory with the songs “Simon Ferocious” and “Remurdered," the latter sounding like it was inspired by the music of 1980s arcade games. 

 Of course, anyone who has seen Mogwai's live show knows that this band is fond of drastic dynamic sweeps, with crescendos dominated by ear-splitting waves of distorted guitars. Rave Tapes shows flashes of this side of the band. Songs like “Hexon Bogon” and “Master Card” are urgent, guitar-driven, rockers, that beg to be played at high volume levels. The b-side drags a bit with songs like “Deesh” that are overly-repetitive and lack any kind of sonic payoff. “Blues Hour”, the only song to feature clean vocals, it starts off sounding like the band Low but slowly drifts into doom metal territory. Thankfully the album finishes strong with the song “The Lord is Out of Control”, a vocoder driven track that unfolds beautifully and is on par with some of best songs in the band's extensive catalogue.

 While Rave Tapes does flirt with being formulaic, it is a formula that only Mogwai can pull off. For die-hard fans of the band, this album has a lot to offer and, like many of their albums, is rewarding to return to again and again. If you are not a fan of the band by now, this album won't change that. Mogwai has elected not to stray to far beyond what we have come to expect from them on Rave Tapes, for better or for worse. The results yield no surprises or disappointments.

 Grade: B-


, , , — 0 comments

Album Review: Mogwai - Les Revenants


Les Reverantes, released Tuesday, February 26, 2013, by Scottish post-rock heroes Mogwai,  is a soundtrack! I happen to be a big fan of film and TV scores and the composers who make them, like John Williams, John Barry, Danny Elfman, and, of course, Leonard Bernstein. Mogwai’s score accompanies the French television show of the same title, which follows a school bus full of children who are killed in an accident and come back to life, all the while unaware they ever died.

That’s really all you need to know about the show (in order to imagine what kind of sounds might unravel over its course), because it’s a bizarre premise, but also because the creators chose Mogwai to do the score. Certain tracks on Les Reverantes are extremely quiet and wistful like their previous work; for example, “The Huts” is so similar to “Waltz for Aiden” off their 2006 album, Come On Die Young, it makes me wonder if “Aiden” was a child gone before his time.

To be honest, I'm only familiar with Mogwai’s 2006 albums (yes there are two): Come On Die Young (the opening track of which introduced many of us to the now infamous interview with legendary punk-rocker Iggy Pop); and Mr. Beast (the opening track of which was my favorite song for driving around, windows closed, depressed about the commute, the job, the life). The music we listen to in our early twenties is strange: it has to fit the sad, exciting time of an often newly independent, post-punk lifetime, and still inspire us to get the fuck out of whatever sorry scene we've probably gotten ourselves into. 

So while Les Reverantes doesn’t carry, or produce, the same weight as Mogwai’s earlier music (they've been together since 1995), it has a heaping combination of sugar and spice. The synthesizer plays a more audible role in Les Reverantes. The electric piano and drums could be used less on this record than others for all I know, but it has a very graceful Reagan-era television-ready sound (“The Messiah Needs Watching”, “Modern”), similar to Ray Lynch’s Deep Breakfast, or even more original and older, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. 

And then there’s “What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?,” the only track (of 14) on the album with lyrics. The slow, country ballad, extremely reminiscent of Wilco, is like a slice of hearty bread, cut out for the task of sopping up Mogwai’s particular pot of stew: piano reverie; steady, beating drums; warm, tone-pure strings, and clouds and clouds of crashing symbols. 

Grade: B +



, , — 0 comments

Album Review: Mogwai - A Wrenched Virile Love

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-



Steve Dobek
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)