I'd throw my support behind "Happy Songs For Happy People" too. I like "Young Team" but tend to rate it lower than most people. Mogwai is definitely a band I feel has been served well by a larger budget.
Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:37 am Posts: 2465 Location: A dark place
Kevin Davis wrote:
I'd throw my support behind "Happy Songs For Happy People" too. I like "Young Team" but tend to rate it lower than most people. Mogwai is definitely a band I feel has been served well by a larger budget.
I wouldn't disagree with the budget aspect. But it's easy to hear how YT blew everyone's mind when it came out. The stretch of Happy Songs for Happy People-Mr Beast-The Hawk Is Howling is incredible to me. I don't like their latest as much, but it's still good. And I love the atmosphere of Come On Die Young and the electronic twists in Rock Action. Just an incredibly solid catalog and we haven't even talked about all the EPs.
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I like their middle/later period the best as well. When they started adding piano/electronics is when their music went from good to truly beautiful for me.
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Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:37 am Posts: 2465 Location: A dark place
Doesn't look like Drowned In Sound liked their set at Holland's Incubate festival.
"If we thought a picnic was the height of sedateness, we're soon proved wrong at Dommelsch Zaal soon after by Mogwai. Stuart Braithwaite and pals were, circa the arse-end of Britrock, possibly Europe's most vital live band. Tonight, even monoliths like 'Mogwai Fear Satan' require a tempo boost. We ponder how they've almost become the Oasis of post-rock nowadays, releasing albums that almost religiously stick to a formula (the introspective sung one, the eight-minute rolling distortion monster) where once they defied categorisation. And then we look around us. It's worse than that. We're surrounded: Mogwai have become a band for couples, the festival set where bearded boys can safely smooch with their nondescript girlfriends. What has the world come to?"
Doesn't look like Drowned In Sound liked their set at Holland's Incubate festival.
"If we thought a picnic was the height of sedateness, we're soon proved wrong at Dommelsch Zaal soon after by Mogwai. Stuart Braithwaite and pals were, circa the arse-end of Britrock, possibly Europe's most vital live band. Tonight, even monoliths like 'Mogwai Fear Satan' require a tempo boost. We ponder how they've almost become the Oasis of post-rock nowadays, releasing albums that almost religiously stick to a formula (the introspective sung one, the eight-minute rolling distortion monster) where once they defied categorisation. And then we look around us. It's worse than that. We're surrounded: Mogwai have become a band for couples, the festival set where bearded boys can safely smooch with their nondescript girlfriends. What has the world come to?"
Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:37 am Posts: 2465 Location: A dark place
bmacsmith wrote:
turned2black wrote:
Doesn't look like Drowned In Sound liked their set at Holland's Incubate festival.
"If we thought a picnic was the height of sedateness, we're soon proved wrong at Dommelsch Zaal soon after by Mogwai. Stuart Braithwaite and pals were, circa the arse-end of Britrock, possibly Europe's most vital live band. Tonight, even monoliths like 'Mogwai Fear Satan' require a tempo boost. We ponder how they've almost become the Oasis of post-rock nowadays, releasing albums that almost religiously stick to a formula (the introspective sung one, the eight-minute rolling distortion monster) where once they defied categorisation. And then we look around us. It's worse than that. We're surrounded: Mogwai have become a band for couples, the festival set where bearded boys can safely smooch with their nondescript girlfriends. What has the world come to?"
"Tonight, even monoliths like 'Mogwai Fear Satan' require a tempo boost. We ponder how they've almost become the Oasis of post-rock nowadays, releasing albums that almost religiously stick to a formula (the introspective sung one, the eight-minute rolling distortion monster) where once they defied categorisation."
I wonder what this writer would have Mogwai do exactly to challenge this formula--an alt-country album? A program of standards, perhaps? Collaboration with Odd Future? Mogwai are what they are--they evolve subtly and gradually within the context of what they do (anyone who sees no development between, say, "Young Team" and "The Hawk is Howling" isn't listening), but I would suspect that any conscious attempt at significantly changing what "what they do" constitutes would be a lot more detrimental to their enterprise than the reliable, workmanlike manner in which they go about their business now. Having been around for close to two decades now, the crowd that was attracted to "Young Team" because it was new and different will probably have moved onto something else--the reason Mogwai no longer "defy categorization," as the writer says, is because they were part of a wave of artists who in essence necessitated that the "uncategorizable" music they make assume categorization. But the crowd that was attracted to "Young Team" because they simply liked, fundamentally, what the music was, will likely never be disappointed with this band. The writer sounds like what he wants is novelty, something no one band can deliver consistently.
Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:37 am Posts: 2465 Location: A dark place
Just picked up "Waking Season" by Caspian. It's killer. Anyone into the whole Mogwai/GYBE/Explosions in the Sky sound, should check them out. Here's Spin's review of the album: http://www.spin.com/reviews/caspian-wak ... iple-crown
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Last edited by turned2black on Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:37 am Posts: 2465 Location: A dark place
deep wrote:
great new album from Caspian. Will make for good fall listening
Hellomerch screwed up the vinyl presale pretty good though. sent me the black 180 gram instead of the clear. no big deal though.
there's an instrumental music thread somewhere in this forum that i posted about Caspian last month but it doesn't get too much use unfortunately
I have just had "Waking Season" for a week and I love it. I grabbed it after watching some youtube videos. I'll have their entire catalog by the end of the week.
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