carl bradley
fancy biscuits fanzine

as the little voice which opens mogwai young team says - music is bigger than words and wider than pictures. mogwai are a band who fit into this description perfectly. these songs are so massive that it makes you want to drown in them, how can three guitars and a drumkit have such an effect on someone?

the melodies which mogwai create may be simple, but listening to a song like new paths to helicon for the first time was like breaking through some new boundary in musical beauty. mogwai stretch and shape and redefine your musical perspectives, breaking conventions of verse/chorus/verse boredom, always aiming to progress. they aren't afraid of a bit of experimentation. it's like the lee ranaldo or kevin shields approach to song writing, they want to demolish the gap between melody and noise. it's like these soundscapes are at once the most gentle, and the loudest, that you'll ever hear. but it's this transition between quiet and loud that can take a brilliant mogwai song into an incredible one. like the moments where yes! i am a long way from home, like herod, helicon one etc. take off into the noise, it's like a blood rush, a 100 mph sensation or something - something which is experienced every time the record is played, and every time that they're seen live.

i find it easy to drift off to the likes of mogwai, easy to forget that i'm listening to grooves cut into vinyl, or that i'm stood in a club with 200 others watching four people hitting instruments on stage. close your eyes to mogwai - it's like you need darkness, an abstract environment for the guitars and the drums and the noise to fuck you up.

listening to mogwai reminds me of the first time i heard loveless, or sister, or spiderland. they make you glad you have them, bands as good as this are infrequent as comets. it makes all the more sense in the face of the mediocre rubbish which the likes of lamacq play. mogwai create sounds which 60ft dolls, symposium, placebo, disco pistol etc. could only dream of. they arn't unapproachable and 'intelligent', these sounds are like the most natural and perfect that you're ever likely to hear. don't dismiss them as pretentious/art wank etc. etc. they are one of the few bands around who are attempting to evolve music rather than leaving it to stagnate. which is important don't you think?

yeah - this isn't about elitism, mogwai are a band who i think everyone should hear. it's almost like their music has a universal effect. like when i heard mogwai fear satan live it made me hypnotically close my eyes, similarly the same occurred when two of my friends, whose musical tastes couldn't have been more different, heard helicon one for the first time. and the first time i saw them live i turned to see a girl crying.

mogwai can be defined as more than music, more than just a simple commodity. music is one of the most important things on planet earth, and into this idea, mogwai fit perfectly. if the stars had a sound, it would sound like this.

 

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