rob strong
brightlight website

It's February 1997. Clare and I are in the early throes of our relationship, spending as much time together as possible. She's still coming record shopping with me. Having seen New Paths To Helicon slated for release, I spend several weekends trying to track down a copy, not realising it isn't actually out. I cuddle it all the way home, because I know it's going to be special from the live reviews I've read. And it is. Oh, how much is it special. Getting the volume right is tricky at first, as is working out which of the two tracks I love the most. Then Helicon 1 gets fixed to my turntable for days, weeks even. Clare grows to know it as well as I do, although I'm not sure whether it has the physical and emotional impact and significance for her that it does for me. We still have a running joke where we go 'wwwwwwahhhhhhhhh wwwwwwahhhhhh wwwwwwwwwwahhhhhhh' to each other in imitation of the building guitars.

I'm fortunate enough to see one of the last shows Mogwai play as a four-piece before Brendan joins, in Cheltenham in April 1997. Can't remember what they played, I think almost everything they'd written by then because it was a warm-up for the Garage. I know they encored with Lower, and there were some Young Team tracks in there somewhere. Appetite well and truly whetted. Then a split personality emerges - on the one hand, there are these skull-crushingly loud, intense, drug-and-alcohol-fuelled shows, and on the other the gentle, almost pastoral, beauty of Superheroes of BMX. Hearing Stereo Dee, Like Herod and Mogwai Fear Satan at overpowering volume night after night almost becomes too much, and I become fearful about the contents of the album. I want the Mogwai of Helicon 1 and Superheroes back again.

When Young Team arrives, I'm relieved by the warmth and lightness of touch that's been brought to bear, and by the presence of flutes and pianos. I no longer fear Fear Satan. On any other album, Katrien would have been the standout track, and it's still a firm favourite, pretty closely related to Ex-Cowboy to my ears.

But I still get the sense that there's more to come from the more gentle Mogwai, and at ULU in December 1997 they show just what a startlingly huge range of emotions they can run through in 80 minutes. I spend the entire show utterly captivated, and the arrival of Xmas Steps in the middle of the set forces the breath from my lungs. Onwards, ever onwards..... from drowning in noise to being caressed by flutes. I would have stood there all night.

And so it's been since. Each new release and show has confirmed their place in my heart and my head. The big secret which Mogwai's growing army of fans are privy to will eventually be shared with a massive audience, and rightly so. I wish I could get to see them play more often, but that's me being selfish. I hope they keep their spirit intact. It's been, and continues to be, a pleasure to have Mogwai in my life.

" I don't know where this will take me,
  But, should it frighten me, I know better than to stop, and to turn back"
                                     - 'Voices From The New Music', Telstar Ponies

 

<< back to index >>