We should all really be thankful for Mogwai, over nearly 20 years they’ve released around 8 albums that merely centralise and more closely define their resolutely uncommercial breed of ultra-arty post-punk instrumentalism, never once even threatening to be huge or make that leap over into the mainstream (though their official t-shirts were once the must have fashion accesory), yet always selling quite enough copies and playing quite enough gigs for it never really being a threat that they might have to consider jacking it all in and getting a proper job. Their success has decent enough in fact for there now not even existing the requirement for Stuart Braithwaite to continue his summer job (a bit of data entry at the construction company his Dad works at, which he did until he was 37). However with every new release each 2/3 years there remained the nagging feeling that the band would never quite better or even truly match the sheer majesty of their 1997 debut ‘Young Team’. Whether ‘Rave Tapes’ is now their greatest release is up for debate, but it’s certainly and by some distance their most wonderful since that epoch-defining debut.
Which epoch?
Sorry…?
Which epoch did it define?
Which e…?
You said it was epoch-defining, which epoch did it define precisely?
The… Well it… Shut up! I’m trying to write here: The name ‘Rave Tapes’ is something of a red herring, this isn’t ‘Mogwai Do David Guetta’, although electronics are often used in areas such as the breakdown of the astonishing Remurdered to devastating effect. Over the album synth stabs are instead used sparingly to instead boost their already confident sound– the isn’t the sound of Mogwai revolutionising, but it may be the sound of them perfecting.
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