Even the minor release stuff is good!
// September 23rd, 2011 // No Comments » // Media, Music Reviews
Scottish post-rockers Mogwai have released a new EP – Earth Division – and it’s available to listen to on Soundcloud. As far as the music goes, I would describe this as minor Mogwai and lacking the punch of their other 2011 release Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will but it’s still a great deal better than a lot of artist’s major releases and contains several sublime passages. They are playing Glasgow’s Barrowland on 22nd December and I’ll be preceding my staid family Christmas by attending what, I’m sure, will be a monumentally good gig. Here are the tracks from the new EP, enjoy …
1. Get To France
Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite: This song is a lovely piano ditty by John (Cummings). It also features a string arrangement by the wonderful and wonderfully double-barrelled Paul Leonard-Morgan. To my thoroughly dishevelled ears it is reminiscent of Erik Satie, but John could well have been going for something entirely different. He’s hard to read. The song title is, like many of our titles, a shamelessly stolen piece of Scottish colloquialism.
2. Hound of Winter
Stuart Braithwaite: I’d describe this as a power-free power ballad. Which, in essence, is just a ballad. Confessing to writing a ballad is a brave thing to do, though at 35 years of age, abandoning a fear of judgment can easily be confused with bravery. The strings on this are by the irrepressible Luke Sutherland. A man who I recently witnessed convincing our lighting engineer that vegans ate eggs, but only the yolks.
3. Drunk and Crazy
Stuart Braithwaite: A lot of credit for this piece of randomonia must go to the producer of this EP, Paul Savage. This track recorded in three stages. First Barry (Burns)’s piano, then the strings and finally a pile of guitar noise. Somehow Paul managed to arrange all of this in a very imaginative fashion into what you hear. I’m still amazed as to how it turned out. The title is stolen from a country and western album that I found in the DJ booth of the Grand Ole Opry in Glasgow.
4. Does This Always Happen?
Stuart Braithwaite: This is a very simple song augmented again with a great string arrangement by Paul Leonard-Morgan. I’m sure Barry won’t appreciate the compliment but I think his improvised piano part here is really special. The title is a quote from our friend, the musician and artist Tom Schofield, who uttered this in bemusement when he walked into a psychedelic rock show in a very fancy private members club in Glasgow.
