At this point in time—nearly 20 years into their career—Mogwai is one of those bands that’s consistent to the point of being pure comfort food, whether their records end up sounding like peak/valley post-rock, vocal-led excursions into the ether, or mesmerizing film cues (see: last year’s Les Revenants soundtrack). Title aside, Rave Tapes is not an experimental take on EDM; it’s Mogwai as we’ve always known them, albeit with the occasional laser-guided synth line or skeletal drum beat.
Check out the album in full a week early below via the Guardian. But first, here’s what guitarist Stuart Braithwaite had to say about the effort:
“Hello people. Welcome to the stream of our forthcoming album Rave Tapes. We wrote and recorded the record last year, starting writing in January and finishing mixing just before Halloween. It was written between our scabby, rat-infested rehearsal space in the Gorbals Glasgow, mine and John’s home studios and Barry’s practice space in Berlin. Before going in to record in our Castle Of Doom studio in Glasgow (neither scabby nor rat infested, thankfully) we rehearsed together for a few weeks to work on arrangements.
The album was recorded by Paul Savage who we worked on for our early single Summer as well as our first record Mogwai Young Team and our most recent Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. Paul was also a member of The Delgados, the owners of Chemikal Undergound Records who released our first two records. He’s a great guy and very good at keeping us in check. That said I’m still pissed off at him for taping over the original 22 minute take of Mogwai Fear Satan as it had too many mistakes. We could have fixed those mistakes with computers these days! Though that might be the musical equivalent of that awful digital muppet dancing scene they added to Return Of the Jedi.
The album has ten songs and features drums (both real and electronic), guitars, synthesizers, piano and singing (both vocodered and human). We hope you like it!”
