Mogwai celebrates thirty years of career. Credit Steve Gullick PIAS
Emerging from the mists of Glasgow in 1995 in the midst of Britpop, Mogwai carved out its own path with its long instrumentals, its post-rock guitars galvanized by distortions, its wordless romances and a rare sense of ethics. After the success of “As The Love Continues”, released in 2021 in a post-Covid climate particularly conducive to taking refuge in their music, the Scots preface their thirtieth anniversary with the impeccable “The Bad Fire”.
Sincerity
While remaining faithful to its sonic intransigence, Mogwai once again manages to reinvent itself with this eleventh album Aside from our favorite Hammer Room which sounds like a new post-rock anthem, Fanzine Made Of Flesh shows astonishing pop inclinations while Pale Vegan Hip Pain evokes the climates of their most beautiful soundtracks (Les revenants in 2004, Atomic in 2016). Other successes, the euphoric Lion Rumpus with his guitars exploding everywhere and God Gets You Back, an unlikely cross between the shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine and the techno jolts of Daft Punk. When we share our enthusiasm with guitarist Stuart Braithwaite, he nods while reminding us of one of the group’s credos. “What you say is nice, but you shouldn’t overanalyze our songs. We never talk about music when we’re in the studio, we play it and we try to stay sincere with ourselves.”
Your previous album “As The Love Continues” topped the charts in England. Has this success changed your approach to music?
STUART BRAITHWAITE – With our style of music which is far from mainstream, it was a very pleasant surprise. But we never thought about that when we recorded “The Bad Fire”. At Mogwai, everything is planned. When we start writing, we plan to record six months later and tour as soon as the record comes out. It’s a long race and we’re always on our toes. With every new beginning, we tell ourselves that the first step is to create the best songs possible. It doesn’t matter whether our previous record did well or not.
With his singing and his pop accents, Fanzine Made Of Flesh diverges significantly from your DNA. How did this title come about?
By Mogwai standards, Fanzine Made Of Flesh is undoubtedly the most pop thing we’ve done. The song was born in New York under bizarre circumstances. I was on vacation with my wife, I didn’t think I would make music. Alex Kapranos, the leader of Franz Ferdinand, lent us the apartment he owns there. There was a guitar lying around the living room and one morning, while my wife was getting ready to go out, I started laying down chords. Very quickly, I found a melody that sounded like the beginning of a pop song. I decided to go all the way by writing a verse and a chorus. With the band, we thought it was a good idea to include it on the record.
Behind the wall of guitars, Mogwai’s sound opens up more than ever to electro. What relationship do you have with this musical style?
Within the group, we are all fans of electro music. We grew up with acid house culture and rave parties. We started around the same time as Boards Of Canada, which remains for me one of the best Scottish bands. Even if we didn’t have the same approach, we found their electro productions very inspiring, Boards Of Canada encouraged us to explore further. If you listen to our records carefully, you will see that electro is much more present than we imagine.
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Mogwai celebrates thirty years of career. When you started, what were your ambitions?
Our ambitions were very modest. We dreamed of publishing a 45 rpm and having it broadcast on the BBC’s John Peel Sessions, of which we never missed a single broadcast. The other fantasy was to hit the stage at Barrowland, the legendary Glasgow club where we had seen all our heroes. And then everything came together. I can’t tell you when it changed in my head, but by making music every day, recording records, going on tour and coming back with enough to pay my rent, I I said: “Mogwai has become my job and it’s the most beautiful job in the world”.
Your autobiography Spaceships Over Glasgow published in 2022 seduced in particular with its humor. Is this side Mogwai’s best kept secret?
I don’t know if it’s a secret, but it’s true that a lot of people don’t detect our sense of humor. Mogwai is often linked to post-rock, a label that I don’t particularly like and which has a very cerebral connotation. I take music seriously, but I don’t consider myself a serious person. I find, for example, that many of the titles of our songs are very funny.
As soon as they are announced, your Belgian concerts are sold out within a few hours. An explanation?
Generally speaking, tickets for our European tours sell out very quickly. But we maintain a special relationship with Belgium. Our label [PIAS] is Belgian, we get along well with the Brussels team, we are always well received in your home. And then there is also a logistical explanation. We fill the Ancienne Belgique, but the larger rooms are too big for us. There is a lack of intermediate gauges. It’s a shame for the public who don’t get it done in time.
17/2, Ancienne Belgique (complete). 18/2, Roma, Antwerp (full).
The Bad Fire [PIAS]
