Graham Reid | | 3 min read
For a man whose most famous published statement is, "We hate everyone," Stuart Braithwaite of the Glaswegian band Mogwai is a remarkably friendly guy.
On the phone from Melbourne earlier this week, he chatted easily about the touring life, the band's wish that audiences would just shut up and listen to the music, and how much he likes the mood of Nick Drake's classic folk album Pink Moon. Highly unpredictable.
All this sounds a very long way from his second-most-famous published statement: "We're one of the punkest bands in the world. We deny convention and stand up against the system."
But if it's punk thrash anyone expects out of Mogwai, a mostly instrumental five-piece who play the Powerstation tonight, forget it. Mogwai thrive on being unpredictable.
Their recent Come On Die Young album - produced by Dave Fridmann of Mercury Rev's Deserter Songs fame - offers glacial sonic textures and passages of steely, quiet consideration, gradual shifts in dynamics which take the meters into the red zone, then returns to hushed ambience and low-range feedback. For a band which extols the punk ethic this is ...?
"Oh yeah, we're highly unpredictable. On stage it should be a good laugh," says Braithwaite in his thick, r-abusing accent. "It's a surprise every day for us. We'll play songs from the record, obviously. But things change from night to night, some for the bad, some for the good.
"The way we plays depends a lot on the audience, whether they are quiet and into the music. We get irritated if people are just talking to their friends. Sometimes if we're playing really quiet we can't hear what's happening on stage because they are talking."
At which point Mogwai can become predictably unpredictable: at a gig near Copenhagen back in March, after 20 minutes of competing with the talkers the band simply spent the following 20 minutes thrashing around in feedback, smashing instruments and generally making a very big abusive noise indeed.
Almost like a punk band?
"The punk thing is more in the spirit in which the band exists and the music we play and listen to. It's not safety pins, just something a lot more pure than the mainstream or fake 'underground' bands. It's about playing music for the right reasons."
Mogwai - born out of Scotland's indie scene and raised on Cure and Joy Division albums - prefer to see themselves as an art-rock punk band, says founder-guitarist Braithwaite. True to the DIY anti-system punk ideology, but making art music to extend the senses.
With Come On Die Young they have found their best expression so far after a series of indie singles and EPs, and an album. With producer Fridmann at his upstate New York studio, they have crafted an album which has had most British critics reaching for superlatives - and New York's Village Voice critic Robert Christgau naming it as one of the worst albums of the year. "Occasionally tuneful, invariably slow ... earnest post-rock tripe," he spewed.
Yet the British climate seems ripe for such an album. With the failure of the Britpop Boom to throw up many serious contenders it's been noticeable that anti-pop outfits like the Beta Band and Mogwai have been hailed.
"Yeah, people got really sick of a lot of those [Britpop] bands, especially because a lot of them were really terrible. There's been a massive decline in the number of people who want to hear that kind of music. It's not the kind of music you want more than one album of and it exists in a flippant culture based on style and what the band are wearing.
"I think even Oasis are worried that with their next album they could come a thump. Most copies of their last album are sitting in second-hand bins now."
So into this context steps the quiet art-rock punk band of Mogwai. And maybe that's the only thing which isn't so unpredictable.
On the phone from Melbourne earlier this week, he chatted easily about the touring life, the band's wish that audiences would just shut up and listen to the music, and how much he likes the mood of Nick Drake's classic folk album Pink Moon. Highly unpredictable.
All this sounds a very long way from his second-most-famous published statement: "We're one of the punkest bands in the world. We deny convention and stand up against the system."
But if it's punk thrash anyone expects out of Mogwai, a mostly instrumental five-piece who play the Powerstation tonight, forget it. Mogwai thrive on being unpredictable.
Their recent Come On Die Young album - produced by Dave Fridmann of Mercury Rev's Deserter Songs fame - offers glacial sonic textures and passages of steely, quiet consideration, gradual shifts in dynamics which take the meters into the red zone, then returns to hushed ambience and low-range feedback. For a band which extols the punk ethic this is ...?
"Oh yeah, we're highly unpredictable. On stage it should be a good laugh," says Braithwaite in his thick, r-abusing accent. "It's a surprise every day for us. We'll play songs from the record, obviously. But things change from night to night, some for the bad, some for the good.
"The way we plays depends a lot on the audience, whether they are quiet and into the music. We get irritated if people are just talking to their friends. Sometimes if we're playing really quiet we can't hear what's happening on stage because they are talking."
At which point Mogwai can become predictably unpredictable: at a gig near Copenhagen back in March, after 20 minutes of competing with the talkers the band simply spent the following 20 minutes thrashing around in feedback, smashing instruments and generally making a very big abusive noise indeed.Almost like a punk band?
"The punk thing is more in the spirit in which the band exists and the music we play and listen to. It's not safety pins, just something a lot more pure than the mainstream or fake 'underground' bands. It's about playing music for the right reasons."
Mogwai - born out of Scotland's indie scene and raised on Cure and Joy Division albums - prefer to see themselves as an art-rock punk band, says founder-guitarist Braithwaite. True to the DIY anti-system punk ideology, but making art music to extend the senses.
With Come On Die Young they have found their best expression so far after a series of indie singles and EPs, and an album. With producer Fridmann at his upstate New York studio, they have crafted an album which has had most British critics reaching for superlatives - and New York's Village Voice critic Robert Christgau naming it as one of the worst albums of the year. "Occasionally tuneful, invariably slow ... earnest post-rock tripe," he spewed.
Yet the British climate seems ripe for such an album. With the failure of the Britpop Boom to throw up many serious contenders it's been noticeable that anti-pop outfits like the Beta Band and Mogwai have been hailed.
"Yeah, people got really sick of a lot of those [Britpop] bands, especially because a lot of them were really terrible. There's been a massive decline in the number of people who want to hear that kind of music. It's not the kind of music you want more than one album of and it exists in a flippant culture based on style and what the band are wearing.
"I think even Oasis are worried that with their next album they could come a thump. Most copies of their last album are sitting in second-hand bins now."
So into this context steps the quiet art-rock punk band of Mogwai. And maybe that's the only thing which isn't so unpredictable.
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