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Live Review
by SashaS
11-11-2001
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| Uncommon Mogwai expression |
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Live: Mogwai
Brixton Academy, London
Saturday, November 10, 2001
Mogwai’s flightpath takes any direction fuelled by love for the whole history of sound entertainment
Chances of seeing two brilliant gigs the same week are a trifle better than hitting the Lottery’s jackpot! After seeing an unbelievably good Six By Seven show few days earlier, this bod finds more excellence at Brixton with this Scottish lot. Mogwai, a band independent of thought, independent of business and independent of sound.
What can a little soul want more? (Bar an Octavia Convertible?) On this Saturday night, while the first bite of winter kept people wrapped up in their misery, the only deterrent from all the life’s ills and providing sonic escape was to be found in the Republic of Tokes. Call me a romantic but a mixture of non-arrestable weed consumption with sounds that are manna from the sonic heaven, is something that the just departed Ken Kessey, Kerouac’s ‘Acid-buddy’ and author of ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s’, would have found irresistible.
What makes Mogwai great is that their music is without restraints, pre-sets, all anti-traditional and counter-manneristic. Add to it that there are no real stars to obstruct performance – Stuart Braitwaite might be seen as the leader but he lacks ego-symptoms big time – only augmented by back projection of shapes, there is nothing to overwhelm music! That doesn’t mean that there is charisma-vacant onstage, Mogwai generate tonal magnitude of noble quality rather than playing larger-than-life game. Switching from pianissimo to fortissimo in a flick of a plectrum, with silence having its definite resonance, they rotate phrases until repetition becomes a momentous essence.
Mogwai’s songs are instrumental pieces that allow you to define your own interpretations and name tracks to your liking and titles like ‘Bass-clef Arrabbiata’, ‘Event Horizon’, ‘Unteleported Man’, ‘Gap-toothed Bitch’, ‘Asimov On An Icelandic Geyser’ appear to suggest themselves. There are mikes on stage and, aside being used to deliver a rare vocal track from the ‘Rock Action’ album, were mainly there to PA ‘thank yous’ over ovations!
Unstructured, unrestricted, unexpected, untroubled by conventions… Elements of Pink Floyd, Can, Frank Zappa can be deducted but these are mutated psychedelics, all experimenting and urbane, kicking a-rhythmia, noise-definition, cosmic abstractions… Mogwai are Jackson Pollock of sound!
Rock action? Extreme alternative – Majestic!
SashaS
11-11-2001
Mogwai’s album ‘Rock Action’ is available now on Rock Action/PIAS
Mogwai’s single ‘My Father My King’ is also out on Rock Action/PIAS
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