I'm shocked to discover that I have hardly written about Mogwai in the 46 years I've been writing this blog. And yet, I can't think one one musical act that has soundtracked my life more than Mogwai in the past 10-15 years. In New York City subways, on Metro North, in desultory moments at home on the couch, on interminable airplane trips to Texas and California, at airport lounges in La Guardia and Houston and LAX, in bed late at night---it was always Mogwai.
I don't want to get into a long historical disquisition about Mogwai here. You can find the history of the band on the tubes of the internets, but what I will say is that their music has a deep deep deep deep reverberation in my psyche. Not all of it. Some of it is distant, remote, muddled. But most of it is so deeply lined, spliced, layered on my psychic being that words fail me. That sweet spot between melancholia and absolute loud fucking insane volume--that's where Mogwai resides. In order to truly experience the futility of life you have to experience its volume as the jet engine roar of the loudest guitar in the world feedbacks its rotary spinning clownsound into the ear drums of your soul.
I present "Friend of the Night" from 2006
