Band to know: Mogwai

By igaffney

22 October 2008 One Comment

Who they are:

Mogwai is a Scottish rock group from Glasgow, Scotland. Formed by Stuart Braithwaite and Dominic Aitchison in 1995, Mogwai has since become one of the most influential and best known names in post-rock. They are an instrumental band comprised of 5 artists:
John Cummings - Guitar/Piano and Computers
Stuart Braithwaite - Guitar
Martin Bulloch - Drums
Barry Burns - Piano/Guitar and Computers
Dominic Aitchison - Bass Guitar

Mogwai stems from the similar genre as bands like Slint, Sigur Rios and Explosions in the Sky. Mogwai sounds like what a piano driven version of Explosions in the Sky would be if they were composed by a less melodramatic/hardcore version of Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.

What makes them different - Mogwai is like a modern day Mozart. The band emphasizes the piano as a focal point, abstains from lyrics, and makes no apology for using the musical technology that is available to them. As such, they are not so into using computer technology that they sound electronic, but they do take advantage of synthesizers enhanced loop melodies.

What makes them the same - Beyond the instrumental approach; Mogwai’s music is gentle but strong, passionate but reserved. It is hard to explain, but Explosions in the Sky might be the best way to garner some understanding. Consider that director Peter Berg chose Explosions in the Sky to compose his soundtrack to the movie Friday Night Lights. It was a unique choice considering that they were not country (which should go hand in hand with a West Texas high school football movie), they were not aggressive (Metallica, AC/DC, etc.), and they were not well-known. However, for anyone who has seen the film, or the TV series, they understand how that genre of music makes sense. It adds to the inspirations, it harmonizes the emotions, and it never distracts from the heart of the story. Similarly, Mogwai has been used as an inspirational heartbeat in mainstream media.
Wicker Park
Nike Commercial: A Dream Deferred (the song used is “I Know you are, But What Am I?”)

Lyrical isolation

Being absent of lyrics, Mogwai leaves the listener to decipher their own meaning - like staring in a mirror - the listener of Mogwai is accompanied only by their own isolation. You are entranced by the instrumental melody but left free within your own mind’s imagination to feel your state of being in a way that is uninhibited, uncontaminated, disconnected from reality yet contained inside your self awareness. It is what I believe to be musical transcendentalism.

Transcendentalism is essentially a revolution of human conscious that occurred during the early to mid 19th Century. Among transcendentalists’ core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that ‘transcends’ the physical and empirical and is only realized through the individual’s intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions [1].

Mogwai adheres to this ideal in that there is no voice, no defining word to base ones unity with the melody - Instrumental focus, instrumental thought, and instrumental clarity.

“So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, - What is truth? and of the affections, - What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. … Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

Fan Sites for Mogwai