A coherent "more of the same" from
Mogwai, but does it follow old paths or represent a musical
maturing?
It
seems that some records make you feel a certain way every
time you listen to them, almost as though their sounds
configure you, set you up in a particular way. Happy
Songs for Happy People, with its ironic or maybe sarcastic title,
makes me feel this way. These often aren't "happy" or
in fact "songs".
Mogwai have created a definite
thread of miniature minimalism in their work. Incremental
layers of sound climaxing in distorted peaks mark what
people usually find characteristic about their style. Although
some purists may spit, or remove their shoe and beat the
screen, informative parallels may be drawn between much
electronic music and much "post-rock." The focus
on the riff, the ostinato, the central pattern, is what
drives great swathes of modern music, and Mogwai are no
different. Their music could easily end up as a boring,
repetitive mess. But why do they succeed?
For those who
found Mogwai's other, at times scattershot, albums hard
to appreciate, Happy Songs provides some solid coherence.
Although tracks such as "Kids Will Be Skeletons" and
much of the following central portion of the album do retread
previous works somewhat, the album nevertheless introduces
some exciting new directions. For instance, "I Know
You Are But What Am I?" is a musical watershed moment;
several other recent lines of musical thought from acts
like Tortoise and Four Tet seem to echo and reinforce it.
As ever, many tracks represent Mogwai as so wholly adept...
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