If post-rock band Mogwai could be summed up in one word, it would be ‘power.’ Whether it’s the power to move audiences with their melodies or take down walls with sheer volume, the band is certainly a force to be reckoned with.
Mogwai takes their heavily instrumental act to Pearl Street Nightclub in
Initially from Glasgow, guitarist Stuart Braithwaite and bassist Dominic Aitchison founded the band in 1995. The group was named ‘Mogwai’ after the Cantonese word for ‘demon,’ though the band admits that it never imagined the name would stick. It was initially adapted from the 1984 Warner Bros. film ‘Gremlins,’ and eventually caught on.
In past interviews Braithwaite has noted that the name, ‘has no significant meaning and we always intended on getting a better one, but like a lot of other things we never got ’round to it.’
When it comes to their sound, Mogwai is difficult to define. The band uses dramatic swells and dips of dynamics arranged around intricate guitar riffs and bass lines. The multidimensional sound created doesn’t waste a single note.
These dynamic feats serve to create stark contrasts between the most delicate of melodies and thrashing guitar muscle, serving as the bulk of their live performances.
Ironically, the band does not support their classification as a ‘post-rock’ collective. Already a broadly defined genre, most people consider any music without vocals to be blanketed in the ‘post’ category, but supporters of the art form wield a more concrete definition.
Like the label of ‘indie’ as a genre, ‘post-rock’ does very little to describe the music itself, only qualifying it as profoundly instrumental music that incorporates the instrumentation of rock music with a decidedly un-rock structure.
Members of Mogwai have been known to argue that their sound in no way resembles the foundations of the genre and thus should not be categorized as such.
Even so, their music has made a notable impact on many of today’s post rock assemblies. Their influence can be heard in bands like Explosion in the Sky and This Will Destroy You, who have adapted the heavy guitars and dynamic swells that define Mogwai.
On the matter guitarist and keyboardist Barry Burns commented, ‘I’m flattered. It’s nice to have made an impression on someone as long as it’s a positive one.’
There is a perpetual sense of doom that permeates many of the band’s compositions. Songs like ‘I Can’t Remember’ off of their 1997 debut, ‘Young Team,’ play on this morose quality to create moving pieces of musical ingenuity.
However, Mogwai isn’t always predicting the end of the world with their music ‘- the post-rockers’ latest album ‘The Hawk is Howling,’ released in late 2008 to critical acclaim, features a somewhat sunnier side of the band.
Bright tunes like ‘The Sun Smells Too Loud’ display the closest thing to optimism the band can muster while retaining their rough rock edge. Based on sparkling synth and guitar in a major key, it is one of several feel good tracks on the album.
Still, songs like ‘Batcat’ and ‘
Another notable attribute of the band is its penchant for outlandish song titles. Their website explains the phenomenon by saying, ‘We make up the music first and add the titles later. Because we don’t use a singer, it’s much harder to come up with a name for a song so it’ll be something that one of us has said or seen that sounds good or make us laugh or whatever.’
Like many of its contemporaries, the band has fallen into the vocoder craze, adding some sparse singing to their typically instrumental songs. The distortions make vocals unrecognizable, sounding more machine than human.
Popular tunes like ‘Acid Food,’ off of 2006’s ‘Mr. Beast’ are prime examples of the more lyrical Mogwai. Even so, the vocals are not overdone, appearing as another instrument as
opposed to a dominating force in the song.
There is something incredibly unique about Mogwai’s sound that no other post-rock band can approach. Between the finely placed guitar distortion and the methodical songwriting, everything seems seamlessly orchestrated.
Mogwai is well known as one of the louder bands in the business, with their live performances reaching thunderous levels. Even so, the experience is well worth a little ear ringing.
Mogwai will be performing at
