Mogwai “Atomic”
Label: Rock Action
Album review by Reuben Acciano
Mogwai don’t do “same-old, same old”. Unless “same old” equals consistently innovating their sonic arsenal and tactics while retaining immediately identifiable arrangements and dynamics. Pioneers of an exaggerated contrast of almost imperceptibly quiet and moody minor key sounds suddenly contrasted with gigantic, violent explosions of guitar squall and volume, the Glaswegian behemoth have applied mid-90s ‘loud-quiet-loud’ to instrumental ambient guitar music for coming on 21 years, helping to invent ‘post rock’ and spawning a legion of imitators.
Atomic is a slight departure, however, being not a scheduled studio LP but instead a soundtrack to the documentary of the same name (well sort of, Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise) directed by Mark Cousins, and the song titles mostly reference pivotal historical moments in human experience of the terrible realities of atomic power – Pripyat, Little Boy, Fat Man etc.
Even in their earliest days, Mogwai’s music evoked comparisons to soundtracks, well before they actually started doing them, which speaks for, rather than against their capacity to build a moving sonic counterpoint to cinematic creativity, be it stylised visuals or concepts sketched through montage or mise en scene. Hell, they managed to score a ‘documentary mood piece’ of multiple cameras following legendary French footballer Zinedine Zidane in real-time during a football match – in which he didn’t even play particularly well – and make it sound epic.
Reflecting the cold-war era in which a broader existential terror of the atomic threat spread across the world, Atomic is, aptly, an album drawn and defined by 70s and 80s voiced synth sounds. This isn’t entirely new for Mogwai. As they’ve progressed, they’ve gradually incorporated more keys textures into their arrangements, despite their original structure as a guitar-driven act and reputation for bowel-shakingly loud, amp-melting live shows. Guitars proper don’t really announce themselves on Atomic until Track 9, Tzar, at which point they’re a welcome lift after so much haunting.
Perhaps the most identifiable Mogwai ‘signature’ on Atomic is Martin Bulloch’s loping, mesmeric work on the drums. The roomy depth the band always record around his kit marshalls the space in which the guitars and Eno-eque keys build and ebb and tease, and his ability to play interestingly and dynamically at often painfully slow tempos – much more difficult than it seems – is the skeleton of this lumbering musical mammoth.
So, then, Atomic basically sounds like Mogwai Plays A One Hour Version Of Warszawa (from David Bowie’s Berlin Era classic Low). No bad thing when undertaken by musicians whose real defining quality is less a specific sound and more their consideration of atmosphere, drama and space.
Mogwai “Atomic” is out 1st April 2016 on Rock Action Records.
