Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Mogwai still ‘just a rock band’

Braithwaite recently got into a debate over the issue on his label's official message board. His comments were so heated they were eventually removed by Matador Records.

"There seems to be this culture in America of cats getting records off the Internet three months before they come out and then moaning about them," Braithwaite said in a recent phone interview. "And they moan about every single thing. It's not just us. It's every record that comes out.

"For someone to dismiss something in three words or whatever that you spent two years on is not really fair, I don't think."

The much-ballyhooed album, "Happy Songs for Happy People," finally hit stores Tuesday. Las Vegans will get a chance to judge its contents firsthand when Mogwai plays the Huntridge Theatre on Thursday night at 7, the band's Southern Nevada debut.

Braithwaite, for one, thinks "Happy Songs" contains some of the best work of Mogwai's eight-year career.

"I'm really pleased with it. I like it a lot," he said, speaking backstage before a gig in Strasburg, France. "Our music in still mostly instrumental, but there's probably a bit more musicality involved these days."

"Happy People" picks up where the band's last full-length CD, 2001's "Rock Action," left off. It once again finds the Scottish quintet crafting gorgeous soundscapes, songs that gradually expand seemingly simple riffs into monstrously powerful statements.

As on other recent Mogwai efforts, vocals are employed, but not in the usual sense. Mogwai's five members -- guitarist John Cummings, bassist Dominic Aitchison, drummer Martin Bulloch, multi-instrumentalist Barry Burns and Braithwaite -- treat vocals not as lyrical statements, but as further instrumentation, mixing them deep into the background.

Even at its heaviest, "Happy People" does not rock quite as hard as either "Rock Action" or the EP which followed, 2001's "My Father My King," a 20-minute reworking of a traditional Jewish hymn.

Perhaps that explains why the members of Mogwai opted against the new album's first reported title, "Bag of Agony."

"That was a joke that kind of wore off," Braithwaite said. "We were already getting the impression that people were taking it kind of seriously and thinking it was our angst record, and we didn't want that. So we decided to swing the pendulum in the other direction."

That doesn't mean fans should expect Thursday's show to be a mellow one. Mogwai is legendarily loud in concert, a quality of the band's music that was put to the test at its recent show in Strasburg.

"These French (expletives) have got us at 105 DBs (decibels) tonight," Braithwaite said. "They've got some unbelievable new law in France that you can't be loud, so tonight we're going to be like Donovan or something like that."

Though fans often swear their hearing is permanently damaged after witnessing Mogwai's live show, Braithwaite said his ears have escaped relatively unscathed despite years of touring. Still, he has taken some measures to make sure he doesn't end up similar to Pete Townshend in that department.

"I think I can hear less in my left ear than I can in my right ear, because my left ear is the side that my amps are at," Braithwaite said. "So I'm starting to put my amps on the ground so that they're not on my ear level, which I think will make a bit of difference.

"But to be honest, I think it's louder from the house than for us onstage. And most people don't come and see us every night of the year, so they should be all right."

Even if you've never listened to a Mogwai album, chances are good you've heard a bit of their music. Their song, "Summer," plays during Levi's "Stampede" commercial, in which a herd of ghost buffalo stampede through a couple clad in jeans and over a bridge.

Or rather, the song used to play in the ad, until Levi's recently yanked the Mogwai number and replaced it with another piece of music.

"They said they got audience feedback and the music was too full-on for jeans. They wanted something less rock-oriented," Braithwaite said. "So the big joke about it is we can't even sell out successfully."

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