release date: Jan. 12, 2014
format: digital (6 x File, FLAC)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,82]
producer: Paul Savage
label: Rock Action Records - nationality: Scotland, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Teenage Exorcists" - 3. "HMP Shaun William Ryder" - 4. "Re-Remurdered (Blanck Mass Remix)" - 6. "The Lord Is Out of Control (Nils Frahm Remix)"
Ep by Mogwai following one year after the soundtrack album Les Revenants (for a French TV-series) and preceeding the album Rave Tapes (Jan. 2014). According to the band's bandcamp profile and to Discogs the album was issued in download formats one week before the release of the band's eighth full-length studio album, although, you may also find it to be filed as issued in Nov./Dec. 2014 in cd, vinyl and other digital formats. Now, ep releases by Mogwai always offer something else - it's never just some tracks from recent album releases with the addition of one or two other tracks or an extended version like many other artist usually do. Mogwai always want any release to be unique in its own right, which is rare these days. Anyway, the album is also something special because it's the band's final studio release featuring original member John Cummings, who decided it was now time to go on his own in pursuit of a solo career. With a running time just above 31 minutes, this ep contains six tracks of which three were recorded during the Rave Tapes sessions but without any of them were included on the album, and the remaining three are remixes of tracks taken from the album but featuring other artists, and both the excluded "normal" Mogwai compositions and the new remixes are quite interesting, especially "Teenage Exorcists" - possibly excluded from the album for being too indie rock-oriented touching much on darkwave (with hints of Bloc Party) but mainly for falling a bit far from the tracks that were selected for the softer album release, and also the brilliantly titled "HMP Shaun Ryder" - is it "His Majesty's Prison...", "Help Me Please...", "Hit My Phone...", "Home-Made Pizza..", "Hold My Potatoes", "Hug Me Please", or something else, they refer to?!, which again is the whole point of the pun! And the song itself is great but again focuses more on complexity and uptempo beats, whereas the album is more laid-back, but the Blanck Mass (originally just titled "Remurdered" on Rave Tapes) and the Nils Frahm remixes are simply worth the lot!
And as usual, it's bound nicely together despite pointing in various directions.
This is simply a great Mogwai ep!
[ bandcamp ]
