Thursday, June 19, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Music: Happy people

Moody rock act Mogwai will make you smile

By Mike Prevatt

Mogwai knows the limits of its snappy humor. During this year's tour, promoting its new album, Happy Songs for Happy People (out this week), the Scottish rock act decided to update its infamous "Blur: is shite" tour shirt with something a little more political, and a lot more daring: "Bush: is a cunt."

Put down your wallet, kids. Not only did the limited-quantity shirt sell out immediately, but the band doesn't dare whip up another batch for its U.S. tour.

"It's dangerous!" exclaims multi-instrumentalist Barry Burns. "It's nothing no one else isn't thinking, we just thought it would be funny. We always go too far and don't mean it. We're just excitable." He pauses a second before mumbling, "He is a cunt!"

Leave it to U.K. rockers to make a salacious anti-Bush statement and then backpedal a bit (see Radiohead's recent explanations for titling its new album Hail to the Thief). With Mogwai, its motives and reasoning are even more obfuscated because its songs aren't political or socially critical. In fact, you can almost count their lyrical output on both hands, because this band is all about swelling, guitar-drenched instrumentals, containing likenesses to fuzzbox pioneers and expansive alt-rockers such as Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and Mercury Rev.

Since its 1997 debut album, Mogwai Young Team, not to mention several EPs before it, Mogwai has been leaning less on the thrash and developing more of a refined, deeper and melancholic sound. With its glibly titled Happy Songs for Happy People (which Burns says was the first thing that came to mind), there's no joy to be found anywhere, but its moody, anti-pop orchestrations are intensely felt. "I know you are but what am I?" tinkles along with a piano-highlighted sadness that recalls Sigur Ros. "Killing All the Flies" is a heartbreaker that slowly builds from a delicate guitar haunt that could have been from Virgin Suicides-era Air, to an amplifier-rattling tsunami climax that evokes catharsis, and back to the quieter, more hushed drama. And the lulling, percussion-free "Boring Machines Disturbs Sleep" manages to convey dreariness without compromising the album's emotional consistency.

The latter song is actually sung by Burns ("badly," he says), who quickly sung guitarist John Cummings' lyrical scrawl after the band realized the song had to fill in voids the drum absence left. "John made up the words, and 10 minutes later we recorded them," says Burns. "We didn't care. It sounded good. It was just using the voice as another instrument."

Despite the heaviness and gloom in its music, Mogwai seems to relish its humorous side (hence the soundbite-friendly merchandise). The band is very interactive on its website, mogwai.co.uk, which includes a Q&A area for fans to get their questions answered; the more random the inquiry, the more hilarious the answers. It's above all the musicians' way of reaching out to its supporters.

"When we were younger, we didn't have a chance to communicate with people in bands," says Burns. "It's easy to answer questions, and it's a good laugh, really. And it's good to have a good website. There's nothing worse than a crap website with nothing on it."

Mogwai's arrival in the States this week runs in tandem with another U.K. import: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Might Barry and the boys stop off at a local bookstore and pick up copies of the hotly anticipated novel?

"Oh, definitely," says Burns. "Dominic [Aitchison, Mogwai's drummer] and I, and I think John, really like Harry Potter, and it's important, isn't it? (laughs)."