Mogwai Rave Tapes on LP + Download Coupon

Rave Tapes is the eighth studio album by Mogwai and their second for Sub Pop. Since their formation in 1995, the Scottish quintet has established itself internationally through a prolific recorded output and a commitment to touring that few of their peers can match. With Rave Tapes, Mogwai’s mastery of sound and space is firmly at its apex. The album is a lustrous collection mined from the same quarry as its predecessors, wreathed in painterly textures underpinned by increasingly electronic beats. 

The haunted strains of “Deesh” channel the slow-burning ecstasy of their 2006 song “Auto Rock” (a key presence in the denouement of Michael Mann’s film of Miami Vice that year), while the guitars on which Mogwai built their reputation remain, if less overtly belligerent this time round, as evidenced by the somnambulant opener “Heard About You Last Night” and the sonic scowl of “Hexon Bogon.”

In the past year, the band has broadened their reach with the soundtrack to the acclaimed Canal+ supernatural drama series Les Revenants (retitled The Returned when broadcast on Channel 4 in the summer of 2013, averaging 1.8 million viewers a week; the show is now broadcasting in the US on the Sundance Channel, and being remade for A&E). As the show reached its climax on UK TV screens in July, Mogwai returned to their predecessor to Les Revenants, the 2007 soundtrack to Douglas Gordon and Philippe Pareno’s film Zidane: A 21st-century Portrait, in sell-out performances with the band playing live while the film was projected above them.

Having barely had time to draw breath, the ever-restless band kicked off 2013 with the release of the Les Revenants EP, and wrote and recorded Rave Tapes at the band’s Castle Of Doom studio in Glasgow, Scotland. Rave Tapes was recorded with Paul Savage, who also worked with the band on their 2011 Sub Pop album, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. The release of Rave Tapes will signal the beginning of a frantic year of live activity, including the group’s maiden foray into Africa. Fasten your seatbelts.

1.  Heard About You Last Night

2.  Simon Ferocious

3.  Remurdered

4.  Hexon Bogon

5.  Repelish

6.  Master Card

7.  Deesh

8.  Blues Hour

9.  No Medicine For Regret

10. The Lord Is Out Of Control