Special Moves

On 14th April 2001, at Rothesay Pavillion on the Isle of Bute, Mogwai almost made me vomit.

They had already scared the little old ladies manning the bar by opening with a double salvo of the glitch ‘Sine Wave’ from the Rock Action album, and followed it quickly with ‘Christmas Steps’. When the bass kicked in during the latter, those ladies nearly died on the spot thanks to the pure evil of the low-end on that track. Anyway, closing with ‘My Father My King’, their interpretation of an old Jewish hymn, and with me a few whisky and cokes and a few beers to the good, my stomach began to do somersaults when 13 minutes in the volume just increased to a level I have rarely experienced before or since (Boredoms, My Bloody Valentine and Sunn O))) apart). Luckily, dinner and drinks stayed down and I survived until the ferry ride home.

This is the Mogwai live experience. It’s probably the best way to hear Mogwai and it’s a surprise that it’s taken 13 years for the band to release a proper live record, Special Moves. In all honesty, as much as I love the band, they’ve not made a wholly cohesive record since 1999’s Come on Die Young - I could probably add 2003’s Happy Songs for Happy People to that one, but only just. I am, thankfully, happy to report that Special Moves, recorded in Williamsburg, is everything that you could want from a Mogwai album.

It takes tracks from each of the band’s full length releases, meaning that we get the classic brutal ‘Gwai of ‘Like Herod’ and ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’ from the early days, and also the more electronic and slowly-menacing-but-never-quite-exploding tracks such as ‘I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead’ and ‘Killing All the Flies’, from the later years.

It all hangs together brilliantly, slowly building to the middle of the record with ‘You Don’t Know Jesus’, taking a little breather before closing with the still frightening ‘Like Herod’, and ‘Glasgow Megasnake’. You know it’s a special Mogwai gig when the usual set highlight of the former is absolutely destroyed by the latter. It’s a breathless experience.

There’s also an accompanying DVD of the Williamsburg concert, filmed by the Take Away Show’s Vincent Moon and Nathanael Le Scouarnac. The less said about that the better.....but I’m going to anyway. While the music is once again fantastic, Moon ruins what could have been an excellent document of the Mogwai live experience by indulging in moody, grainy, black and white, out of focus, wonky-angled, art-for-art’s sake filmmaking. While the Take Away Shows are often fantastic, capturing bands playing live in out of the ordinary settings, Moon et al similarly wasted a fine opportunity with the DVD of A Skin, A Night, which was meant to document the making of The National’s Boxer album. Instead, we got the same arty nonsense and no insight into the creative process of the band.

I’d recommend without caveats the CD version of Special Moves as it perfectly captures what Mogwai is all about. This is a band that knows how to control the noise they make, and beyond the noise you'll find layers of melody and beauty that open themselves up through repeated listening.

By all means play the DVD, just don’t look at the screen while you’re doing it. Don’t give Vincent Moon the satisfaction or validation.