9:30am, on a Monday morning is as good a time as any to catch up with one of Post Rock's Big Kahunas. Here is The Mic's Ross Williams' conversation with Mogwai's Barry Burns.
On the eve of the release of their 11th studio album The Bad Fire, Mogwai’s Barry Burns still concedes to the pre-release heebie-jeebies,“I was in bed and said to my wife ‘I can't sleep’. It usually happens a few days before, it’s like any creation you put out into the world. It’ll be fine…”.
Distributing their music independently, via their label Rock Action, Mogwai have never compromised when it comes to the art of creating a beautifully succinct album. From the liminal bliss of their early LPs Young Team and CODY, to the post-rock triumphs of Mr Beast and The Hawk is Howling, their music has been a perennial comforter for the fans, since their formation in Glasgow three decades ago. As its title suggests, the band’s Tenth album As the love Continues, opened the flood gates to new fans in the latter half of lockdown. The album astonishingly debuted as a UK No.1(the first of their careers), showing the lads were still cutting the edge and punching well above their weight. This time around The Bad Fire, a Scottish colloquialism for Hell, was borne from a tumultuous few years for Barry and the band. Family illness amongst other personal grievances took precedent, giving a dark prelude to the album’s creation.
“Thinking back, after just the trauma of the year before, it’s amazing it even got done in the first place. We get on with things. It's good to keep busy during tough times. I'm just happy that it's coming out. So, not proud of anything, just happy.”
Now, as the realities of being responsible rockstars carry weighted concepts of Legacy and Categorisation, the band is steadfast in their singular commitment to sending a quality LP to the presses. “You go in and you just work at it, you rarely come out with anything much in a few days. Sometimes something happens. It's all about trial and error. I don't know if it's different for other people, but I still have no idea what I’m doing, after thirty years,’ says Barry. “It’s a nice feeling, being completely naïve”.
The Bad fire is the Mogwai’s first project working alongside acclaimed producer John Congleton, a collaboration John remarked ‘was inevitable’. Barry quipped, “John was willing to come over to Scotland and do it in a very dingy industrial estate. I felt sorry for him to have to go there”.
The singles Fanzine Made of Flesh and Lion Rumpus conjure sonics across the breadth of their abounding niches, with Barry’s seven-year-old daughter contributing the lyrics to the charged, vocoded opener God Gets You Back. A personal highlight is Pale Vegan Hip Pain, a wry name for an instrumental track that sends shifting melody and texture through a slo-mo vortex. The album's coda Fact Boy bookends GGYB with faltering-tape grandiosity.
"We get on with things. It's good to keep busy during tough times. I'm just happy that it's coming out. So, not proud of anything, just happy."
When asked if Barry owned a good hi-fi setup to preview Mogwai’s new offering, he laughed, “One of the kids put a biro right through the cone of the speaker my KF speakers and I thought, you know what? I'm getting rid of the turntable- gave it to a friend. Pretty much a digital nerd these days… I might even sell my vinyl because they're just destroying that as well ha-ha”.
I then enquired about Barry’s pre-covid stint living in Berlin, establishing the Scottish Bar Das Gift with his wife,“We sold it to an Austrian guy. He runs it now, poor guy. It was a nice place to meet musicians and artists- I met Kanding Ray in there, who ended up being in a band with for a while. One of the reasons we stopped doing it was because of Brexit, we couldn't get all the Scottish stuff cheaply anymore”.
No more Irn Bru on tap or the Haggis Nachos (my personal submission for a irreverent Mogwai track title), that apparently went down a treat with the Berliners. I must’ve made Barry a tad nostalgic, as he recalled his prized ‘mad’ jukebox that used to serenade Das Gift. He then dashed my remote hopes for a BJM X Mogwai collaboration with Berlin resident Anton Newcombe, saying their music was a bit too different- a man can dream, readers...
Back In Glasgow, 2024 was a busy year for Mogwai. What with recording the LP, writing the soundtrack for a hitherto unannounced BBC project, toting their humbling feature-length documentary If the Stars Had Sound around the film-fest circuit and curating their new festival Big City on the lawns of Queens Park - reports suggest Blur slander merch was sold at this one. On the topic of working alongside a high volume of creative collaborators, Barry said “When we're working with other people for our videos, artwork or posters, we're so hands off. It's nice to be trusted that to do your job and they just trust you to get on with it. Our best soundtracks have been ones where the producers haven't been totally involved , breathing down our necks; the harder ones are where they're saying, could you… blah blah, and they're just interfering. We like to extend that sort of allowance to the people we work- let them do what they want and make it their vision".
Delving into the world of sound tracking film and television, "My favourite one we did was Zero-Zero-Zero; it was an episodic drama about the drugs trade with Gabriel Byrne starring. Before The Flood was a documentary that we collaborated with Trent Reznor. If you're in-between albums, you're not always totally busy, but this gives you a chance to sort of keep your practice going and keep writing songs and not lose any sort of momentum”. This professional momentum is seemingly impeding Barry’s his downtime, “When I'm watching TV I'm more tuned into listening to the music, whereas I never used to be. It kind of ruins it a little bit. You’re not supposed to notice the music in some ways”.
In every respect, no matter the circumstances, Mogwai have never ceased in keeping the ball rolling-long may it continue!
The Bad Fire is out Friday 24th of January. Hopefully you won’t feel like pushing a biro through your speaker cones when you listen, the record’s ardent tracklist might just fry those tweeters all by itself.
Written & Edited by Ross Williams
Images courtesy of Simon Blackmore @ Black Arts Pr & Mogwai's Facebook
コメント