One of the most influential post-rock groups to emerge from the 1990s, Mogwai cemented their rise above the confines of the genre with 2021’s UK No.1 album As The Love Continues. That year, guitarist Stuart Braithwaite told Prog how they’d reached the peak of the charts.
Mogwai’s widescreen, wall-of-sound anthems defined the second wave of post-rock, and, more than any other band, they became the template for what was to follow. Their innovating didn’t stop in the 90s, however, and they’ve continued to push themselves since.
They’ve been prolific in recent years, releasing two soundtracks – Kin and ZeroZeroZero – since the release of their last studio album, Every Country’s Sun in 2017. Their new record, As The Love Continues, shows off not just their knack for great riffs, but also for witty song titles, with highlights including To The Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate Earth and album standout Fuck Off Money.
“It’s a phrase that comes up when you’re talking about contracts,” guitarist Stuart Braithwaite says. “It’s not ‘fuck off’ as in really big, but ‘fuck off’ as in money should fuck off. I can’t actually remember which one the song is though – to be honest we only gave them titles a couple of weeks ago!”
This dry sense of humour and bemusement pervades not only Braithwaite’s approach to talking about their music, but also the music itself. Even during the pandemic, Braithwaite talks of the feeling of “hopefulness” he’s trying to impart with his compositions, and says launching lead single Dry Fantasy was a triumph in the face of adversity.
“It was really nice to release music because I think everybody feels really isolated at the moment; and especially with music, it’s such a social thing. It’s so much about human connection. It’s nice to be able to share with people what we’ve made.”
The new work is starry-eyed yet serious – the polar opposite of their soundtrack album for ZeroZeroZero, which was icy and stressful. Those compositions were driven by a desire from the commissioning directors for more keyboard-driven material, yet the resulting tracks that make up the OST are a blend of organic instrumentation and electronics, arranged in a sparse, tense patchwork that feels like nothing so much as a rising flood.
“The atmosphere of the show was always grim and stressful, whereas Kin had some lighter moments. ZeroZeroZero is really violent and heavy. We had to probably turn up how aggressive and heavy our music was, rather than tone it down.”
When you’re watching a film, you don’t want to be overwhelmed by melodies and different rhythm changes and all these things
Very little of that has carried over to As The Love Continues – in fact it’s remarkable how little crossover there is between the two projects. Braithwaite thinks it may be a function of how the music was composed; he describes ZeroZeroZero as feeling like a “conveyor belt.”
Where previous projects such as the Kin soundtrack were contained to the maximum length of the film itself, ZeroZeroZero required almost eight hours of music. As a result, the process of writing and recording was often heavily expedited. “Quite a lot of the songs on that, from dreaming it up to recording it, was like a few hours.”
The soundtrack for Kin required specific music for specific cues, whereas across the three directors of ZeroZeroZero, there were different levels of attention to detail. At times the band were even left to their own devices.
Braithwaite says Mogwai’s general philosophy on soundtracks is well-established at this point. He’s not a believer in complex music being used to accompany action onscreen.
“When you’re watching a film, you don’t want to be overwhelmed by melodies and different rhythm changes and all these things. Our tracks for film and TV tend generally to be simple. When people try to over-complicate it, it doesn’t work so well. You’re trying to purposefully keep it minimal.”
This is at odds with their approach for songs on a Mogwai album. “The way I see it is that you have to be able to not require anything else for the piece of music to work on its own as a standalone rock song,” he says.
There are a couple of songs that Dave Fridmann ‘rescued’ … I don’t think we’ve ever had anybody outside the band involved in that process
While the writing processes for ZeroZeroZero was deliberately streamlined and intuitive, with a degree of external direction, the process for As The Love Continues was a lengthy, detail-oriented affair, driven from within by the band alone, influenced to no small degree by the pandemic itself. “We really threw ourselves into writing music, and making the best of the situation we were in,” Braithwaite says.
It had already taken about a year before additional delays were caused by the Covid-19 lockdowns, just as they were gearing up to hit the studio. “We were meant to record it in May, but we ended up not going in until August,” he recalls. The upside was they had time to consider the material before they finished it.
“I think this album is maybe a bit more fully formed – I don’t know – maybe because of having months and months of just sitting in the house. I made a playlist of the demos and played it over and over again... so with this one we were more prepared.”
Bassist and keyboard player Barry Burns has been living in Berlin for several years, so they were already well used to working remotely. Once the initial shock of lockdown had worn off, they threw themselves even more into the refining process. They’d written far more material than they needed, and had identified a few tracks that seemed too soundtrack-like to consign to the demo bin. At this point they did something unusual: they sought an outside opinion.
“We’d written an awful lot of songs, so we had to narrow it down. [Producer] Dave Fridmann was involved in that process, and there were actually a couple of songs that ended up on the album that Dave ‘rescued,’ so to speak. It’s What I Want To Do, Mum and Here We, Here We, Here We Go Forever, he thought they were really good ones and told us to go and work on them some more. And he’s right – they both turned out really well, I think. That was a change; I don’t think we’ve ever had anybody outside the band involved in that process.”
Worcestershire is not where I’d dreamt of spending summer, but the weather was a lot better than Glasgow
He’s keen to stress that although the album was materially affected by the pandemic, he doesn’t think that it influenced the themes, if indeed it has any. “I guess that’s one thing about our music: it’s completely subjective. The songs I wrote have a quiet hopefulness to them. It feels like a record of this time – it’s obviously quite a strange period we’re all going through – but I’m not sure it has any concrete themes.”
There are some darker moments; Fuck Off Money and Midnight Flit are the closest the album comes to the tone of ZeroZeroZero. On the whole though, the mood is optimistic, and even hopeful, which may be due to the band being able to gather and create something positive in such an isolated and dark time for many.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW95us6-FS4
Though there was a concern that Burns wouldn’t be able to travel to participate in the recording, the band were able to decamp to Vada Studios in Worcestershire. “It’s not where I’d dreamt of spending this summer, but the weather was a lot better than Glasgow!” Braithwaite laughs Stuart, adding that it’s the furthest he went from his flat that in 2020.
“It was a blast because we’d been in lockdown all year; it kind of felt like a holiday as well. Maybe this is just me, and the rest of the band have a different memory, but I had a really good time.”
When there were two guitar players I’d think, ‘John will think of something else.’ Now I have to think of some more guitar parts
There remained some logistical difficulties, however. Fridmann wasn’t able to travel from the US, so the sessions had to be run remotely. They called upon longtime collaborator Tony Doogan, who runs Castle Of Doom Studios in Glasgow, to physically run and engineer the sessions. They set up iPads and devices all over the studios so Fridmann could observe people as they tracked.
“It was weird – but it was totally fine,” says Braithwaite. “It worked really well and I don’t think it impeded the process. The weird thing was the time difference. We’d maybe do some overdubs in the morning but we wouldn’t really start full band stuff until Dave got up at like two in the afternoon, so we ended up doing some pretty late nights, but that was fine.”
Since longtime member John Cummings left in 2015, Braithwaite has been the sole full-time guitarist in the band. He describes feeling like he was making it up as he went along during sessions for Every Country’s Sun. “We didn’t write it in the studio, but I think a lot of the parts were made up at the last minute. We’d written it before that. We try to avoid the expense – studios cost a lot more than rehearsal rooms!”
He adds: “When there were two guitar players I’d definitely think, ‘Well, John will think of something else.’ Now, unless a song is obviously super keyboard-heavy, I’ll have to think of some more guitar parts.” But it hasn’t turned out to not be an imposition. “It’s been a lot of fun, to be honest. I like playing guitar. It’s probably the thing about being in a band I like the most!”
Although Mogwai have weathered this unusual year, touring has been a bust. “It’s not been great for us – but I’ve got other friends, obviously music promoters, roadies, pretty much anyone that makes a living from gigs, and it’s been catastrophic for them. I feel a bit bad moaning about our situation.”
Instead he remains quietly optimistic: “I’d like to think at some point we’ll be able to get back out and play.”
