"RITCHIE SACRAMENTO" MOGWAI (2021)

The moment a song is born, the world is different. It’s now a part of our lives. We sing it in the shower. We dance to it at our wedding. We get pumped with it. We break up to it. We memorize it. We try to forget it. We rediscover it. This month, I’m joining Arron Wright’s Twitter music challenge: ##Popiversary2. Because why the hell not. Songs deserve their own anniversaries, too.

Year: 2021

Now onto a band that I was much too late getting into. Somehow these largely instrumental post-rock geniuses evaded my radar for far too long. Some of my favorite music come from bands that make songs I can get lost in. Songs that make me forget about my circumstances, or the opposite, help me to see my circumstances with even greater clarity. Mogwai’s music does this for me. I’ve mostly been drawn to the instrumental stuff. But on As The Love Continues, an album born out of the pandemic, Track #4 has vocals, and the song is just so good.

“Ritchie Sacramento” is a track that I treat just like all of Mogwai’s great instrumental tracks. The vocals are pretty spot on, and they even make me wish Mogwai sang more and wrote more lyrics. But I also listen to those vocals like they’re an instrument, interwoven with those shimmery guitar hooks. The vocals and instruments are like soulmates on this one. It may not happen often, but when Mogwai adds lyrics like they did on “Ritchie Sacramento”, the results are absolutely worth it.

“Rise crystal spear flied through over me. Suddenly gone from here, left alone on the road. What brings you back? Promises of a memory. Your own ghost running away with the past.”

"MOGWAI FEAR SATAN" MOGWAI (1997)

You can get off to a fast start. You can sustain your opener with the main course, not filler. But can you end on a high note? Sometimes I wonder if recording a strong closer is the most difficult thing to pull off when it comes to album rock. When it comes to the cream of the crop in music, I can think of more strong openers than strong closers. Nonetheless, I still have my favorites which I’ll be featuring on Mental Jukebox all month.

Mogwai is a band that made an impact instantly – and somehow seems to get better with each recording. There hasn’t been a single dud in their entire album collection. But interestingly, the best closer, in my opinion, is still from their debut record, Young Team. It sounds like something created from a band that’s been at it for years. It’s a magnum opus for Mogwai and for the post rock genre. While the band certainly didn’t invent the genre, you could argue that no band has done more to help get the genre out there than Mogwai – and it all started with “Mogwai Fear Satan”.

What distinguishes itself immediately from other Mogwai anthems is its length. Clocking in at over 16 minutes, it is truly a magnum opus. It’s a swamp of timbre, textures and distortion. The kind of music you can get lost in and yet also the kind of music that can lead you to discover something significant. The drums are one continuous fill that tumbles over and over again. And the guitars sound like sirens in the night – running parallel to a distant flute in the background.

"TO THE BIN MY FRIEND, TONIGHT WE VACATE THE EARTH" MOGWAI (2021)

Great album openers get the listeners to keep on listening. They can do this in any number of ways. Some openers set the tone by easing us in. Others jump right in and blow our minds from the very beginning. A great album opener isn’t an easy thing to create. More than a great song, it’s all about the sequence. Track 1 has to be the perfect starter. This month, I’m highlighting my favorites. #AlbumOpeningSongs

And now we come up on a renowned band that I discovered only recently. I wish I took the advice of music fans earlier and gave these talented guys a shot earlier. The music of Mogwai has certainly taken up residency in my regular rotation and it has filled a void that other bands couldn’t with its post-rock inspired, mostly instrumental approach. This is music I can rock out to and zone out to simultaneously. As The Love Continues is one of my favorite albums of theirs. Mesmerizing, almost cathartic. The opener “To The Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate The Earth” feels like a baptism.

The track washes over me every time I listen to it. It kicks off with the song title’s words spoken, continuing the band’s penchant for eccentric track titles. “To The Bin” then proceeds to wash away the monotony with a flood of hypnotizing synthesizer parts, taking the banality out of the most dull moment or day. This opening track brings the promise of something momentous happening. And like many of Mogwai’s compositions, it proves that all of this is possible and even facilitated by the fact that there isn’t a single lyric uttered.

"RITCHIE SACRAMENTO" MOGWAI (2021)

For the month of October, I’m taking the #OctAtoZBandChallenge challenge. The premise is simple. Pick a band starting with the day’s assigned alphabet letter and then choose a song from that band.

Day 13

Now onto a band that I was much too late getting into. Somehow these largely instrumental post-rock geniuses evaded my radar for far too long. Some of my favorite music come from bands that make songs I can get lost in. Songs that make me forget about my circumstances, or the opposite, help me to see my circumstances with even greater clarity. Mogwai’s music does this for me. I’ve mostly been drawn to the instrumental stuff. But on As The Love Continues, an album born out of the pandemic, Track #4 has vocals, and the song is just so good.

“Ritchie Sacramento” is a track that I treat just like all of Mogwai’s great instrumental tracks. The vocals are pretty spot on, and they even make me wish Mogwai sang more and wrote more lyrics. But I also listen to those vocals like they’re an instrument, interwoven with those shimmery guitar hooks. The vocals and instruments are like soulmates on this one. It may not happen often, but when Mogwai adds lyrics like they did on “Ritchie Sacramento”, the results are absolutely worth it.

“Rise crystal spear flied through over me. Suddenly gone from here, left alone on the road. What brings you back? Promises of a memory. Your own ghost running away with the past.”