Mogwai - Special Moves

Wed 13th Oct, 2010 in Music Reviews

There is a fine line between good and bad instrumental music. The bad is pretentious, ineffectual and meaningless. The good is Mogwai: distressing and calming; peaceful and violent; loud and quiet.

Filmed and recorded in Brooklyn, New York at the The Music Hall of Williamburg over their three night residency in 2009, live CD Special Moves and accompanying film Burning capture the Scottish rockers in fine form.

The presser declares that this effectively a ‘best-of’ release given Mogwai aren’t a very ‘greatest hits’ kind of band, according to guitarist and occasional vocalist Stuart Braithwaite. However the discs present a true mix of the band’s career, with all six studio albums accounted for.

Special Moves opens with the fantastically titled piano-driven I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead, pulled from their latest effort, 2008’s The Hawk Is Howling. The paradoxical I Love You, I’m Going To Blow Up Your School, 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong and the childish I Know You Are But What Am I are also included in the one hour-plus worth of material that makes up the disc. The titles also make it abundantly clear that Mogwai are not your ordinary band. Though while the songs themselves are important, the true grandeur of them comes from listening to them as a collective: indeed, as a live concert.

Special Moves is almost wall-to-wall songs, only interrupted by the band thanking the mostly silent, attentive and seemingly stunned audience. Burning goes further to show the effect the band can have in a live setting.

Filmed by Nathanaël Le Scouarnec and Vincent Moon in black and white, Burning is modest and understated, with footage of the band around New York interjected between the live concert footage. Yet the best insight doesn’t come from shots of the band, who don’t exactly ooze stage presence, at least in the traditional understanding. Instead, the best insight into the live Mogwai experience comes from shots of the audience and their reactions to the music: crying, head-nodding, swaying, excitement, bewilderment, shock and awe.

Inevitably, both the CD and DVD can only provide a small glimpse of the raw power of Mogwai in a live setting. The most authentic and apt review of any of Mogwai’s music is given over the closing credits of Burning, as a young English woman leaving the venue reflects on her experience of witnessing the Scots live: “The first time I saw them live… I started crying just spontaneously… it’s like acid but there’s no comedown. It’s beautiful.”