Various - Late NightTales: MGMT

Mon 7th Nov, 2011 in Music Reviews

After the epic success of their first album Oracular Spectacular and the mixed reception to follow-up Congratulations, what was the logical next step for MGMT?

Rather than hitting back with a big commercial release or continuing down the new guitar-driven sound of their second album, the duo has released a compilation in the renowned Late Night Tales series. Reminding their audience that they are “firstly fans of other people’s music” as the album booklet does, MGMT are asserting their status as music enthusiasts above all else.

If staking a claim to musical integrity was at all part of the aim with this compilation, it’s worked. Late Night Tales has a history of great releases, with a mixing alumni as prestigious as Air, Four Tet, The Flaming Lips, and most recently, Trentemoller. By any estimation, MGMT have done the series justice with their introspective and strung-out 20-track mix.

But be warned, it’s definitely not destined to be a club favourite. Touted as “music for the after-after party”, the mix is dominated by a gentle, low-fi, and often shoe-gaze sound. That’s not to say it’s a complete departure from the sorts of sounds you’d expect from MGMT – opening with Disco Inferno’s Can’t See Through This, we’re initiated with a breezily electronic riffs not unfamiliar to the duo. From there, there’s everything from the sixties vestige Love You Girl by The Great Society, Suicide’s synth-driven Cheree and twangy instrumental inclusions from the likes of Felt.

With inclusions from The Velvet Underground and Television Personalities, the tracks are, of course, by no means new. In fact, with the majority of the featured tracks coming from the sixties, seventies and eighties, it’s fair to assume that MGMT are referencing their own early influences – and as ever with such ventures, it’s interesting to be allowed an insight into the music that brought the pair to where they are today.

At the halfway point comes MGMT’s own original contribution to the mix, a cover of Bauhaus’s All We Ever Wanted Was Everything. It’s brilliantly handled– sitting covertly amongst the other artist’s tracks; All We Ever Wanted Was Everything achieves a resonating, eerie quality. Combining the Congratulations -esque guitar strums and psychedelic undertones with the electronic twangs of Oracular Spectacular, you can’t help but wonder what form the sound of the forthcoming third album will bring.

Kicking off the second half is Chevel Sombre’s slow-paced Troubled Mind, before one of the most surprisingly powerful inclusions, Dave Bixby’s Drug Song. Bixby pleads “I’ve ruined my temple with drugs / my mind is stung” and “I’m not a person/ I can’t even feel” – a sentiment that’s a world away from the coke-happy anthem of Time to Pretend. The compilation also covers the decidedly more electronic territory of Martin Rev’s Sparks, the gentle synth strains of Melancholy Man by The Wake and the pinging Morning Splendour by Pauline Anna Strom. Ending the mix is a spoken-word track by former NME writer Paul Morley – which with lines like “Language is made up of millions of clamorous, close-mouthed ghosts, as inhuman as glass” will no doubt be interpreted variously by different listeners as either peculiar, strangely poetic or just a bit pretentious.

MGMT’s contribution to the Late Night Tales series may not be to the taste of all their current fans, but it’s nonetheless a superb mix. Despite the unhurried pace of much of the compilation’s tracks, it never grows tired or uninteresting. Rather, the mix captivates the entire length; evoking an atmosphere that could be the come-down sequel to Oracular Spectacular.