Mogwai: “The Sun Smells Too Loud”
By John Michael Cassetta • Jul 3rd, 2008 • Category: Music, The Daily Dic
I hope everyone made it out to see Fleet Foxes last night. Sonic Itch has a great little “getting to know” piece up on the band today. Go check it out if you get a chance. But now, more new music…
I’ll go on record saying that I’m not the biggest fans of the Glasgow group Mogwai. I’ve only slightly enjoyed their instrumental records up to this point, and when I heard they had a new album coming out soon called The Hawk Is Howling, I’ll admit, I didn’t really care. Certainly it’d find it’s way to my doorstep somehow, and it’d be good for a listen or so, but after that, well, that’s what the bottom of the shelf is for.
But this track, “The Sun Smells Too Loud,” really stood out to me as breaking free from the things I don’t really like about Mogwai (i.e. “being really boring”). It’s slightly reminiscent of our Austin instrumental phenomenon the Octopus Project, minus the “making technology cool” gimmick, but with the same knack for using synthesized sounds and electronics to create a vividly organic sound.
Also like the Octopus Project, there’s at least a slight reliance on hooks to drive the song. Listen for the guitar that comes in at around 0:46 in the Right channel; the distortion here is almost perfect, and Mogwai use that short catchy 6-note hook to anchor the meandering electronic nonsense in the background. Of course, I mean “nonsense” in a good way.
If you’re a big Mogwai fan, chances are you’ve already heard this. But if like me, you could really care less, I still recommend checking it out for at least the 7 or so minutes it will take you to download it and listen to it.
