By Massimo Usai
I approached the Scottish Mogwai in 1997. Yes, with their first album, the immortal “Young Team”.
End of the millennium, a dream in the drawer to change my life.
Music languidly entered every corner of my body.
“Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home” opened the album superbly, sumptuously and directly, leaving you mesmerized for all its nearly six minutes of growing up.
Electric guitars, prevalent at the time, seemed to open the Scottish skies’ clouds with impressive electric cuts.
A few months earlier, in the same year, “Ok! Computer”, it seemed to me that the year was over in terms of surprises.
In October, then comes this record that convinced me to stop listening to Radiohead for a while.
It was languid at the right point. It comes out at the right time.
Every day, under the scorching sun on my land, I consoled myself driving my car, or in the evening at home, with those sounds that made shades on me.
I imagined only places where rain dominated gently every day, both summer and winter.
A place without seasons, only eternal autumn, damp and dark.
25 years of career.
Never give up on them.
“Come on Die Young“, “Happy Songs for Happy people”, “Hardcore Will Never Die. But you Will” are milestones in my music library.
The song “Ether“, is almost always present in every compiled playlist.
There’s always a good reason to put it in.
When I bought their brand new album “As the Love Continues” a few weeks ago, it seemed like a perfect album to come out now.
An album that might seem like the soundtrack of the pandemic and living in solitude, with thoughts, doubts and hopes at the same time, just need the right music and finally was here.
For a few days, I honestly thought it was a shame that such an album like this one would listen to the usual four or five friends and instead… 25 years after their first album, Mogwai reach the top of the charts.
I believe this success is one of the most mysterious and the most beautiful things in the music business last year.
Seriously, if you want to do yourself something good, don’t let this record escape from your collection.
A serious candidate to be one of the albums of the year.