MOGWAI Zidane double lp
$
42
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Description
The perfect meeting of men & mission... Both (2) lps + gatefold jacket in excellent condition.
***
I am amazed and confounded by some of the poor reviews that this album is receiving from fans. I consider 'Zidane:...' to be a return to form for Mogwai after a few albums that fell slightly short of the high standard set on 'Young Team' and 'Come On Die Young', as well as probably my favourite album of last year. At last Mogwai have produced something of the epic proportions of their early albums.
The possibilities, limitations and conventions of soundtrack writing are very good for Mogwai. The fact that the music was written as a soundtrack means that the album posesses an intense unity and strength in structure which only 'CODY' comes close to matching. There are themes, effects and ideas that appear and reappear throughout the album, giving the sense of one huge work unfurling over the ten tracks.
The album has the feel of a Mogwai track magnified - the first two thirds or so is slow and contemplative, but quietly seething and subtly majestic. Feedback and delay combine with drones to provide backdrops for simple guitar or piano melodies with drums that rumble gently, but threateningly at the same time. These melodic themes are interspersed with improvised sounding passages of quiet noise that assist in the build of tension through the album.
The music becomes more and more aggrevated over the first 40 or so minutes of the album - the dynamic variation, the build and release familiar to Mogwai's music is present but in a more subtle guise than on past releases. There are moments of sublime beauty and of understated (but no less effective for it) tension, and it is all released in the last 20 minutes of 'Black Spider 2', following four or five minutes silence. These final 20 minutes have the feel of an enormous, slow explosion.
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