Mogwai have announced their ninth studio album, Every Country’s Sun, due for release September 1. The record is their first studio album since 2014’s Rave Tapes, and sees them reuniting with producer Dave Fridmann for the first time since 2001’s acclaimed Rock Action LP; Fridmann also worked with the band on Come On Die Young (1999).
The opening track from the record, Coolverine, is out now and you can check it out below.
Every Country’s Sun is said to take two decades of Mogwai’s signature, contrasting sounds – towering intensity, pastoral introspection, synth-rock minimalism, DNA-detonating volume – and distills it, beautifully, into 56 minutes of hymnal trance-rock and transcendental euphoria.
There’s percussive, dream-state electronics (Coolverine), church organs as chariots of existential fire (Brain Sweeties), tremulous, foreboding bleeping – possibly from a dying android (aka 47). Their most transportive album yet, it also hosts their most fully realised art-pop sing-along of their storied history, Party In The Dark, a head-spinning disco-dream double-helix echoing New Order and The Flaming Lips.
Mogwai formed in Glasgow in 1995, and their output numbers eight studio albums, 13 EPs, two remix albums, two live albums and four compilation albums including 2015’s collection Central Belters. They’ve also contributed soundtracks to an impressive spectrum of cinematic releases (both full soundtracks and contributions): alongside Atomic (a Top 20 UK album in 2016), there’s been consistent acclaim for projects including French TV series Les Revenants (2013) and contributions to Leonardo DiCaprio’s climate change documentary Before The Flood (2016) alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
Coolverine is out now. Every Country’s Sun is out September 1. Mogwai’s only confirmed Australian show is at DARK MOFO (Hobart) on Saturday, June 10, 2017.
