This is the third entry into the Mogwai Discographied series. Part one covers Ten Rapid and 4 Satin, part two covers Young Team and Kicking a Dead Pig / Mogwai Fear Satan Remixes. Today we move onto the excellent 1998 No Education = No Future (Fuck the Curfew) EP and their disappointing 1999 LP Come on Die Young.

No Education = No Future (Fuck the Curfew) – Chemikal Underground, 1998

Highlights: “Xmas Steps,” “Small Children in the Background”

Low Points: The absence of the original version of “Helps Both Ways”

Overall: Saying “I prefer the earlier version of that track” is one of the go-to retorts for musical elitists like myself, since it’s often a passive-aggressive fuck-off to anyone who wasn’t there first. Nevertheless, there can be an underlying logic to such preferences. Sometimes a song sounds fresher, more inspired on its first recorded take. Sometimes the initial production values fit the track better. Sometimes listeners grow accustomed to the particular cues of the original take and never quite settle in with the newer version. No Education = No Future (Fuck the Curfew) presents two separate instances of this phenomenon.

The promo pressing of No Education = No Future offered three songs—“Xmas Steps,” “Rollerball,” and “Helps Both Ways”—but met legal issues before its proper release. “Helps Both Ways” featured a recording of Pat Summerall and John Madden calling an NFL game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers, and sure enough, the network, the league, and the announcers take that message about “no rebroadcast without express written consent” rather seriously, even when it pertains to Scottish post-rock.

It’s a shame, since this original take of “Helps Both Ways” feels more natural than the one which appears on Come on Die Young. The familiar voices of Summerall and Madden, covering a drive helmed by Green Bay’s Brett Farve, could have drifted through the speakers from any languid Sunday afternoon in the mid-to-late 1990s. The specificity of this recording gives an impromptu feeling to the song, like Mogwai’s playing a moody, slow-core jam along to the television in between takes. In contrast, the comparatively anonymous sample from the CODY version almost immediately fades into the background behind more prominent drums and newly added horns. Given that you’ll have to download this original take of “Helps Both Ways” (cough cough) to hear it in the context of No Education, only a remarkably narrow segment of the audience would be affected by the switch, but this version was one of my first MP3s and I could never make the switch to the subsequent CODY take.

Getting back to the regularly scheduled programming, the EP’s lead-off track, the eleven-minute “Xmas Steps,” immediately gained its rightful status as one of Mogwai’s finest epics alongside “Helicon One,” “Like Herod,” and “Mogwai Fear Satan.” It patiently progresses from quiet calm to foreboding doom, from chaotic distortion back to violin-assuaged reserve. This savage dynamic range is a touchstone of the genre, but “Xmas Steps” pulls it off with a rare grace.

Much like “Helps Both Ways,” “Xmas Steps” was re-recorded for Come on Die Young (as “Christmas Steps”), and sure enough, I still prefer the No Education version. It’s a much harder argument to make, since the CODY version has crisper production and a tighter performance, but it loses the original take’s spaciousness and austerity.

If you’re sick of this version control, don’t worry: “Rollerball” is too slight of a song to earn alternate takes. It’s certainly pleasant—a crescendo-free slowcore piano ballad—but not especially memorable. You know what’s more memorable? That steaming turd of a remake of Rollerball from 2002. It’s bad news when Chris Klein and LL Cool J are expected to carry a movie.

Closing track “Small Children in the Background,” however, is memorable in the good way. A hazy lullaby with crests of whirring distortion, anchored by an affecting arpeggio, “Small Children” is one of music’s greatest consolation prizes. Mogwai being ready to slot such a great track into the EP after the legal mess over “Helps Both Ways” is rather astonishing. Much like “Superheroes of BMX,” it’s a b-side that ranks among their finest tracks.

No Education = No Future (Fuck the Curfew) may seem like a mere footnote now, given that all three tracks from the proper pressing have been added to EP + 6, but it’s hard for me not to think of how perfectly this EP maintained the momentum from Young Team. (Much like how Shiner’s Sub Pop single [“Sleep It Off” b/w “Half Empty”] did the same following Lula Divinia.) It’s not an album-length statement, but “Xmas Steps” and “Small Children in the Background” are two Mogwai classics, and the stylistic consistency for either version of the EP is impressive.

Come on Die Young – Matador, 1999

Highlights: “Cody,” “Ex-Cowboy,” “Christmas Steps,” “Chocky”

Low Points: “Year 2000 Non-Compliant Cardia,” “May Nothing but Happiness Come Through Your Door”

Overall: By the time that Come on Die Young came out in late March of 1999 (I remember the release and purchase very clearly), my Mogwai fandom was in full bloom. I’d heard a third of the album in alternate takes (“Xmas Steps” and “Helps Both Ways” from the preceding No Education = No Future (Fuck the Curfew) EP, “Cody” and “Kappa” from Peel Sessions) prior to picking up the album. I’d tracked down the aforementioned EPs and remix CDs. I was ready for another fantastic LP. Unfortunately, Come on Die Young couldn’t top Young Team.

Initially I wasn’t disappointed by Mogwai’s sophomore effort. Perhaps my prevailing misery at the time jibed with the plodding pace of the album and the absence of Young Team’s vibrant colors. But time has not been kind to Come on Die Young’s standing in Mogwai’s ever-expanding catalog. It certainly has higher production values than Young Team, but calling them better is a stretch. Producer Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips) gives the drums a touch of the Soft Bulletin treatment and adds horns and strings, but it's such a specific sonic palette. Beyond my four favorite songs—“Cody,” “Ex-Cowboy,” “Chocky,” and “Christmas Steps,” which would have made a 36-minute mini LP—there’s a glut of mid-tempo tracks that can’t quite fill the void of dynamic range with a proper level of emotional resonance. You know that feeling in mid November when all of the leaves have fallen off the trees, the ground’s grey and frozen, and yet there’s no snow to be seen? That’s my visual picture of Come on Die Young. Sometimes I feel like November in New England, but most of the time I gaze out the window, hoping for the season to change.

At 67:32, Come on Die Young is only three minutes longer than Young Team, but it feels like so much more of an ordeal. Opening track “Punk Rock” is built around a passage from a 1977 Iggy Pop interview (somehow not this bizarre appearance), in which he claims “Punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies and the bodies and the hearts and the souls and the time and the minds of young men.” It’s not that dissimilar from the recitation of a show preview leading off “Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home” on Young Team, but there’s no lightness, no joy to follow in the song. It’s measured and serious. At least it’s an accurate signal for what’s to come.

The next song, “Cody,” is one of the album’s highlights. A rare unaltered Stuart Braithwaite vocal, “Cody” is a country-ish take on the careful ballads of slowcore bands like Low, Codeine, and Galaxie 500, with a hint of the druggy vibe of Spacemen 3 (whose “Honey” Mogwai covered and included on the Young Team reissue). The lyrics are quietly affecting—“Old songs stay till the end / Sad songs remind me of friends / And the way it is, I could leave it all / And I ask myself, would you care at all”—which makes me wonder why so few Mogwai songs take this approach. The lap steel guitar is an essential addition, a marvelous extension of the glockenspiel and flute touches from Young Team. It should be no surprise this song remains in their set lists.

The next six tracks are patience-testing, mid-tempo plodders. If they’d been spread around the album and trimmed by one or two, the casual beauty of “Helps Both Ways” and “Waltz for Aidan” would be stand-outs, but instead they’re lumped into this tedious exercise. It’s a 27-minute block without a significant crescendo. I fully understand that post-rock can succeed without wall-shaking bursts of noise, but the tense strumming of “Year 2000 Non-Compliant Cardia,” “Kappa,” and “May Nothing but Happiness Come Through Your Door” is a brutal tease of an anti-payoff. If you’re going to repeat a trick, make it a good one.

The next three songs salvage Come on Die Young to a certain extent, but they also represent another critical sequencing error: the album’s three longest (and best) songs come in a row. “Ex-Cowboy” rides its mesmerizing bass line through two crescendos of blistering guitar noise. Do you know how much I missed blistering guitar noise? So very much. “Chocky” locates an elongated piano-driven mid-tempo track within the welcome haze of atmospheric noise. And “Christmas Steps,” best version or not, is still a jaw-dropping execution of post-rock’s most primal notions. The woozy two-minute closer “Punk Rock / Puff Daddy / Antichrist” is a drifting recapitulation of the opening track. It makes structural sense but isn’t essential.

Mogwai followed the wrong instincts in by mirroring Young Team’s length but not its balanced structure and varied songwriting. It’s hard not to wonder what might have been, especially after encountering the working track listing for Come on Die Young on the long-running Mogwai fan site Bright Light: “Chocky / “Cody” / Untitled / “Ex-Cowboy” / “Christmas Steps” / “Punk Rock” / “Helps Both Ways” / Untitled. Three specific songs were mentioned as possible b-sides—“Kappa,” “Waltz for Aidan,” and “Oh! How the Dogs Stack Up”—all of which were eventually placed within the mid-album bloat. Envisioning Come on Die Young as a single album with better pacing and fewer mid-tempo tracks is tantalizing, making me itch to revive that Stylus Magazine meme Playing God. (Ian Mathers did one for Young Team and it’s hard for me to control my rage over it right now. Breathe. Breathe.) Yet their next three full-lengths demonstrate that there’s a certain appeal to the unbridled sprawl of Young Team and Come on Die Young. The grass is always greener on the other side in Glasgow.

Welcome to part two of Mogwai Discographied. If you missed part one, you can read about Ten Rapid and 4 Satin here. This time I cover their triumphant debut LP Young Team and the mixed bag remix collection Kicking a Dead Pig / Mogwai Fear Satan Remixes.

Young Team – Jetset, 1997

Highlights: “Mogwai Fear Satan,” “Tracy,” “R U Still in 2 It,” “Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home”

Low Points: “With Portfolio”

Overall: I ordered Young Team from Parasol Mail Order in early 1998, prompted by the glowing comparison to Slint. (The Cure and Sonic Youth were the other major touchstones, although far less tempting for me.) Like many of my music purchases at the time, I hadn’t heard a note of Mogwai’s music prior to receiving Young Team. My first taste was its opening track, “Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home,” which begins with Mari Myren reading snippets of a show preview from Bergen, Norway—Mogwai’s first gig outside of the UK. Here’s the transcription, courtesy of the unofficial Mogwai site Bright Light:

’Cause this music can put a human being in a trance-like state, and deprive them of the sneaking feeling of existing. 'Cause music is bigger than words and wider than pictures. If someone said that Mogwai are the stars, I would not object. If the stars had a sound, it would sound like this. The punishment for these solemn words can be hard. Can blood boil like this at the sound of a noisy tape that I've heard? I know one thing, on Saturday, the skies will crumble together with a huge bang to fit into the tape.

Let me be perfectly honest. If I heard a band’s debut album in 2010 and the beginning of their first song essentially stated “Holy shit your mind is going to be blown,” it would be awfully hard for me to listen to that record objectively. Yet my seventeen-year-old self was far less cynical, so my response to that opening passage was awe and anticipation, not revulsion. And here’s the key: “Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home” backs these words up. Damon Aitchison’s melodic bass line eases the song in from that spoken word introduction, then effortlessly navigates the crescendo. The guitars chime harmonics and carefully prune feedback before opening up with layers of shimmering, back-masked tones. Martin Bulloch’s drumming is bolstered by rhythmic clatter off in the distance. In comparison with Ten Rapid, Young Team is shot in glorious Technicolor.

It’s followed by the first of Young Team’s two mammoth compositions, “Like Herod,” which went by the apt working title of “Slint.” To call it a “live staple” is an understatement: live versions of “Like Herod” have appeared on four separate Mogwai releases. Its closest kin in Slint’s catalog is the untitled 10"—“Like Herod” is a cross between the uneasy tension of “Glenn” and the chaotic noise of “Rhoda.” As an example of the extreme quiet-loud dynamic, “Like Herod” is peerless, but it lacks the mesmerizing sense of melody that Mogwai deliver elsewhere on Young Team.

Despite not owning Young Team on LP, it’s easy to think of it as a double LP with proper sides of vinyl, especially the next three songs. The moody and atmospheric “Katrien” buries a conversational monologue within its tidal movements, but certain phrases pop up with clarity, specifically “I can no longer see, hear, or feel anything / I can see, hear, and feel everything simultaneously” during the song’s most pressing quiet segment. It’s followed by “Radar Maker,” the first of three shorter, piano-based compositions that act as buffers between the major compositions. “Radar Maker” is the quietest of the three, a restrained solo recital with echoes off in the distance. It simmers things down for the inviting melancholy of “Tracy,” which turns two prank calls involving a fake argument between Braithwaite and Aitchison into bookends for a restrained drama scored by a poignant glockenspiel melody and blurred guitar.

It’s not surprising that some material from Ten Rapid would be reconstituted for Mogwai’s proper debut LP, but “Summer (Priority Version)” is dramatically different from the original take. The dynamic range is similar, but the Young Team version is downright claustrophobic, filling out the open space of the Ten Rapid take with a dense arrangement of knotty guitars. Mogwai apparently think this version is rubbish (Braithwaite: "I think that we must have been on crack when we wrote it because it's crap"), but I’ll vouch for it as a natural part of the album. Whether I’ll do the same for “With Portfolio” remains unclear. It juxtaposes a minute of gentle piano with an onset of frantically panning noise, testing listeners’ patience and cranial fortitude. It is not a song I want to hear every time I play Young Team, but along with “Like Herod,” it’s the best indicator of the noise terror of their live shows. (It also works wonders in clearing out an ice arena after open skate.) Whether it’s more of a palette cleanser or an ipecac before “R U Still in 2 It” is up for debate, but it certainly wipes the slate clean before Young Team’s lone proper vocal. “R U Still in 2 It” marks Mogwai’s second collaboration with Arab Strap vocalist Aidan Moffatt (following “Now You’re Taken” from the 4 Satin EP). The delay-heavy guitar line, bass harmonics, and resonant piano chords ache with Arab Strap’s signature misery, but it’s the switch between Moffatt’s spoken verses and Braithwaite’s lonely chorus that locks the song in memory. What starts as a sing-along for a pub full of sad bastards—“Will you still miss me when I’m gone? / Is there love there even when I’m wrong?”—turns into a solemn admission by song’s end.

“A Cheery Wave from Stranded Youngsters” is the fullest of the three interstitial piano pieces, beginning with an enthusiastic count-off (“1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 / 1 2 3 4 5 6 and on you go!”) and drenching its droning chords and cymbal washes in plenty of reverb. Make no mistake, however—this song works best as a lead-in for Young Team’s final track.

And what a final track it is. “Mogwai Fear Satan”is a towering post-rock epic that was immediately revered as a classic of the genre (and rightly so). As I mentioned in my review of Fuck Buttons’ Tarot Sport, “Mogwai Fear Satan” is the purest source of musical transcendence I know, a direct mode of transportation to a lush, idealized vision of the Scottish Highlands (or wherever else your mind’s eye takes you). I’ve never been able to accurately relate how “Mogwai Fear Satan” makes this trip happen, since its sixteen minutes are comprised of simple, tangible elements: an ascendant three-chord progression, Martin Bulloch’s fevered drumming, swells of feedback, bursts of distortion, Shona Brown’s flute, and the distant patter of tribal drums. Specific moments within the process are citable—the initial overdrive stomp at 1:45, the rapturous lull at 3:30, the stratospheric ascent at 5:18, the glorious euphony at 9:00, the woozy noise at 14:22—but the whole arc is required. “Mogwai Fear Satan” isn’t just my favorite Mogwai song, it’s one of my top five songs ever.

With such overwhelming praise for a single track, making the argument that Young Team remains Mogwai’s best album would appear to be an impossible task. But these ten tracks form a cohesive, exciting listening experience. Between the blissful overture of “Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home,” the tense, dynamic explorations of “Katrien” and “Summer (Priority Version),”the haunting lulls of “Tracy” and “R U Still in 2 It,” the table-setters of “Radar Maker” and “A Cheery Wave from Stranded Youngsters,” and the monoliths of “Like Herod” and “Mogwai Fear Satan,” there’s a welcome compositional variety. More than anything else, Young Team thrives on a sense of exploration that later Mogwai albums lack. Here, they write the songs necessary to fill in the big picture, later they write Mogwai songs necessary to fill in the big picture. That’s a small but critical difference, one that will keep coming up with albums like Happy Songs for Happy People and Mr. Beast.

One footnote: Given its stature (and original US pressing on Jetset), Young Team earned a 2CD/4LP reissue from Chemikal Underground in 2008. In addition to remastering the quiet mix of the original pressing, the bonus disc added nine tracks of rarities and live tracks. Come on Die Young or the Mogwai EP than Young Team. “I Don’t Know What to Say” is an ambient mix of conversation samples and unobtrusive noise, excavated from the Radio 1 Sound City compilation. “I Can’t Remember” is a claustrophobic mix of piano, drum loops, and guitar that never breaks the tension. Their cover of Spacemen 3’s “Honey,” originally included on 1998’s A Tribute to Spacemen 3 alongside Low, Arab Strap, Accelera Deck, and others, displays an occasional tendency (seen next on Come on Die Young’s “Cody” and their Peel Session cover of Guns n Roses’ “Don’t Cry”) and surprising aptitude for vocal-driven romanticism. It’s the highlight of the bonus tracks. The remaining five songs are live recordings of “Katrien,” “R U Still in 2 It,” “Like Herod,” “Summer (Priority Version),” and “Mogwai Fear Satan.” Only “Katrien” and “Summer (Priority Version)” don’t appear elsewhere in superior live renditions. This disc isn’t necessary, but it’s a nice reward for the die-hard proponents of Young Team like myself.

Kicking a Dead Pig: Mogwai Songs Remixed / Mogwai Fear Satan Remixes – Jetset, 1998

Highlights: Remixes from My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai, Kid Loco, and Hood

Low Points: Remixes from DJ Q, Alec Empire, and μ-Ziq .

Overall: Let me state the obvious: Kicking a Dead Pig and Mogwai Fear Satan Remixes are remix albums, so you should not expect across-the-board success. By my estimation, the average success rate for a remix album is at most 33%. A third of the songs are intriguing, but flawed. Another third are failures, either because the source material doesn’t work with the remixer’s aesthetic or because the remixer’s aesthetic is terrible to begin with. The final third gets it, and perhaps one or two of those tracks transcend the exercise and stand on their own. Allow me to test my math. There are twelve total remixes here—Mogwai’s own reworking of “Mogwai Fear Satan” appears on each disc—so in theory, there should be four in each pile. One final caveat: these discs came out in 1998, so you’re bound to encounter a boatload of dated electronic motifs.

I’ll start with the outright failures. DJ Q’s remix of “R U Still in 2 It” is the laziest of the lot, stripping the original down to its ghostly opening guitar line, then plopping a generic, club-friendly beat on top. Alec Empire’s take on “Like Herod” is a dumping ground of breakbeats apparently left over from Atari Teenage Riot. μ-Ziq’s hyperactive rendering of “Mogwai Fear Satan” piles on breakbeats, shifting synth chords, and atypical moog keyboard melodies, but nothing sticks. These three songs were downright painful to sit through.

More tracks fall under the middling, take-it-or-leave-it banner. Max Tundra’s scratchy remix of “Helicon Two” drifts through remnants of that song’s strong melodic character and a few anxious noise bursts, but doesn’t leave a lasting impression. Surgeon turns “Mogwai Fear Satan” into a buzzing drone symphony, like a denser version of Tim Hecker’s Harmony in Ultraviolet, but there’s a disappointing lack of melody. Arab Strap’s “Gwai on 45” runs through a few Mogwai songs, including “Mogwai Fear Satan” and “Katien,” but never develops a theme beyond “club sampler.” On any given remix album there’s usually at least one remix that sounds nothing like the original, but manages to sound decent enough on its own, and this time it’s Third Eye Foundation’s “A Cheery Wave from Stranded Youngsters (Tet Offensive Remix).” There isn’t even a hint of the dominant piano part from the original. Twelve years ago Klute’s “Summer (Weird Winter Remix)” would have likely been deemed a success, but its dated breakbeat exercises bring down an otherwise good incorporation of the song’s melody.

Finally, the winners. Kid Loco’s “Tracy (Playing with the Young Team Remix)” is the unanimous winner of Kicking a Dead Pig, building a late night groove from the original version’s bass line. The change in mood from the hesitant, melancholic original to the chilled-out remix is seamless, with the new drum beat and swooping electronics making an enormous difference. It’s not necessarily better than the original, but it’s close. On the other hand, Hood’s reworking of “Like Herod” doesn’t quite stand on its own, but it’s an excellent companion piece. Whereas the original relies on its brutally violent climax, the remix’s droning strings linger on the song’s tensest valleys, refusing to relieve the tension. Mogwai tend to rework “Mogwai Fear Satan” in the live setting to trim down its sixteen minutes, but their mellow, nearly ambient take is no mere edit. The first half removes the drums, letting a heavily smeared version of the song’s chord progression float until the flutes finally join the (after) party. They get to take center stage for a minute before the bass drum begins thundering in the distance. Guitar feedback eventually overtakes everything else, bringing the remix to a close. Aside from Martin Bulloch’s furious performance, every major element from the original is present, but moved around so their effects are entirely new.

The most significant song on Mogwai Fear Satan Remixes is the My Bloody Valentine remix, both in length and in stature. At the time, a Kevin Shields remix was perceived as a tremendous endorsement, since anything new from his camp was cherished (see: his sublime version of Yo La Tengo’s “Autumn Sweater”). His remix of “Mogwai Fear Satan” is mammoth, running nearly the entire length of the original at 16:12, and it’s a masterpiece of texture. Alien guitar warbling? Check. Glorious electronic tinkling? Check. A womb-like recreation of the original’s flute lulls? Check. An eardrum-shattering blast of white noise? Check. There’s so much going on, so much to digest. The abrasive noise section is admittedly a bone likely to lodge in your throat, which is why this remix isn’t a regular listen, but I wouldn’t dare request its removal. It’s what the noise blast of “Stereodee” should have been. Of the outside remixers, only Kevin Shields fully grasped every aspect of the original song’s appeal.

Three, five, four. I promise you I didn’t tally those up before proclaiming the rule of thirds. Getting four viable remixes out of this lot is par for the course, even if the tremendous achievement of the My Bloody Valentine remix goes above and beyond. If you’re hoping for more diligent testing of this theory, don’t hold your breath; after enduring the entirety of Kicking a Dead Pig and Mogwai Fear Satan Remixes, it will be quite some time before I tackle another full remix album.

I realized two things as I spun the advance leak of Mogwai’s live album, Special Moves, over and over: first, that I’d have to bite the bullet and order the deluxe 3LP+CD+DVD set; second, and more importantly, that for all of my frustrations with the band not consistently reaching its transcendent high-water marks, Mogwai is still one of my favorite groups. Sure, I’d kill for an album of peaks like “Mogwai Fear Satan,” “2 Rights Make 1 Wrong,” and “Helicon One”—or pay $60 for the limited edition of a live record containing those songs—but virtually every release in their catalog is worthy of attention.

Mogwai bristles at being designated “post-rock,” holding dear to the idea that they’re just a rock band like the Stooges or Black Sabbath, but few bands have dictated the course of post-rock as much as they have. Perhaps this angst over the genre is due to motifs they originated becoming clichés in lesser hands and then critically re-applied back to their newer work—a point which isn’t entirely off-base—but whereas other prominent post-rock bands have splintered, run out of creative energy, or dropped off my radar completely, Mogwai has persevered. Even if they disdain the genre, it doesn’t deter from their ability to write wonderful songs within it.

Unlike my Sonic Youth Discographied feature, I will cover the vast majority of Mogwai’s various singles and EPs, since they don’t have fifteen full-lengths to cover. This post starts with Ten Rapid and 4 Satin, their first two proper releases.

Ten Rapid: Collected Recordings 1996-1997 – Jetset, 1997

Highlights: “Helicon One,” “Helicon Two,” “Summer”

Low Points: “I Am Not Batman,” “End” is padding

Overall: Few of my favorite bands boast this flattering of an infancy.* Hum’s Fillet Show is a false start; good luck hearing any of those songs in their sporadic reunion sets. My Bloody Valentine’s early material explored gothic tendencies, not guitar bliss. Juno’s earliest demos were wisely kept under wraps, since those solo-heavy recordings would have lumped them in with countless Seattle grunge bands. Early Shudder to Think is faster, sure, but lacks any subtlety. So why is Ten Rapid worth hearing when those albums are for pure die-hards only?

The most simple answer is that their initial blueprint remained true. Each successive full-length adds more compositional depth, but the guiding principles of the band were sound at the beginning. Going back to a minimal song like “Helicon Two” or “A Place for Parks” isn’t an alienating experience like unearthing Fillet Show—they still feel like Mogwai songs. There are brief interludes of vocal slowcore, but they make sense within the surroundings, even if that approach was largely abandoned. They also had the presence of mind to turn these scattered seven-inches into a viable album, leaving behind the weakest of the lot.

Ten Rapid’s sequencing is one of its strengths, abandoning the chronological release dates of its eight previously released songs (closing track “End” is “Helicon Two” played backwards—Murder by Death did the same trick on Like the Exorcist but with More Breakdancing, back when they were called Little Joe Gould and were more influenced by Mogwai than Johnny Cash) in favor of a regular album flow. “Summer” begins with hazy foreshadowing of the song’s soaring guitars, crashing crescendos, melodic chimes, and hyperactive drumming. “New Paths to Helicon (Part Two)” strips things down to a gentle drumbeat and a wandering guitar line, with the occasional gurgle of bass beneath. “Angels vs. Aliens” twists the pummeling textures of “Summer” into a tense rhythmic knot. The ambient “I Am Not Batman” and lovely “Tuner” present Mogwai as a slowcore band more akin to Codeine and Low than Slint. (The best comparison for “Tuner” might be Pavement’s “Strings of Nashville.”) “Ithica 27 ϕ 9” finds the natural transition between the lulls of “Helicon Two” and the rage of “Summer” in its quiet-loud-quiet structure. “A Place for Parks” is a mellow jam leading into the collection’s triumphant high-point, “New Paths to Helicon (Part One).” The instrument switching is key, since Stuart Braithwaite plays the loping, melodic bass line and Damon Aitchison contributes the blurry swaths of guitar noise. What strikes me about “Helicon One” (and why it’s still a regular in Mogwai set lists) is its simplicity—everything contributes to that gradual curve upward, nothing sticks out. As such, it’s remarkably easy to get lost in the mist.

The only previously released Mogwai song not to make the cut for Ten Rapid was the b-side to the “Tuner” single, “Lower.” Its angst-driven rock and jarring transitions have false start written all over them, so you weren’t missing much.

Perhaps my fondness for Ten Rapid was contingent upon getting into Mogwai close to the ground floor. There’s less distance between the early material here and Young Team than say, 2006’s Mr. Beast. If you’re used to the polish of the later works, perhaps the lo-fi charms of “Tuner” and “Helicon Two” won’t affect you, but it amazes me how well Ten Rapid has held up to thirteen years of post-rock development and scrutiny.

* I recognize how many exceptions there are to this statement, especially from the last decade, but the 1980s and 1990s seem more populated with ragged beginnings and false starts than brilliant opening statements. Also, I'd rather continue to be interested in a group's development than gradually lose interest as they lose inspiration (See: Interpol).

4 Satin EP – Jetset, 1997

Highlights: “Superheroes of BMX,” the first five minutes of “Stereodee”

Low Points: “Stereodee” sure goes on for a while

Overall: The 4 Satin EP is a confounding bit of Mogwai lore. Early pressings from Jetset Records, like the one I own, had an unintended song (“Guardians of Space”) and an alternate, lesser take on “Stereodee.” If your CD has four tracks, it’s the misprint. It’s no surprise this release was later collected along with No Education = No Future (Fuck the Curfew) (which has its own curious history) and Mogwai EP as EP + 6. While I highly recommend tracking that compilation down to prevent any potential frustration, I’ll discuss the EPs separately.

If you have the proper version of 4 Satin, a sampled conversation and drum machine intro lead off the understated “Superheroes of BMX,” one of my favorite Mogwai songs. Two sighing keyboard chords alternate as guitar arpeggios and live drums filter into the mix. The melancholy turns tense as squalls of feedback arc over the wavering lead guitar, but the song never loses its grounding emotion. It’s a loose, rambling song, lacking the precision of their later work, but that combination of anxious noise and insistent melancholy covers up any flaws.

“Now You’re Taken” marks the group’s first collaboration with Arab Strap singer Aidan Moffat. It drifts more gingerly than most Arab Strap songs, but the general feel is the same—Moffat’s deeply accented voice ruminating over a relationship gone sour. (If you need a starting place for Arab Strap, I recommend Philophobia.) The closing lines “And I should tell you that I adore you / But I’m sure that I’d just bore you” nail the mood of this particular song. It’s not as memorable or melodic as Moffat’s other Mogwai guest appearance on Young Team’s “R U Still in 2 It,” but it’s a nice warm-up.

The thirteen-and-a-half minutes of “Stereodee” close out 4 Satin with a very long, very loud bang. The first three minutes are the melodic build-up, a compelling combination of jangly chords and churning acceleration, but then the wall of white noise hits and sticks around until the twelfth minute, when an inexplicable dance beat emerges. If you’ve seen Mogwai—or any number of comparable post-rock or noise-rock groups—picture the song at the end of their set that closes with guitars-against-amp feedback as the members gradually leave the stage. That’s “Stereodee.” It’s a lot more viscerally exciting when your fingers are jammed against your ear drums in the rock club, trying futilely to maintain your hearing for the next day. At home you can just turn it off after five or six minutes, which is what I usually end up doing.

Finally, the fuck-ups. “Guardians of Space” is a grinding rocker with a repetitive riff and garbled vocals in the background. Think of it as a dry run for Young Team’s far superior “Katrien.” The alternate take on “Stereodee” doesn’t do the song justice. It’s three minutes shorter than the proper version, lacks the proper build-up to the white noise apocalypse, and overdoses on the flanger pedal for the intro guitar riff. I can’t fathom how angry Mogwai must’ve been when they found out both of these songs were in stores.

Provided you find the right version (or just bite the bullet and get EP +6), 4 Satin’s a rather rewarding side street in the Mogwai catalog. Two of these songs will reappear later in alternate versions (“Superheroes of BMX” on Government Commissions, “Stereodee” as “Quiet Stereo Dee” on Travels with Constants), but I prefer the versions here. All three songs are worth hearing, but “Superheroes of BMX” is the keeper.

Steve Reich – The Desert Music LP – Elektra, 1985 – $6.50 (Mystery Train, 5/16

I find myself sticking with a few of Steve Reich’s pieces more than others, specifically Music for 18 Musicians, Octet / Music for a Large Ensemble / Violin Phase, and Six Marimbas, but it wasn’t until I picked up The Desert Music that I understood why. Those pieces were all composed in the 1970s and are formative explorations into minimalism. There isn’t a prevailing theme to Music for 18 Musicians, it simply goes. Those compositions set up the rules, the boundaries, and the elements for Reich’s later releases.

His major compositions in the 1980s—Tehillim, The Desert Music, and Different Trains specifically, for the simple reason that I own and have heard them—apply topical themes to these elemental templates. Tehillim evokes Reich’s Jewish heritage; The Desert Music follows William Carlos Williams’ poetry into the very idea of deserts; and Different Trains juxtaposes Reich’s frequent train trips in 1939–41 with those of European Jewish children headed off to Nazi death camps during the Holocaust. It’s heady, important stuff, especially Different Trains, and I commend Reich for taking this direction. He could have easily been content to explore the form’s more distant corners with different instrumentation (like Pat Metheny’s guitar performance of Electric Counterpoint that follows Different Trains on the LP) or plied his trade on film soundtracks, but bringing an emotional, personal, and historical resonance to his compositions is far more rewarding. More recently his 2006 release Daniel Variations focused on Daniel Pearl, the Jewish-American journalist beheaded by a Pakistani militant group in 2002.

The disconnect between Reich’s elemental 1970s compositions and his thematically charged 1980s compositions comes down to ease of listening. When I reviewed Octet / Music for a Large Ensemble / Violin Phase last year, I called it “remarkably flexible music,” noting how I frequently listened to it while working, driving, or reading, not just in active-listening scenarios. Whether Different Trains works in these passive contexts is up for debate, but it’s difficult to ignore the thematic arc of that release. The Kronos Quartet’s stuttering strings are just as disconcerting as the conversation snippets. Tehillim faces a different hurdle: I don’t share Reich’s Jewish upbringing. While that didn’t stop me from enjoying Mogwai’s “My Father My King,” I suspect that Tehillim is a far richer experience with the proper background.

On the surface, The Desert Music isn’t much of an exception. Selections from William Carlos Williams’ poetry, specifically “The Orchestra” (reading) and “Theocritus: Idyl I—A Version from the Greek” from his own The Desert Music and “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower” (reading), provide the text for the choir. Reich cites a particular section of “The Orchestra” as being thematically critical: “Say to them: / Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant / to know how to realize his wishes. Now that he can realize / them, he must either change them or perish.” Williams wrote this poem in the wake of the nuclear bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so desert applies both to the New Mexico testing grounds for the weapons and the lifeless aftermath from the fallout. Reich also cites two other deserts—the Sinai, where the Jews entered after their exodus from Egypt, and the Mojave desert in California, which Reich had visited on several occasions. Much like Different Trains and Tehillim, The Desert Music brings together strands of history, culture, and personal experience.

Yet Reich makes another key point in the liner notes: “All pieces with texts [have] to work first simply as pieces of music that one listens to with eyes closed, without understanding a word. Otherwise, they’re not musically successful, they’re dead ‘settings.’” More so than Tehillim or Different Trains, The Desert Music fulfills this requirement. This point is no slight against those other pieces, rather an important recognition that their texts are harder to ignore, especially the spoken extracts of Different Trains. I would further argue that Different Trains’ narrative accounts need to be hard to ignore. The poetic tracts of The Desert Music, on the other hand, aren’t the principle layer of the compositions. They add to the initial listening experience, which covers the promise of the American West, the foreboding darkness of Hiroshima, and the struggles of the Sinai. Returning to the cited WCW passage, the idea of realizing wishes and then having to change them applies in all three contexts in different ways, but with similar potential outcomes. The Desert Music is thematically charged, yes, but in a way that continues to open up avenues of conversation.

The jury is still out on whether The Desert Music join Reich’s 1970s compositions in my heavy listening pile. The emphasis on the chorus, whether singing the Williams poetry or wordless melodies, is a major difference from the pulsing usage of human voice in Music for 18 Musicians, and goes against my usual preferences, although I do enjoy it here. Going back to the idea of elemental Reich vs. thematic Reich, The Desert Music seems too full, too symphonic to properly compare with the elemental minimalism of Music for 18 Musicians. With the application of a theme, even a flexible, conversationally oriented theme, the overall scope expands. Whether that scope fits as many listening scenarios as my favorite Reich pieces is doubtful, but I don’t feel close to being done with The Desert Music.

Note: the 2001 CD pressing of Tehillim / The Desert Music by Cantaloupe Music features a different performance of each piece.

9. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport 2LP – All Tomorrow’s Parties, 2009 – $18 (Newbury Street Newbury Comics, 1/22)

When I heard Fuck Buttons’ widely acclaimed debut LP, Street Horrrsing, I was more excited by what it hinted at, not what it was. The insistent synth bass and tinkling effects of “Sweet Love for Planet Earth” and the trance-inducing build-up of “Bright Tomorrow” foreshadowed more polished efforts. Remixes of “Sweet Love” and “Colours Move” by Andrew Weatherall and Mogwai respectively demonstrated how excellent Fuck Buttons’ material could be when removed from the rhythmic clutter and haphazard yelling of Street Horrrsing. Presumably Fuck Buttons themselves felt inspired by these remixes, since they tasked Weatherall with producing the follow-up album, Tarot Sport.

Pardon me if you were disappointed by the lack of abrasive noise on Tarot Sport—I know some people were—but there aren’t many cases when I feel like a group delivers exactly what I was hoping for with a follow-up LP. It’s an absolute thrill. (Other examples: Bottomless Pit’s Congress EP and Tungsten74’s Binaurally Yours.) I knew Tarot Sport wouldn’t be entirely free of the noise fetish from Street Horrrsing, and “Rough Steez” and “Phantom Limb” provide a more controlled take on that style, so I’m willing to bring them along for the ride to break up the string of epic jams.

When I say exactly what I was hoping for, I’m selling Fuck Buttons short, since I did not anticipate just how great “The Lisbon Maru,” “Olympians,” and “Flight of the Feathered Serpent” (in particular—the whole album is superb) would be. The forthcoming comparison may also sell them short, since Mogwai is one of the group’s noted influences, but these songs reminded me more of hearing “Mogwai Fear Satan” for the first time than anything else released since 1997. Compositionally they pull off the same trick—anchoring epic songs with basic melodies, then sending them flying into space—but do so with different instrumental palettes. Plenty of post-rock bands cribbed the wrong notes from “Mogwai Fear Satan,” incorporating flutes into their crescendo rollercoasters, but that’s just a lazy facsimile (likely driven by the fact someone in the group played flute in high school) focused on the details, not what made the original great. In the vaguest, most infuriating terms possible, “Mogwai Fear Satan” sent me somewhere else. It’s that feeling Fuck Buttons captures, not the road signs or the exit ramp to the eventual destination.

Each song captures it with a different tack. “The Lisbon Maru” offsets the propulsion of its electronic pulses and martial drumming with a hint of resignation before letting that feeling disappear amidst a cloud of distorted keyboards. “Olympians” hints at the slow-motion triumph of Vangelis’ theme to Chariots of Fire, even though its BPM is club-ready. “Flight of the Feathered Serpent” drops out midway through its escalating climb to demonstrate the potency of its background counter melody—the one you might have missed lurking under the pounding beats. These are specific moments of transcendence—a word I don’t use lightly—bound to the overall arcs of their songs.

Where do Fuck Buttons go from here? Who knows. I don’t have a specific destination in mind. Mogwai’s career presents the most logical option: gradually trading transcendent wonder for increased instrumental prowess and compositional confidence, thereby creating solid albums with fewer moments of awe-inspiring brilliance. Plenty of options are worse than longevity and stature. All I hope for right now are more moments like “Flight of the Feathered Serpent”—figuratively, not literally, of course.