'Well, it is just another album, but they all feel so different,' says Mogwai multi-instrumentalist Barry Burns philosophically, before adding, 'Obviously, we get older as each one happens.' Released in January, 'Rave Tapes' is the Glaswegian five-piece's eighth foray into the atmospheric, brooding realms of post-rock. Once the poster boys for a new wave of post-Slint impresarios alongside Godspeed! You Black Emperor, leading man Stuart Braithwaite and company are now veterans of a thriving genre they popularised way back in the late '90s.
The seminal debut record 'Mogwai Young Team' in 1997 kick-started a glittering career that has spawned such darkly melodic gems as 'Take Me Somewhere Nice' and 'Mogwai Fear Satan'. With the band's rightful place in the upper echelons of instrumental guitar-anchored rock all but assured, Mogwai returns with 'Rave Tapes', the follow-up to 2011's middling 'Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will'.
Congratulations on the release of your eighth LP, 'Rave Tapes'. You must be pretty used to album launches now.
I am actually pretty excited about this one. We've heard quite a lot good things about 'Rave Tapes' in the press, which is nice. Even more important is that our friends and family like it too - it's always nice when your dad likes it.
Do your loved ones have a favourite Mogwai record?
I think they are all far too diplomatic to say anything of that sort [laughs]. If they pick a favourite, it's like they are saying they don't enjoy the other ones as much. You just have to look at their eyebrows to see if they are lying or not.
All this happens at family-only listening parties?
We usually send them the MP3s a long time before the album comes out. You usually hear some polite criticisms after that [laughs].
Does the fact that the band has been together for almost 19 years make it easier for you to churn out new material?
No, it gets harder and harder. You always want to try to do something different because it's easy to fall back into a routine.
How do you push each other out of this comfort zone?
I don't know if we do it to each other; we trust ourselves to do so. It is also good to have someone like [producer] Paul Savage there to push you to do something you haven't done before.
What's the inspiration behind the 'Rave Tapes' album title?
Honestly, we never have a title until the last minute, when the record label and printers need all the artwork. We then go through a bunch of stuff we've written down somewhere or something funny someone said - it's basically hitting the panic button. We call it whatever we have to call it. This time it was 'Rave Tapes'... which is a very stupid name.
And this naming convention has been employed since the days of 'Happy Songs for Happy People' and 'Mr Beast'?
Yes.
Before Mogwai started incorporating lyrics into songs, how did you come up with song titles?
Drunk [laughs]. If it wasn't that we were drunk, it would be newspaper or magazine headlines. There's an American tabloid newspaper called The National Enquirer, which publishes total lies and nonsense, but they had some great headlines, so we used to steal from them.
So you could potentially draw a future album or song title from Time Out KL?
There's every chance we will [laughs].
How does 'Rave Tapes' fit in the Mogwai catalogue?
We are always quite worried about albums just after we record them; it's the same for the last one and the one before. I think people seem to like it, but we weren't too sure about it. 'Rave Tapes' is mostly different from anything we have done before - we used more synthesizers and fewer cymbals, for instance - and you always get worried about that. We are happy with it now.
The band has dabbled more actively in TV and film scores recently, most notably for French series 'Les Revenants'. Do you have more soundtrack offers lined up?
Nope [laughs]! I wish there were but I think that might change. We've had success in the past few things we've done. It seems like a lot of sound-makers want to use people like us to craft soundtracks. However, when it comes to financial backers, they don't want to rely on people who are not that famous. They prefer orchestras. It's more about money and less about artistic direction.
Mogwai's music does seem well suited to film.
We've been told that our music is cinematic. It'll get to the point where we are going to get so old that we don't want to tour anymore. So the next thing Mogwai does might be to write music for films.
How long do you see the band continuing on as Mogwai?
As long as we have to... If we make a record that we hate, that would probably be the last one.
Name a TV show you'd like to soundtrack.
We could've done a good job on the original Danish version of 'The Killing'. I really enjoyed watching it, but I thought the music was terrible.
'Rave Tapes' is out in stores.
