mogwai: rave tapes

Clocking in at just under 50 minutes, the 10-track album is a lustrous collection mined from the same quarry as its predecessors, wreathed in painterly textures underpinned by increasingly electronic beats. The haunted strains of Deesh channel the slow-burning ecstasy of their 2006 song “Auto Rock” (a key presence in the denouement of Michael Mann’s film of Miami Vice that year) while the guitars on which Mogwai built their reputation remain, if for the most part less overtly belligerent this time round, as evidenced by the somnambulant opener “Heard About You Last Night” and the sonic scowl of “Hexon Bogon”. With Rave Tapes, Mogwai’s mastery of sound and space is firmly at its apex.