Rave Tapes Mogwai (Rock Action / Sub Pop) ⋆⋆⋆
Instrumental post-rock isn’t the easiest of sells, but Mogwai’s on-going success in the soundtrack world has helped fund their prolific album output. The Glaswegian quintet’s uncompromising music underpinned the rated supernatural drama series The Returned, and in 2013, they revisited their 2007 soundtrack for Zidane: A 21st-Century Portrait, the band performing live with the acclaimed football documentary screening behind.
Rave Tapes was recorded at the band’s Castle Of Doom studio in Glasgow last summer, and written in Glasgow and Berlin (the keyboard player Barry Burns lives in the German city, which has such a magnetic pull on musicians). Like 2003’s Happy Songs for Happy People, the title of Rave Tapes is typically mischievous; there are no floor-fillers here. Its familiar Mogwai tropes include zero-gravity electric guitar arpeggios, the odd snatch of cryptic lyrics and lovingly tweaked sonic carnage, but there’s also an increased emphasis on electronic elements, hence the opener Heard About You Last Night begins in ambient territory, all Zen-like bells.
If the sinister Remurdered and piano-and-birdsong-imbued Blue Hour exemplify the effortlessly filmic nature of Mogwai’s music, the talking point is probably the arch curio Repelish, which samples dialogue from a Christian radio show’s disparaging deconstruction of Led Zeppelin’s most famous song. “She says she’s ‘Buying a stairway to heaven’,” says the radio show’s host, taking Robert Plant’s lyric literally. “We know that’s not possible.”
Elsewhere, Simon Ferocious begins with a little synthesiser motif reminiscent of the tone-bursts that used to play at the start of albums available on cassette, then reminds us that there can be a fine line between post-rock and prog-rock. Rave Tapes is masterful, but the dirge-like Deesh; No Medicine for Regret and The Lord is Out of Control, can be a little strength-sapping. Mogwai will no doubt continue to attract the patronage of film-makers in search of distinctive-sounding soundtrack material, but milkmen in search of tunes to whistle will continue to look elsewhere.
artslife@thenational.ae
THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh1,350,000
On sale: Available for preorder now
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
Zayed Sustainability Prize
The Details
Article 15
Produced by: Carnival Cinemas, Zee Studios
Directed by: Anubhav Sinha
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Kumud Mishra, Manoj Pahwa, Sayani Gupta, Zeeshan Ayyub
Our rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Green ambitions
- Trees: 1,500 to be planted, replacing 300 felled ones, with veteran oaks protected
- Lake: Brown's centrepiece to be cleaned of silt that makes it as shallow as 2.5cm
- Biodiversity: Bat cave to be added and habitats designed for kingfishers and little grebes
- Flood risk: Longer grass, deeper lake, restored ponds and absorbent paths all meant to siphon off water
'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'
Rating: 1 out of 4
Running time: 81 minutes
Director: David Blue Garcia
Starring: Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
