Song: "Mogwai Fear Satan"
Artist: Mogwai
Album: Young Team
Year: 1997
Length: 16:19
Label: Chemikal Underground
Rating: 9.7 (out of 10) on Pitchfork
Yes, you read the "length" part correctly. This is the 16-minute closer to Mogwai's debut album, the critically acclaimed blast of aural goodness called "Young Team." It's basically all guitars, all the time, exploding and retreating and veering through sonic tempos never experimented with before (or as well since). There's no singing, no lyrics, nothing but pure rock revolution, or as Pitchfork put it in their review of Young Team, "the most accurate sonic representation of the Big Bang theory in the history of music." That sounds about right. It even gets its own page on Wikipedia.
"Mogwai Fear Satan" is a sixteen minute long instrumental, using basic rock instrumentation; guitars, bass, and drums, along with flute. It is a fan favourite and a regular part of Mogwai set lists, often being played as a show-closer or an encore. When it is played live, Mogwai make use of an extreme contrast between quiet and loud, going from playing almost nothing, to blinding and deafening the audience with a huge explosion of light and noise.
"Mogwai Fear Satan" begins with a guitar melody played by Stuart Braithwaite and John Cummings, which is soon joined by bass played by Dominic Aitchison and a frantic drumbeat played by Martin Bulloch, which fades gradually in. The same guitar melody is repeated throughout the song; at times almost frighteningly distorted. During the quiet parts of the song, in the build up to the explosion of sonic noise and feedback which Mogwai are known for, there is a quiet haunting flute melody played by Shona Brown over tribal-sounding drums. The song slowly fades out into feedback and noise.
In the Pitchfork Media reviews of Mogwai Young Team and "My Father My King", "Mogwai Fear Satan" is mentioned:
"Mogwai Fear Satan" represents all that's good about olympic post-rock: a driving theme, huge extended crescendos, a blatant climax, and a few orchestral instruments thrown in to boot.
#10 Favorite Song of All-Time
(the "second" explosion occurs 6:41 in, if you're impatient and want to speed up to it)
And the rest of the list to date can be found by clicking through to continue the article... (only 9 to go!)
Top 40 Vague Space Favorite Songs (so far)
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15. "Anything, Anything" DramaRama
16. "Edit the Sad Parts" Modest Mouse
17. "The Headmaster Ritual" The Smiths
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27. "There is a Light that Never Goes Out" The Smiths
28. "Bankrupt on Selling" Modest Mouse
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31. "Bad Blood" Bright Eyes & The Album Leaf
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thanks great list
Posted by: the constant skeptic | January 03, 2008 at 11:14 PM