24 June 2003
Sometimes you’re just feeling a bit tired, a bit uninspired, a bit…flat. You want something to invigorate and to cleanse.
So you might go for a walk. You might watch one of those films that makes you feel happy, where you can’t stop an idiot grin breaking across your face about two seconds in, and that grin stays there for a day or two after the film’s ended. You might watch one that’s a bit weepy and brings a tear to the eye, as a catharsis. You might read a book that makes you happy or allows you to clench your teeth in shared agony but get through it. You might cook or paint or write or play music.
You might even listen to music. You could listen to The Pixies or Buddy Holly or something else short and catchy; dance the feeling away.
I tell you what I’d do. It doesn’t always occur to me, but that’s my own stupid fault. I’d sit still for just under 37 minutes, listening to two tracks by Mogwai.
The first would be My Father My King: based loosely on a Jewish hymn and turned into quiet-quiet-quiet-LOUD-LOUD-quiet-quiet-LOUD-LOUD-LOUD-LOUD-LO///!!!@#'';;;;UD. It’s like driving through a snowstorm. It’s even better and louder live, but much as I’d like to, I can’t have Mogwai play live on demand.
The second would be Mogwai Fear Satan, the ultimate Mogwai track. It’s not as punishing as, say, Like Herod or My Father My King. To me it's a song for the British (Scottish perhaps) countryside, ever-shifting without losing focus; drums, guitars, and a flute intermingling and wandering in and out without ceremony.