Music Industry 3. Fitness Industry 1.

Album review

Mogwai fans can always expect the band to challenge expectations, and they do plenty of that on Music Industry 3. Fitness Industry 1. Arriving shortly after the sleekly electronic Rave Tapes, the EP features three new songs that are very different than the album before it, and three Rave Tapes remixes by artists whose work is in a similarly cold, dark vein. The results are more intriguing than a mere collection of odds 'n' sods or remixes. Music Industry 3. begins with its biggest outlier, and biggest highlight: "Teenage Exorcists" is perhaps Mogwai's most straightforward song yet, full of honest-to-goodness hooks and choruses that channel '90s Sonic Youth; it couldn't be more different than Rave Tapes -- or even the band's usual brand of deconstructed rock -- but it's undeniably excellent. Meanwhile, the tumbling keyboards and subtle drumming on "History Day" and "HMP Shaun William Ryder" feel like throwbacks to Mogwai's own '90s sound. The Rave Tapes remixes are even more varied. Blanck Mass' berserker reworking of "Re-Remurdered" cranks up the guitar and sets it to an industrial beat before breaking into a pile of ones and zeroes; Pye Corner Audio takes the brooding "No Medicine for Regret" to dynamic extremes; and avant-garde electronic artist Nils Frahm delivers the EP's most organic-sounding moment with his simple, piano-driven version of "The Lord Is Out of Control," transforming it from a robotic dirge into an all-too-human lullaby. Surprises like this make what could have been a cut-and-dried Rave Tapes offshoot into something that offers a remarkable amount of perspective on Mogwai's music.
© Heather Phares /TiVo