Mogwai

KIN: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Rock Action

A year after the experimental rock pioneers' triumphant return with Every Country's Sun, it is normal to expect that new releases will fall into the law of diminishing returns.

But this is Mogwai, a band who have so far been incapable of the disappointing.

Their first proper feature film score may sound like the ideal opportunity for over-indulgence from a band renowned for their precise execution of dynamic contrast in harmony and noise and an almost orchestral feel for layered kinetics.

In fact it seems like a natural progression for a band who play in cinemascope, and completed the documentary soundtrack, Atomic two years ago, and received acclaim through their part in the 2006 movie The Fountain, collaborating with ex-Pop Will Eat Itself front man Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet.

You suspect this is the one avant-garde noise-rock band who if they wanted could end up on the playlist of Classic FM.

Listen to the atmospheric piano-centric moments of Kin and then Musica ricercata by the contemporary Hungarian composer György Sándor Ligeti, for instance, and there is no great leap.

Opener Eli's Theme sets the tone for the quieter sections of this; a spine-tinglingly simple piano aria underpinned by the lightest of sinister strings white noise. No soft loud, just symphonic.

After 23 years Glasgow's finest have not shown any sign of a misstep, and they are not starting now.

Miscreants, similarly, amps up the minimalism with a twist of sparse piano swirls.

That's not to say this is a mood music piece.

Flee employs a pulsating collison of electronics, piano and guitars that might even be a nod to Giorgio Moroder.

The title track, almost a hybrid of the opener, adds far more shifting mournful layers, coming closest to what fans might come to expect.

Although goodness knows you must always expect the unexpected with a band who are one of the most inventive that Scotland has produced.

So it goes with Kin, which saves the best to last with We're Not Done, a soaring playlister of an anthem, complete with a bass section Peter Hook would drool over, that should hook the unconverted. It's an earworm melodic wonder that while being joyfully out of step with the soundtrack and out of step with drone rock is therefore delightfully in-step with what Mogwai are all about.

In 2018 Stuart Braithwaite and his crew continue to evolve, enthral and enchant.