Mogwai and Sacred Paws at Columbia Halle Berlin / Saturday, 14.10.2017

Glaswegian post rockers Mogwai return to Berlin for another of their epic concerts at Columbia Halle this October.

The Mogwai of 2017 is a very different group to the four kids who, in February 1996, released their debut single Tuner/Lower to a musical climate suffering the appalling hangover of late Britpop. Theirs was a sound of happy accident, Stuart Braithwaite, Dominic Aitchison, Martin Bulloch, John Cummings and later Barry Burns uniting over shared love of skateboarding, Star Wars, The Cure, and American indie rock to somehow end up with music that was, and remains, as affecting as it is powerfully loud, as sensitive as much as it has the propensity to rip your ears off.

Since debut album Young Team the group have always kept their eyes on the future, playing different sets mostly of new material on each night of their never-ending tours. “It’s better to keep doing what you’re doing right now,” says Braithwaite. “looking at what’s happened with some other bands it’s hard to get people interested in what you’re doing now once you’ve made a big deal about going back to something from ten or 20 years ago.” Part of Mogwai’s progressive zeal is in their continuing independence and support for artists around them.

In 2005 they opened their own Castle Of Doom studio, using it to record four albums as well as opening it up to fellow- travellers Errors, Malcolm Middleton and The Twilight Sad. Their Rock Action label has not only released Mogwai’s own music since that debut single, but albums from Blanck Mass, Sacred Paws, Afrirampo and Remember Remember, among others. In a commercial climate that hardly favours independent artists operating outside the mainstream, Mogwai have always led by example, doing it it themselves, where they can. “Someone sent us a flyer of a gig we did with Trout at Nice ’n’ Sleazy in 1996, and I remembered going round the photocopy shops, making them,” Stuart Braithwaite has said.“Even though everything’s on a different scale, you’re still doing the same thing. It’s still letting people know that you’re playing, and making sure that all the band members remember there’s a gig that day… there’s nothing different about playing to 2000 people as to playing to 50 people. Just you’re a bit higher up. And you get a dressing room! But really, it’s the same thing.”

Mogwai are a Scottish post-rock band, formed in 1995 in Glasgow. The band consists of Stuart Braithwaite (guitar, vocals), Barry Burns (guitar, piano, synthesizer, vocals), Dominic Aitchison (bass guitar), and Martin Bulloch (drums). The band typically compose lengthy guitar-based instrumental pieces that feature dynamic contrast, melodic bass guitar lines, and heavy use of distortion and effects. The band were for several years signed to renowned Glasgow indie label Chemikal Underground, and have been distributed by different labels such as Matador in the US and Play It Again Sam in the UK, but now use their own label Rock Action Records in the UK, and Sub Pop in North America. The band were frequently championed by John Peel from their early days, and recorded seven Peel Sessions between 1996 and 2004.[2] Peel also recorded a brief introduction for the compilation Government Commissions: BBC Sessions 1996–2003.