The prolific Scottish post-rockers will be coming back to North America for a 16 date run and will be playing the mainroom at First Avenue on April 13, 2022. Mogwai are out on tour in support of their latest album, As The Love Continues and this will be their first appearance back in Minneapolis since 2017. Don’t sit this one out as it will most likely be a number of years before they make their way back through Minnesota again.
Be sure to arrive early as Nina Nastasia will be opening up the show at 8:30pm. Nastasia has a lush and intimate sound that will give another meaning to warming up the audience. The songs are often backed by an acoustic guitar and are wrapped up with warm string arrangements. The dichotomy of these two artists sharing the same stage will be a real aural treat to partake in.
Tickets for this 18+ may be purchased here in advance for $22 or $25 day of at First Avenue.
Mogwai have released their new single ‘Ceiling Granny’ and debut its video, filmed and edited by filmmaker and skateboarder Jon Miner, and featuring video from his archive dating back to 1995, the year of the band’s formation. The song is lifted from Mogwai’s tenth studio album As The Love Continues, which debuted at No.1 on the UK Official Albums Chart, their first No.1 album, and at No.9 on Billboard’s US Top Album Sales Chart, their first time inside the US Top 40.
Miner says: “Having a career in skateboarding for the past 25 years I’ve had the pleasure of working with Mogwai on a variety of skate video projects – their music has always been a huge inspiration. As a result of the lockdown last year I had time to organize some of my film archives, going back to Super 8 reels from 1995. Being a young skateboarder with a camera there’s a playfulness in the quality of the film and the moments captured while traveling to different parts of the globe for the first time. With the overall climate of 2020 it felt good to revisit that feeling. Thanks to Mogwai, I was given the opportunity to explore that feeling for “Ceiling Granny”. The film is a mixture of Super8 and 16mm shot between 1995-2010. As the love continues…”
As The Love Continues landed at No.1 on the UK Official Albums Chart on Friday 26 February, 25 years to the week that the band set up their label Rock Action Records to release their debut single.
The album was recorded last year with producer Dave Fridmann and features the singles “Ritchie Sacramento” and “Dry Fantasy” alongside nine other stunning new songs, with contributions from Atticus Ross and Colin Stetson. It is available via Rock Action Records to stream and buy in various formats, including digital, CD and double vinyl. A special edition box set includes the CD, coloured double vinyl LP, special single vinyl pressing of five album demo tracks, and a photo book.
As The Love Continues is the follow up to 2017’s Every Country’s Sun and 2014’s Rave Tapes, two records which saw the band reach the top 10 of the albums chart for the first time. In between the band released a career-spanning retrospective Central Belters and collaborated with filmmaker Mark Cousins to soundtrack his documentary Atomic. Earlier this year, they released the soundtrack to the Sky Original drama ZeroZeroZero, available for its first week exclusively on a pay-what-you-can (PWYC) basis via Bandcamp, with half of proceeds going to Help Musicians and NHS charities.
As The Love Continues was originally due to be recorded in America, but the pandemic led to a relocation to Worcestershire and with producer Dave Fridmann separated by an ocean and appearing like an Orwellian oppressor. This pandemic necessity was quickly routine, it also bought them a little more time. Unable to perform the album for the time-being, Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite hopes the music can take you from somewhere different to where you are, “Unless you are somewhere really amazing and then why are you listening to some weird music like this?”
Mogwai have advanced without a plan since they were teenagers, there have been no secretive meetings to work out the master plan. It is rare to hear a band that has been going for this long and have this many albums behind them – ten records in and still no disappointments or mistaken creative left turns. You may know what to expect, but you will never get the same. Both transcendent and surprising, As The Love Continues shows that Mogwai are still offering solace from the mundane, supplying the soundtrack to whatever movie you are making in your head.
