Party In The Dark

Oh look everyone, Mogwai just recorded and released one of the best things they’ve ever done. And it doesn’t sound like a nuclear apocalypse either.

Feedback intro leading to Hooky-esque bass, rolling drums, euphoric guitars and gentle singing, everything rising steadily and insistently to a crescendo. Seems to fit in with these end days of summer, the closing in of the nights, the fading sunshine and Autumn’s chilly fingers poking at you.

This song, from 2008’s Hawk Is Howling, is a masterpiece of flowing, ecstatic, instrumental rock, which could work equally well on a dancefloor. One of my favourite pieces of music from the last decade.

The Sun Smells Too Loud

The picture shows a statue of Friedrich Engels, imported from Ukraine and placed outside the Manchester’s new arts centre Home, in Tony Wilson Place. Engels lived in the city in the middle of the 19th century and wrote The Condition Of The Working Class In England based on his observations and research here. Engels had been sent to Manchester by his father, to live in Weaste, Salford, to work at the family firm. It was supposed to ‘cure’ him of his radical views. It had the opposite effect. Karl Marx visited him several times during his almost thirty year stay. The rest, as they often say, is history.