Mogwai are getting ready to release their eleventh album, The Bad Fire, on Jan 24. They worked on the record with producer John Congleton and recorded in Lanarkshire, Scotland. The songs were born various personal turmoil the band were experiencing following the release of 2021’s As the Love Continues. Their latest single, “Fanzine Made of Flesh”, is a mountainous post-rock spectacle, a series of cresting corrugated waves breaking against our senses. Bright spots of arpeggiated synths flicker on and off in the background, adding to the established density of the track.
Braithwaite says, “‘Fanzine Made of Flesh’ was written in Brooklyn when I was staying at Alex Kapranos’s house in autumn 2023. In my head it sounds like a cross between ABBA, swervedriver and Kraftwerk though that might be ludicrous. It originally has a straight vocal, but we ended up vocoding it on the last day of recording. It’s pretty different, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.”
The song also comes with an accompanying video from director Agnew Haus, who says, “When I was sent the track, I embraced being unable to understand any of the words, and I didn’t want to know where the title came from. As I was listening, I wanted to make a video that matched that – a pseudo-film trailer with a jumbled plot that you can never grasp. You kind of have to piece it all together on your own. I really wanted it to seem like there could be a full-length film version with vague horror tones, emotional entanglement, and nods to weird art films from the 90s, and an autobiographical storyline about growing up non-binary, but not realising it. Perhaps one day I’ll extend it into a full film.”
Watch the video below.
The Bad Fire is due out Jan 24 via Temporary Residence Ltd. (North/South America) and Rock Action (UK/ROW). You can pre-order the album here. Check in with the band on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
