Wednesday 12 October 2011

Recommended music: 'Late Night Tales' - MGMT


This is the first of the Late Night Tales series that I've bought, but it certainly won't be the last if they're all as good as this. If you don't know about them, each one is curated by a different musical act, who also include a new cover version, and in fact that's what attracted me to this release. MGMT do a cover of 'All We Ever Wanted Was Everything' by Bauhuas, a track that I'd always liked but had long forgotten. It's a really good cover version, but I'm pleased to say that the rest of the album more than lives up to it.

As you might expect from MGMT it's a pretty diverse selection, featuring psychedelia, weirdness and obscurities from a number of different decades, a lot of which I'd never heard before. So you get Suicide rubbing shoulders with The Velvet Underground, Martin Rev mixing it with Spacemen 3, Julian Cope, Durutti Column and loads more. There's quite a few instrumental tracks, nothing too noisy, and overall it's a really interesting and intriguing listen.

As well as the cover version another feature of the albums is that there is always a spoken word story included. On this release it's written and narrated by Paul Morley, but unfortunately it's part 2 of 4, part 1 having been on the previous release by Trentemoller, so I might at least have to get that one to hear the beginning of the tale.

One of the advantages of buying this release on download rather than cd  is that, as well as the continuos mix, you get the full length versions of each of the individual tracks. As such it's pretty good value - a near 80 minute mix plus 19 individual tracks giver you a total of over 2 and a half hours of music.

So download a copy, select the relaxing substance of your choice, turn the lights down low and relax to the story MGMT want to tell you with their Late Night Tales.

No comments:

Post a Comment