Mansell/Aronofsky OSTs live

clint mansell has announced that he will be performing excerpts from his soundtracks for darren aronofsky's movies at a special show in ghent, belgium on 16th october. further info:
http://www.filmfestival.be/

should be a pretty amazing show. before the rumours start, brightlight can confirm that mogwai will not be involved.

Batcat ep pre-orders

'batcat' ep
8th september 2008
pias/wall of sound
cd: [WOS037CD]
12": [WOS037T]

tracklist:
batcat
stupid prick gets chased by the polis and loses his slut girlfriend
devil rides

cd single and 12” limited to 1500 of each format; this will strictly be a one-off pressing

cd: norman records (£3.79 plus shipping)
cd: hmv (£2.99 inc shipping)

12": norman records (£3.79 plus shipping)
12": hmv (£4.99 inc shipping)

further links welcome, particularly outside the uk.

update:
12": matador ($8 plus shipping)

Aloha Hawaii pre-order

the first aloha hawaii single, 'towns on the moon', is available to pre-order from chemikal underground. ltd to 1000 copies, release date 8th september, no digital formats.

10" vinyl £6 plus shipping
10" vinyl/t-shirt pack £15 plus shipping

the t-shirt was designed by aidan moffat.

Aloha Hawaii is the result of at least a decade of (often drunken) planning that has finally come to some form of fruition: to record any kind of sounds that please our four ears whenever we have the time, inspiration and enthusiasm. There is no game-plan, no style, no genre; anything that makes us smile will make it onto our records, which will take the form of sporadic, vinyl-only singles to be released on any record label willing to accommodate us over the next year or two.

The first label to support our efforts will be our good friends, Chemikal Underground, who release the 10" single Towns On The Moon b/w I've Been Bad For Years And Years on September 8th 2008. There will be no digital formats whatsoever. This could be a statement about the cheapening of an art-form in a world of disposable download culture or it could simply mean that we're interminably old-fashioned and hopelessly out of date. We also reserve the right to change our minds.

Aloha Hawaii is Stuart Braithwaite and Aidan Moffat

Mogwai vs Zane Lowe

following the rob da bank session last monday, mogwai make a further bbc radio 1 appearance on wednesday (27th august), as session guests on zane lowe's show (7pm - 9pm).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/zanelowe/

the rob da bank show consisted of session recordings of 'batcat', 'i'm jim morrison, i'm dead', 'the precipice' and 'mogwai fear satan' plus interview and record picks from stuart and dominic.
listen again (*today only*): http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/robdabank/

update: apparently zane lowe is repeating two of the tracks already broadcast by rob da bank.

Mogwai on Rob Da Bank - update

as we reported previously, mogwai are scheduled to be in session on rob da bank's bbc radio 1 show on monday 18th august (midnight to 2am i.e. the early hours of monday morning). the session was recorded on wednesday (13th august), and a band interview was also recorded this week.

the show's website contains no further information on this at the moment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/robdabank/

apparently part of the session will be broadcast on zane lowe's bbc radio 1 show (mon - thurs, 7pm to 9pm). precise details on this are hard to find at present, and http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/zanelowe/ makes no mention of a mogwai session, despite having been updated with info on next week's programmes. it's likely that the zane lowe tracks will be different to those broadcast by rob da bank, although this is, again, unconfirmed.

it'll be interesting to hear whether zane lowe can curb his inane prattling for long enough to let his audience hear the mogwai session.

Mogwai to record OST for Luke Sutherland?

from teletext.co.uk/planetsound

Mogwai are set to record a film soundtrack for a movie by their occasional violinist Luke Sutherland.

As well as playing violin for Mogwai, Sutherland has published three novels.

Stuart Braithwaite told PS: "Luke's asked us to do music for a film being made of one of his books, and we're into doing it. Sometimes you get asked to do an hour's worth of music in two weeks - it's the film industry's way."

McGee loves the Hawk, slates MBV

from alan mcgee's myspace blog:

MY BLOODY VALENTINE NOSTALGIC CABARET TOUR 2008

THE NEW MOGWAI ALBUM THE HAWK IS HOWLING VERSUS THE ''NOSTALGIC CABARET'' OF MBV LIVE IN 2008

Finally got time to listen to it and it's even better than the last two Mogwai albums which to me have both been wonderful.I'm Jim Morrison,I'm Dead/Danphe and the brain/Local Authority/Kings Meadow/Thank you space expert are all beautiful Mogwai music.Their is a beautiful irony that the ''nostalgic cabaret'' that is my bloody valentine are throwing at people in 2008 gets critical acclaim in the easily pleased UK press with MBV still playing the exact same set they did 20 years ago and the only trick Kevin Shields has anymore in 2008 is actual volume and double extra pa to numb you and zero new songs.

Hear the new Mogwai record it's beautiful. Mogwai are 2008. My bloody valentine were a joke signing in 1991. Maybe they got better..

interesting to note that nme's report makes no mention of mogwai at all.

presumably he's not managing mogwai anymore, if he's only just heard the album?

Batcat video

as many of you will already be aware, the video for mogwai's forthcoming 'batcat' single appeared online on monday.

from http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/08/domenic-hailsto.html:

What is batcat, you ask? Aside from being the nickname for a US Army radar surveillance plane used during the Vietnam War, it's a scary looking creature that shows up during the end of the new Mogwai video for their song by the same name, from their upcoming album The Hawk Is Howling (September 23, Matador).

Batcat is a tightly coiled rager that's likely to be a live favorite, with huge, crunching chords going one way and perfectly shaped counterpoints surging back the other way.

The video's director Domenic Hailstone writes on his MySpace page, "I spent the first few years of my life making giant cardboard monsters and drawing. I then got seriously into computers but was somehow distracted into a career making rubber monsters". After working a number of jobs mostly within the film industry, he apparently decided to combine his loves of filmmaking and monsters to become a film director.

With some judicious camera work, Hailstone makes batcat the living centerpiece of a gentle tale of "boy meets world."

'batcat' is released on monday 8th september (uk/europe, pias) and 9th september (north america, matador).

More European shows

fatcat (the twilight sad's label) have published a more complete listing for the mogwai/twilight sad european tour this autumn. shows in amsterdam, zagreb and prague are added to the dates already announced:

30 Oct - Melkweg, Amsterdam, Netherlands
13 Nov - Aquarius Club, Zagreb, Croatia
15 Nov - Archa Theatre, Prague, Czech Republic

More reissues

imperial records (japanese home to the recent 'mogwai young team' deluxe edition) are set to reissue 'mogwai young team', 'come on die young', 'kicking a dead pig' and 'ep + 6' on 24th september.

as far as is known at present, the reissues will have no new music. they will, however, appear on shm-cd:

The high quality SHM-CD (Super High Material CD) format features enhanced audio quality through the use of a special polycarbonate plastic. SHM-CDs feature improved transparency on the data side of the disc, allowing for more accurate reading of CD data by the CD player laser head. SHM-CD format CDs are fully compatible with standard CD players.

Off Festival on Trójka

it appears that mogwai's appearance at off festival in poland last night was radio-broadcast.

http://www.polskieradio.pl/trojka/aktualnosci/?id=61508 suggests that the concert will be rebroadcast tonight, just after midnight. recordings welcome - please get in touch. setlist info, reviews etc welcome too.

thanks markus.

Brightlight URLs

apologies for the deluge of site-related posting - hopefully we'll have some mogwai news to report soon.

if you've visited brightlight over the last few days, and used 'brightlight.youngteam.co.uk' (with or without any extension for individual pages on the site), you'll have noticed that everything defaults to the front page at present. this is the only (fingers crossed) remaining issue from the change of host. 'brightlight.youngteam.co.uk' will continue to work, but a fuller experience of the site can be had by using:
http://www.youngteam.co.uk/brightlight/

please update your bookmarks!

US tour poster

no idea whether this is an official poster.
more mogwai art by the same designer:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lysterfiend/

Hosting part 2

the move has been completed. the only issue i am aware of at present is that external links to individual pages and images don't work at present. i'm working on fixing this.

other than this linking issue, please get in touch if:
- the site doesn't work properly for you (details on browser and mac/pc would be helpful)
- you find any missing pages or images

Hosting

brightlight! is moving house. hopefully this should be a pretty seamless process, but it's possible that the site may 'disappear' or emails may start bouncing briefly at some point over the next 72 hours. please persist!

once the move has been completed, please get in touch if you find any missing pages or images.

Well worth a read

John Williamson interviews Stuart Braithwaite, Glasgow Herald, Sat 2nd August 2008:

http://johncwilliamson.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/mogwai/

Rock Action update

desalvo's 'mood poisoner' album [rockact38] is released on 29th september.

tracklist:

brown flag

tonguescraper parts 1&2

ripper situation

latrine lizard

get black

oedipus rising

schindler's lift

questionable sport

spandoflage

cock swastika

http://www.myspace.com/desalvoland
http://www.rock-action.co.uk

envy's 'transfovista' dvd [rockact39] should be in the shops on october 6th.

further info on new releases from remember remember and part chimp to follow soon.

torche undertake an extensive uk and european tour in september/october.

errors have a run of uk dates scheduled through october, including support slots at mogwai's edinburgh, manchester and london shows (alongside fuck buttons).

thanks craig.

Aloha Hawaii update

some further info on the first aloha hawaii single from
aidanmoffat.co.uk:

The Aloha Hawaii 10” single will soon be available for pre-order from Chemikal Underground and will come with a special offer on a quite snazzy Aloha Hawaii t-shirt! Release date is yet to be confirmed but it’s looking like the 1st of September.

check aidan's website for further info on his own very full release schedule.

Mogwai on Rob Da Bank

a mogwai special will be broadcast on rob da bank's bbc radio 1 show on monday 18th august (midnight to 2am i.e. the early hours of monday morning), promising 'new live session tracks and much more'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/robdabank/

and Then there were Eight (and a bit)

avid Hawk-watchers will have already heard the sun smells too loud and six other new songs performed live in concert. to add 'danphe & the brain' to that list, visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/robdabank/, click on 'listen to the rob da bank show' (not the 'rob da bank and friends' link - you'll see what i mean when you get there) and pick up the show at around 1:19. be quick though - it'll disappear on monday (4th august).

further Hawk action can be found at http://www.matadorrecords.com/store/index.php?catalog_id=315, where the pre-sale includes 30-second clips of every track on the album, as well as offering a $1 price reduction and a free poster.
for those with some catching up to do, there's also a bundle containing mogwai's four matador albums (including 'the hawk is howling') and the poster for $36.

and last but not least, we previously reported that initial copies of 'the hawk is howling' will include a bonus dvd. amazon.com's pre-order has the following snippet:

Limited deluxe CD+DVD in gatefold digipak includes video for "Batcat", directed by Dominic Hailstone (Aphex Twin), plus the Vincent Moon (The National) short film about Mogwai, "Before It Sounds".

and stuart added:

The dvd with our album was filmed in Italy last weekend by the very nice Vincent Moon.

Vincent Moon: http://www.blogotheque.net