Mogwai release new single ‘Underground’ featuring Iggy Pop
The single will come as part of a new 30-year, career-spanning compilation of the Glasgow post-rockers, titled Happy Tears
Mogwai, the Glasgow post-rock band and self-described ‘Scottish instrumental misery mongers’, have returned with a brand-new single featuring none other than Iggy Pop, who’s long been cited as a north star for the band’s attitude. It will come as part of a new Mogwai compilation, Happy Tears, which charts 30 years of the SAY Award-winning act’s career.
The single is called ‘Underground’ and finds Iggy on an unambiguously aggressive footing as he decries modern society with increasingly absurd non-sequiturs and the bold line ‘I don’t need to suck a cock’. For their part, Mogwai are on electrifying form, recalling previous odes to teenage punk such as ‘Ceiling Granny’, with brief glimmers of synth underlying their tornado of noise.
Listen to ‘Underground’ below:
In his 2022 memoir, Spaceships Over Glasgow: Mogwai, Mayhem And Misspent Youth, bandleader Stuart Braithwaite wrote about Iggy’s importance in his life: ‘Hearing the Stooges had been a life-changing moment for me. Their self-titled album was pretty much my bible. It was druggy, dumb and completely primal. I’d never heard anything quite like it and even though that band had pretty much fallen apart by the time I was born, I grew to love the three Stooges albums as much as any music I’d heard. I had a VHS video of Iggy playing live and I watched it over and over. His performance was unlike anything or anyone I’d seen before. The spectacle was great but it was his voice and songs that really captured me.’
Discussing the collaboration, Iggy says: ‘I’ve always liked Mogwai. The opening of the track reminded me of the crushing modern loneliness. The sung vocal, which was arranged by Matt Sweeney, felt like it was made for someone who is pissed off and doesn’t mind saying so.’
Despite being the first official collaboration between Mogwai and the king of proto-punk, Iggy has appeared on a previous Mogwai album: the opener on Come On Die Young, ‘Punk Rock:’, samples a speech made by Iggy during an interview with Peter Gzowski on the CBC channel where he decries the use of the word punk, which he misinterprets as a grave insult.
Alongside the compilation, Mogwai have teamed up with production company Cup & Nuzzle for a new feature-length audio documentary Happy Tears: The Story Of Mogwai, which promises to tell the band’s story ‘in their own words for the first time’. The documentary is released on Friday 8 January and available for pre-order now as part of the Happy Tears deluxe bundle or as a standalone download.
Happy Tears tracklist:
2xLP
1 ‘Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home’
2 ‘I'm Jim Morrison I'm Dead’
3 ‘Hunted By A Freak’
4 ‘Take Me Somewhere Nice’
5 ‘Boltfor’
6 ‘CODY’
7 ‘Brand New Paths to Helicon 1’
8 ‘How To Be A Werewolf’
9 ‘Auto Rock’
10 ‘Remurdered’
11 ‘Ritchie Sacramento#
12 ‘Lion Rumpus’
13 ‘Underground’ (featuring Iggy Pop)
4xLP & 2xCD version additional tracks
1 ‘Angels vs Aliens’
2 ‘Die 1 Dislike!’
3 ‘Ether’ (with The KNDS Fairey Band - Live)
4 ‘The Sun Smells Too Loud’ (Holden remix)
5 ‘If Not Destroyed: True’
6 ‘Full Blast Michael’
7 ‘Hingmy Malmsteen’
8 ‘Dracula Family’
9 ‘Harry Patter’
10 ‘Ritchie Sacramento’ (Other Two remix)
11 ‘Nick Drake’
12 ‘Owl Mince’
13 ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’ (Live)
Happy Tears will be released on Friday 8 January via Rock Action Records; main picture: Steve Gullick.