Continuing the series’ 10th anniversary, 2011’s third Late Night Tales compilation is by celebrated psychedelic rock band MGMT. Full tracklisting below.
Formed in 2002 in Brooklyn, New York the band consists of multi-instrumentalists Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, both alumni of Wesleyan University. Their 2008 debut album ‘Oracular Spectacular’ spawned the almost ubiquitous hit singles ‘Kids’, ‘Time To Pretend’ and ‘Electric Feel’ while 2010’s follow up ‘Congratulations’ saw them embrace more of a progressive, guitar-driven sound.
The band’s Late Night Tales selection of post-punk, cult indie and counter-culture figureheads reflects the band’s multifaceted sound, and draws comparisons with contemporary dreampop/chillwave/shoegaze/folk scenes on both sides of the Atlantic.
The listener finds MGMT presiding over the playlist “after-the-after-party”; daybreak creeping through the curtains earlier than desirable, broken bodies lining the corridors, the emotionally bankrupt kept alive by timeless songs of heartache and longing.
Luminaries The Velvet Underground, Suicide and Julian Cope, although not with their most famous songs, sit alongside less familiar names such as Disco Inferno; whose ‘Can’t See It Through’ from their final ‘96 album ‘Technicolour’ opens proceedings.
MGMT’s exclusive cover of ‘All We Ever Wanted Was Everything’ by Bauhaus sits comfortably alongside the UK post-punk-gothic band’s peers The Durutti Column, The Chills, The Jacobites and Felt’s brief but imposing instrumental ‘Red Indians’.
Paranoia strikes deep: the double header of Cheval Sombre’s ‘Troubled Mind’ and ‘Drug Song’ by 60’s Christian folk singer Dave Bixby accentuate the hope offered by the ever penitent Spacemen 3 (MGMT’s second album ‘Congratulations’ was recorded with founder Pete Kember aka Sonic Boom), who deliver ‘Lord Can You Hear Me?’ in respect to the beautiful closer ‘Morning Splendor’, taken from Pauline Anna Strom’s rare ‘82 LP ‘Trans-Millenia Consort‘.
Putting a full stop on the selection, music journalist and Art Of Noise founder Paul Morley continues his ‘Lost For Words’ short story.
www.latenighttales.co.uk | www.whoismgmt.com
Tracklist:
1. Disco Inferno – Can’t See Through It
2. The Great Society – Love You Girl
3. Suicide – Cheree
4. Television Personalities – Stop And Smell The Roses
5. The Velvet Underground – Ocean
6. Felt – Red Indians
7. Julian Cope – Laughing Boy
8. Durutti Column – For Belgium Friends
9. Charlie Feathers – Mound Of Clay
10. Mark Fry – For Wilde
11. MGMT – All We Ever Wanted Was Everything (Exclusive Bauhaus Cover Version)
12. Cheval Sombre – Troubled Mind
13. Dave Bixby – Drug Song
14. The Jacobites – Hearts Are Like Flowers
15. The Chills – Pink Frost
16. Martin Rev – Sparks
17. The Wake – Melancholy Man
18. Spacemen 3 – Lord Can You Hear Me?
19. Pauline Anna Strom – Morning Splendor
20. Paul Morley – Lost For Words Part 2 (Exclusive Spoken Word)
