Mogwai – If The Stars Had A Sound – Film Review

Director – Antony Crook
Stars – Dominic Aitchison, Stuart Braithwaite, Martin Bulloch

When Mogwai formed in the mid-nineties, few would have expected them to be still releasing music nearly 30 years on.  Fewer still might have expected them to be the subject of a film!  Anthony Bourdain described Glasgow, where Stuart Braithwaite and co are from, as maybe the most bullshit-free place on earth.  Mogwai is a band that perfectly reflects their origins as a relatively bullshit-free band.  The film takes a look at the creation of their most recent album As Love The Continues interspersed with a look back to their early days.  The album was created at the height of the COVID pandemic, which made the making of it fraught with difficulty.  Nevertheless, it became one of their most noteworthy albums and reached number one in the album charts helped by a social media push.  There is footage of the band in the studio masked up.  There is also footage of their very earliest days, showing how uncompromising they were when they emerged and their late 90s recording of Come On Die Young, and how it came to be.  It seemed that producer Dave Fridmann actually wanted to record the Delgados but Chemikal Underground sent Mogwai instead!

Contributions include Alex Kapranos, Ian Rankin, Paul Savage (Chemikal Underground), producer Dave Fridmann, sound engineer Tony Doogan, and artist Douglas Gordon along with recordings of John Peel and Mary Anne Hobbs.  There is some great old live footage of them playing Mogwai Fear Satan, Christmas Steps and also details as to how they came to record My Father My King.  Their soundtrack to the Zidane movie is covered, Without giving too much away about the film, one of the more heartwarming tales is how Mogwai donated a football kit to St Roch’s Primary and Deaf school.  And you couldn’t ask for a better film soundtrack than Mogwai’s own music!

The film is currently doing the rounds at festivals so watch out for it, hopefully, it will make it to these shores…