Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Modest Mouse's the Moon & Antarctica

Modest Mouse's the Moon & Antarctica

Petit, Zachary

Paperback

Series: 33 1/3

General MusicMusic Reference

Publisher Price: $14.95

ISBN13: 9798765106754
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: Nov 14 2024
Pages: 160
Weight: 0.31
Height: 0.35 Width: 4.92 Depth: 6.57
Language: English

In 1999, Modest Mouse struck out for Chicago to record their major-label debut for Epic Records. Amid indie circle cries of sellouts, a largely untested producer, and a half-built studio, the trio recorded the instrumental basics of The Moon & Antarctica ... and then singer/songwriter Isaac Brock got his face smashed by a hooligan in a park.

With barely any vocals recorded, Brock emerged from the hospital with his jaw completely wired shut, and returned to a mostly empty studio. And there, on a diet of painkillers, in a neighborhood that wanted to purge the band from its borders, a creative alchemy took place that would redefine Modest Mouse and indie rock at large.

The fact that the band finished the album at all is surprising. The fact that it is now considered by critics as hands-down one of the greatest records ever made (NME) is perhaps an utter miracle.

The Moon & Antarctica is an album so strange and enigmatic, from those sweet opening notes, to the plunging depths of the middle, to the shocking, furious end, that you almost hesitate to listen to it again for fear of it losing its chaotic magic. But then you do, and you discover all-new sounds-a lost harmonic here, a stray percussion element there, a fresh interpretation of a lyric that leaves you thunderstruck.

And that ever-looming question, years on: How the hell did Modest Mouse pull this off?!

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