“If the stars had a sound, they would sound like this…”

The opening narration of Mogwai Young Team, the band’s debut from 1997, sounds out across the years, with mid-tone rumble of the bass coming in like a fog signal for those lost at sea. Like everything the band had released up until that point and like the group’s PR persona, the album is both supremely confident, even provocatively brimming with bragadiccio while poking fun at themselves. It’s something they’ve done for the 25 years since, except their stature and artistry has only grown to fulfil all the wry, self-aware posturing of the late 90s. MYT solidified a couple of years of playing basements, then clubs and stages around the world, wrecking havoc with cathedral-sized guitar architecture. This was the first incarnation of the group, with Teenage Fanclub’s Brendan O’Hare behind the traps, a band perhaps in transition but still confident in their craft. Like Herod, R U Still in 2 It (with Aidan Moffat guesting), Mogwai Fear Satan, Radar Maker- it’s already like a greatest hits set. There are so many classics on their debut that are still fan favourites; pulverising noise, beautiful passages of melodic, crisscrossing guitar that still soundtrack stars forming and exploding.

The original recording engineer for the album, Paul Savage, whose production credits include Franz Ferdinand and The Twilight Sad, has remastered the album for this special reissue.

Recorded in what was soon to become Chemikal Underground’s own Chem19 studios by label owner and The Delgados’ drummer Paul Savage (for the princely sum of £1.5000), the sessions were, by the band’s own admission, ‘turbulent, disorganised and hastily mixed’.

Tracklisting:

Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home

Like Herod

Katrien

Radar Maker

Tracy

Summer (Priority Version)

With Portfolio

R U Still In 2 It

A Cheery Wave From Stranded Youngsters

Mogwai Fear Satan